MICHAEL PELLEGRINO
ROLFING STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION
CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY
Rolfing®, Structural Integration What’s Gravity Got To Do With It?
Our bodies react to constant influence of gravity like every other physical structure on the earth. When we are out of balance, gravity drags us down, just as it drags down a building that has lost it’s structural integrity. Whether from poor posture, injury, illness or emotional distress, an unbalanced body is in constant tug-of-war with gravity. The result is an accumulation of tension and strain within the body’s muscles and surrounding connective tissue that gives rise to pain, rigidity of movement and depleted energy.Rolfing’s primary aim is to permanently release this tension and to overcome deeply ingrained physical restrictions- balancing and realigning your entire body in relation to gravity. While Dr. Rolf originally called her revolutionary work Structural Integration, ‘Rolfing’ is the popular name the public first gave her work. Unlike every other form of contemporary bodywork, Rolfing is the only manipulative system whose ultimate goal is to evoke highly integrated and efficient ways of moving that enable your body to remain effortlessly balanced in gravity.
“One individual may experience his
loosing fight with gravity as a sharp pain in the back, another as the
unflattering contour of his body, another as a constant fatigue, and yet
another as an unrelenting threatening environment. (Some) may call it ‘old
age’; yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem so prominent in
their own structures and the structures of others that it has been ignored;
they are off-balance; they are at war with gravity.” -Dr. Ida P. Rolf
The CranioSacral System plays a vital role of maintaining the environment in which the central nervous
system functions. It consists of the membranes and fluid that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord as well as the attached bones – including the skull, face and mouth, which make up the cranium, and the tailbone area, or sacrum. Since the brain and spinal cord are contained within the central nervous system, it is easy to see that the craniosacral system has powerful influence over a wide variety of bodily functions. By working with the CranioSacral System the therapist essentially helps the body release restrictions, which it has been unable to overcome on its own, which inhibit the body’s normal, self-correcting tendencies. Rather than deciding how these changes should be made, the therapist follows cues from the body on how to proceed. When the therapist follows this gentle approach, the method is extremely safe and effective. The few contraindications to CST are aneurysm, intracranial hemorrhage, and other conditions where altering intracranial fluid is not recommended.