Musings on My Love of Rolfing, Learning, Bodies, and Other Things

I decided a long time ago that I was a continuing education junkie when it comes to bodywork, although during the decade or so I had small children, it was pretty hard to get my fix. Once my kids got older and needed me less, I made up for lost time. It was clear, however, that traveling to workshops was still too much strain for my family, so I started inviting teachers I wanted to study with to come to Santa Fe. It's been a fabulous experience, with the unexpected benefit of creating a community here in town of people who have taken these workshops. Study groups arising out of these classes have become a joyful part of my life, as the learning and camaraderie continues in between the workshops.

Over the last few years, I have become passionate about being able to work across a spectrum of touch with my clients. This means not automatically assuming that deep work is what will be most effective, or that light work is needed. It means always asking, "Where is the strain coming from? What level of tissues will I be most effective working on? How can I be of most service?" I want to perceive a variety of different requests from my clients' bodies, most of which are non-verbal. If a nerve is stuck and unable to move with its associated muscles, it may put that muscle into a spasm. I want to feel that, and help the nerve to get unstuck so the muscle can move freely again. Helping a nerve requires a gentle touch, more on the surface. Same with stuck cranial bones. But if a tight gluteus maximus wants an elbow in it, I want to notice that, and lean into it. Same with all the joints, and the head, and the organs. I love the sessions where my hands glide seamlessly and—dare I hope?—gracefully between the subtle touch needed to help a kidney move more freely and the deeper touch required to help a trapezius muscle release, then feeling the deep pulse of life in the cranial rhythm, and back again to an elbow somewhere. This deep passionate inquiry has led me to take classes in all the above—neural (nerve) mobilization, cranial sacral therapy, visceral (organ) mobilization—as well as classes with an osteopath. As I learn to "hear" the needs of nerves and joints and organs and craniums, in addition to the muscles I've been hearing and touching since 1987, my work has become more effective and my love of it keeps increasing. I am so happy to be alive in this time of great innovation and exploration in the field of bodywork and to have all these great classes available in New Mexico.

One of the teachers I have most enjoyed organizing classes for in Santa Fe is Ron Murray, a Doctor of Osteopathy (Canada), Advanced Rolfer®, and Berry Method Teacher. I have now taken around 25 workshops with Ron, all of them multiple times: Lower Extremity (knees, ankles, and feet), Upper Extremity (arms, shoulders, and hands), Pelvis, Ribs, Diaphragms and Embryonic Midline, and Neck and Cranium Pts 1 and 2. My work, and my joy in it, have been incredibly enriched by integrating Ron's perspectives and teachings that arise out of his deep study of osteopathic principles, Rolfing® Structural Integration, and the corrective techniques of Lauren Berry, DO.

I have become more sophisticated in my ability to feel what is happening in a joint, to understand the importance of mobility in many planes, to feel the deep inner rhythm that osteopaths call the Primary Respiratory Mechanism—and other systems call the life force, chi, or Breath of Life. My knowledge of anatomy has increased many-fold, since fundamental in the field of bodywork is the belief that a deep understanding of anatomy, from textbooks, lectures, building out of clay, and feeling my own anatomy, gives my hands the knowledge they need to truly understand what I am feeling in my clients, and what they need.

Those of you who have been working with me for some time may have noticed those new ideas and techniques filtering into my hands over the last few years. For instance, new awareness of how the ribs work, and how to help them move more easily, have been a big part of my learning and increasing skill set. Lack of mobility in the ribs is a very common experience, and many people come to me not knowing the symptoms of a stuck rib, just feeling pain in their back or chest from which they have not gotten lasting relief from massage or chiropractors. Same with the pelvis. I think I've become much more effective over the years at resolving pain in the low back and hips, and at figuring out where a symptom might be originating and knowing what to do about it. The more in-depth my studies have become, the more I am able to craft a session that brings longer-term relief. What is possible in people's lives when they are free from chronic pain, unease, and mobility restrictions is where my biggest joy in doing bodywork comes from. I deeply love knowing that when we feel easy and happy in our bodies, we have more energy to devote to all those areas of our lives we really care about, and that my work makes a difference in people having that ease and happiness with which to go forth into their life work.

Musings on Why It Might Be Important to Be Crooked or Hunched

I had a woman come in the other day for the first time, and share what she clearly had been told by many other therapists: "My right hip is high and my shoulder should be more back." She said it ruefully, with an undertone of shame, like there was something wrong with her, like it was a story she'd been told about herself by "experts," and she believed it. It sounded like the story had become part of her self-identity. I hear variations of this theme a lot, and it brings tears to my heart. We have so many opportunities to feel bad about ourselves as we go through our lives, often from well-intentioned practitioners who have their own opinion about how our bodies “should” be. Trusting these "experts" and wanting to feel better, we force ourselves to lower that hip, move that shoulder forward, stand up straighter, or do whatever we've been told or read about in the hopes that our pain goes away. Maybe you've done this yourself, and as you've probably found (I know I have), it's annoying, and we get fatigued within minutes because our muscles and joints are not ready for that new position. And then we find ourselves on the massage table telling a bodyworker some version of, "My hip is wrong, my shoulder is bad," with the unspoken "I'm a bad person, there's something wrong with me; I'm causing myself pain." 

The truth of the matter is that no posture or stance or placement of our shoulders or hips is right for everyone. What I shared with my new client is that for all I know, there is a strain in her kidneys, or in her gut, or in her lungs that her body is protecting. Her body, in meeting its imperative to protect the most important structures (like organs), may have hiked up her hip in order to give some slack to the tissue surrounding her kidneys. Maybe she has asthma and her shoulder is curled forward to protect her lungs, or an old whiplash has strained a nerve in her neck and that's why her head can't turn well. There is always a very good reason our bodies have shaped themselves as they did, and to assume that we "should" be a certain way can do ourselves a disservice. If I tried to bully her hip into being lower, I could be doing a disservice to her innate body wisdom that is requiring that hip to be high. Each of us has our unique genetic history, our personal history of injuries, of emotions we have shaped ourselves around, of sports and repetitive motions we have accommodated … all of these things, and more, determine if our shoulder is back and our hip is high.

We are always doing the best we can, choosing the easiest way to be in our bodies … it is inherent in our nature. If we could go through life more easily, we would. If we had the support in our bodies, the resources in our environment, the spaciousness in our Being to make another choice of how to put our shoulders, hips, and other parts, we would. None of us are stupid and willingly choose to move through life in pain that is avoidable. We are always manifesting the highest level of order we can. Sometimes pain is the result, but it's still the best we can do. Our quest, therefore, is to find the support to make different choices. Bodywork at its best creates support for an easier way to live in our bodies, so that we automatically, without "holding" ourselves in a different position, move through our lives with more ease, less pain, and more resilience.

Yoga can help, exercise can help, sometimes a different mattress or pillow, meditation, chiropractic … the list is endless of where we might find the support to feel better. The key is to play with all those variables, and when needed to find the practitioners who will in no way tell you there is something wrong with you. Find those people who understand that your body is very wise—and you are doing the best you can with where life has brought you—and who will help you make changes from the inside, not from your brain (and the therapist's brain) telling your body to be different. My hope and passion in doing this work is to always go in slowly and gently, to enter into a dialogue with my client’s system, asking respectfully, "Can this hip be lower? What can I do to support you in lowering this hip? Or do you need it this way for now?" and listening, to the best of my ability, for guidance in where to work, at what depth to work, at what speed to offer my interventions. This process is for me an incredibly rewarding, challenging, and joyful one that makes me look forward to going to work each day … It is a gift to me to engage in this dialogue with each of my clients.

More Musings on Why We Might Need to Be Crooked or Hunched 

We all hate it when our bodies hurt, and hate it even more when we invest the time, money, and hope into going to a yoga class, or getting a massage—expecting the pain to go away—and it doesn't. Maybe it did for a couple of days, or maybe it improved but didn't resolve. This can be very frustrating, and sometimes it's not clear why the pain doesn't go away. Understanding that the body often has a higher priority than resolving muscular pain can be very useful.

That priority revolves around protecting what we need for survival, and high on the list are arteries, veins, nerves, organs, and the soft tissues around the organs. If they get damaged, we're in trouble, but we can survive just fine with tight, spasming muscles and ligaments, or with inflamed and irritated tendons. Because they lie over and under, and are interwoven with muscles, if we strained our muscles at the gym or moving a heavy desk or shoveling snow, we didn't strain only them … we also strained those other soft tissues such as blood vessels and nerves. And since our body is very, very smart, with well-honed survival instincts, when it feels a need to protect those more-vital structures, it's going to tighten muscles, tendons, and ligaments in order to prevent us from moving in a way that might damage the blood vessels, organs, and nerves.

Unfortunately, massaging or stretching the muscles does not always release the strains in those other structures. It might work for a short time, but the muscle tightness might still be needed in order to protect them. If that's the case, then in a few hours, or days, the body will often spasm the muscles again. We are always moving through life in the easiest way possible, and sometimes the easiest choices available are still ones that result in pain, but it may be a byproduct of doing everything we can to protect those crucial nerves, veins, arteries, and organs. When clients come in with acute pain, I generally recommend they start with a massage that can focus on their area of pain, and if that doesn’t resolve it, the next step is a treatment by someone who can feel nerves, blood vessels, and organs and knows how to help the body release those strains in addition to working the muscles. At that point, I also generally recommend acupuncture, maybe cranial sacral therapy, and sometimes chiropractic as well.

 A Little History About Osteopathy

When I share with my clients that I study with an osteopath, Ron Murray, I often am asked to explain osteopathy. It is a perspective on the body and healing whose foundational belief is that the body is the whole and lives in relationship with all other bodies and with the environment, that the body has a self regulation mechanism that facilitates healing and that the structure and function of the body are intertwined in creating health. Osteopaths look for the health in a human system, not for the disease. It was created in the 1870s when a medical doctor, Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1919), realized that more could be done to promote healing by working with each person's innate healing ability. I found this explanation, from the Canadian College of Osteopathy, to be one of the best:

        "... Still focused on the mechanical removal of the impediments to the free

        circulation of fluids and the elements carried within those fluids. He felt that

        once these ‘mechanical blockages’ to the free flow of fluids were removed,

        that free circulation of all the fluids of the body would naturally return. This free

        flow of fluids was Still's key to the self-regulation and self-healing processes

        of the body. The application of this philosophy and methodology was successful

        in treating musculoskeletal problems as well as the major diseases of his era

        such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, dysentery, and typhoid fever."

The first college of osteopathy was founded in Kirksville, MO, in 1892, by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still. In the decades since then in this country, Osteopathy went the way of the allopathic medical world with students required to become MDs with a specialty in osteopathy. Fundamental to that specialty is education into the connectedness of all the body’s systems and further study into how they affect each other. Osteopaths believe that the body has a natural tendency toward health and self-healing, and their training is oriented toward removing the obstacles to that health. Osteopathic training differs from that of conventional medical schools by incorporating hands-on manipulative techniques as well as more time spent on nutritional information and helping patients manage lifestyle stresses, emotional issues, the impact of traumas, and other aspects of health which historically have had little time spent on them in medical school, having long been considered "alternative" or unimportant to the patients’ presenting condition. Osteopaths trained in this country can prescribe prescription drugs, do surgery, and request and interpret diagnostic tests, as well as specialize in areas such as family medicine or OB/GYN. Their focus, however, is on treating the entire person, not on treating a disease. Preventing disease, promoting healthy life choices, listening deeply, and using manipulative techniques are all parts of their care. Osteopaths learn from the beginning of their training that the patient is a partner in the process, so clear communication about all aspects of the patient's life is included.

 Most countries outside the United States do not require a medical degree to practice Osteopathy, and as a result, practitioners’ work there has gone in a different direction than in this country. Osteopaths who are trained in Canada or Europe focus on the deep-listening skills needed to restore better function and structure, and on removing whatever blockages there are to deep health manifesting in a human organism. In my training with Ron, who is a graduate of, and former instructor at, the Canadian College of Osteopathy, we learn such skills as how to assess bones that are stuck, to listen deeply to joints and soft tissue, and even to feel the embryological imprint that is still present. Ron teaches us to feel the "rush of fluid" that comes in as the body self-corrects in response to the manipulation and movements we introduce. We learn detailed anatomy, both structure and function, how the embryological development influences the adult body, how to encourage a muscle to have a more-functional alignment, and, most importantly, how to be an open and loving presence with our hands and our Being, in every session. It has been wonderfully profound for me to study this work, to experience it from my classmates, and to notice the changes in myself as I become better able to attune to the needs of my clients and, by extension, myself, my family, and my friends.

A Little History About Craniosacral Therapy

 Craniosacral Therapy has its roots in Osteopathy (see previous Musing) but became a distinct profession when one of Dr. Still's early graduates, Dr. William Garner Sutherland, DO, became fascinated with the movement of the cranial bones. This was around the year 1900, and conventional medical thinking at that time taught that the bones of the cranium did not move after the sutures fused in childhood. In looking at a cranium one day, he had an inspiration that the jagged lines of the sutures were "beveled like the gills of a fish,” indicating they were designed for respiratory movement. This idea fascinated him and started him on a 50-year journey to understand the health benefits of a freely moving skull compared with a fixed, stuck cranium.

This idea that a freely moving cranium was crucial to full body health was not accepted in this country at the time, and still isn't today by many medical doctors, but in other parts of the world, it has been well known for hundreds of years. Dr. Sutherland pioneered the research in this country by strapping tight leather bands around his own head, alternating which bones were being constricted, and noticing the consequences for his mood and health. He went on to develop cranial therapy techniques based on these observations and his osteopathic training, but his touch became increasingly subtle over the years, as befitting the small movements and conscious touch needed to create profound improvements in his clients’ health. Additionally, as his studies and practice evolved, he realized that the cranial bones are always in profound relationship with other systems in the body, such as the spine, the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, and the cerebrospinal system that bathes them, as well as the other fluids of the body such as lymph and blood. Also intimately related to the skull through connections of bones, membranes, nerves, fluids, and blood vessels is another very important structure, the sacrum, which is at the bottom of the spinal cord. As a result, inevitably, all systems of the body can be affected by the health of the cranial-sacral system. As the Upledger Institute, a world leader in craniosacral therapy education, puts it on their website: 

        "Every day your body endures stresses and strains that it must work to compensate for. Unfortunately, these changes often cause body tissues to tighten and distort the craniosacral system. These distortions can then cause tension to form around the brain and spinal cord resulting in restrictions. This can create a barrier to the healthy performance of the central nervous system, and potentially every other system it interacts with."

 Over the years, other osteopaths such as Dr. Jim Jealous, DO, Dr. John Upledger, DO, and Dr. Hugh Milne, DO, and teachers such as Michael Shea and Franklyn Sills, as well as many, many others have continued the study of craniosacral therapy and developed distinct schools of practice, each reflecting their own style and passion. In the century since Dr. Sutherland began to explore the beveling of the cranial bones, craniosacral therapy has been used to help with a wide variety of health conditions. Thousands of people, many with no other manual therapy training, have been trained to work with acute situations such as head traumas, dental work, and car accidents, as well as chronic conditions such as headaches, tinnitus, chronic pain, strokes, neurological conditions, birth traumas, PTSD, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and many more.

While differing in techniques and approaches, all craniosacral training programs teach their students to be aware of the subtle micro-movements of the skull, the membranes, and the sacrum, as well as to feel the life force of each person they touch. The touch is always gentle and deeply relaxing, and often very profound. As Dr. Sutherland found from tightening the straps around his head, the tiny movements of our skull are crucial to being a happy and healthy person.