CREATING EVOLUTIONAL CHANGE

A profound change often occurs as a result of being Rolfed by Owen - one that is greater than just having a problem "fixed." A life-enhancing change is created that helps a client move to a place of enhanced performance. He or she evolves from having a body that just gets by to enjoying a body that delivers pleasure from doing the simplest activity.

The Art and Science of Rolfing
Rolfing has been in existence for more than 50 years and science is now supporting the antidotal experiences of more than one million Rolfing clients. Both UCLA and the University of Maryland have now documented the positive physical and emotional effects of the work. These studies have shown that Rolfing produces a more efficient use of the soft tissue system that allows the body to conserve energy and create more economical and graceful patterns of movement.

The first study on performance and Rolfing at Arizona State University was led by Owen and documented the improved performance of elite runners as a result of being Rolfed. Research also shows that Rolfing significantly reduces chronic stress and changes in the body structure. Another study showed that Rolfing significantly reduced the spinal curvature of subjects with lordosis (sway back); it also demonstrated that Rolfing enhances neurological functioning.

A Natural Alchemy
Owen incorporates years of experience and many skills from other disciplines so that clients enjoy the benefits of more than a predetermined set of manipulations. He has designed his practice and set the intent to weave these facets together to create a unique system - one that can produce an experience that some describe as magical which in actuality is just their bodies healing. This alchemy of change occurs when the limitations of the body are removed and its own restorative processes take over and begin to heal the body.

Embodying Wholeness
Owen's Rolfing practice incorporates the premise that a person's whole body must improve to a new level of order for a part to change and stay changed. Having a structure that is organized can be the foundation of this whole body change. This results in greater change and increases the chances of the body building on that change. In addition, shifting the movement patterns, emotional/stress patterns and the physiological patterns to a higher state further enhances each individual system of the body.

Rejuvenation
When the human body frees itself of the stress it has been holding, the body and its nervous and endocrine systems can leave the fight or flight response. This is because we are "hard-wired" first to survive and then to experience relaxation. When survival is no longer the default state, the body allocates its resources to rejuvenation.

Reinforcing the Evolution of Rolfing

Learning to Relax
We've all mastered the stress response. Even when we believe we're relaxing, we're often producing a stress response or tension response. We need to go beyond the understanding of the physiology of stress; our bodies need to de-emphasize the dominance of the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight survival response). We need to teach our bodies - and our minds - to allow the parasympathetic nervous system, the relaxation part of our autonomic nervous system, to be dominant. When all of our body's systems are functioning with the parasympathetic nervous system running the show, we have many more resources available for every activity.

Rolfing is a huge jump-start in achieving this goal. Yet, no matter how much relaxation a client achieves through Rolfing, he or she still needs to unlearn his or her stress behaviors. Owen goes beyond Rolfing; he assists clients in achieving a new level of proficiency with this relaxation. Once a client's body learns to be relaxed on a deep physiological and unconscious level, this new relaxation begins to set in as the default state. Even under stress, clients report being relaxed. The added bonus is that when the body learns to stay in the parasympathetic relaxed state, the mind will follow.

The best way to maintain or enhance the benefits of Rolfing is to genuinely learn to be relaxed. Once this is learned, we do not want to give it up.

Learning to Breathe
Learning to breathe is the key to learning to be relaxed. It is impossible to become tense if you are breathing naturally. Rolfing releases the restrictions to the rib cage, abdomen, back and pelvis so that a person is able to fully breathe. Owen teaches his clients Natural Breathing™. This is a breath that utilizes the entire upper body to inhale and exhale. When a person learns to breathe naturally, the body stays relaxed and functions at its highest level with the minimal use of energy.

Much like learning to relax, learning to breathe mitigates the reoccurrence of tension in the body. The breath becomes a natural de-stressor, releasing tension with each exhale.

Learning to Walk
Learning to use gravity and to not fight it is the key to increasing the efficiency of the walk. Almost every client who begins a Rolfing series arrives with his or her center of gravity behind him or her. If you were to watch them walk from a side perspective, you would see them leaning back. It is as if they are going uphill on level ground. Once seen from this engineering prospective, we can begin to understand the stress this puts on the body over the years.

A major aspect of Owen's sessions is teaching the Natural Walk™ to his clients. Over the years he has learned that when the body uses gravity to propel itself, it goes from creating more tension to releasing tension. Once clients have learned this walk, they often report that going for a walk is like doing a yoga session. They feel like they had a workout and are relaxed.

The goal of Owen and his Rolfing is to teach these basic skills so a client not just maintains improvements but also actually increases them over time. When the behaviors that created much of the tension are no longer present, the body is capable of new feats of performance and pleasure.

Creating a Positive Relationship with Gravity:

Virtually every sport has a relationship with gravity. Running may be the most obvious, yet knowing how to use gravity may make the difference between being first or second in any sport.

The foundation of Sports Rolfing is very simple. It is focused on going after the structural cause and changing the limiting behaviors. During the process of addressing these problems, the added potential benefit of enhanced performance is brought into the treatment. As new possibilities are created, new behaviors can be learned.

It is important to remember that Sports Rolfing’s success comes from treating the whole body and its most basic movements. Working with these foundations allows for significant and relatively permanent improvements.