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Finding Your Line
Written By: Ashby Underwood - Yoga Highlands | Issue: June 2023
Rolf techniques ensure flexibility in motion and flexibility in spirit.
Ashby Underwood-Garner and Chad Garner
As Cat Stevens said, ‘If you live life up, you can’t live it down.’ It’s your choice and you have one body to care for. But lately, you have more creaks in your joints. You are feeling worn down by stress, and subsequently are less active.
Good news! You’re not a condition to treat, but a person in motion. If it’s alignment and feeling UP you seek, classical Rolf Structural Integration gives a clear map through the movement journey of the Basic Ten Series.
The world belongs to the flexible and to the vigor of agelessness. It is this potential of connection that we refer to as ‘Finding Your Line’ – the line of vertical posture in each person. We seek to establish a nourishing relationship to the gravity line by taking clients through ten sessions or A Basic Ten Series of Structural Integration. The Line is a place to return to again and again in times of stress or fatigue, as a source of balance and rest, or in your workouts, Yoga practice, or your Pilates training. The Line serves as a focus inside the body that is uniquely yours.
The Basic Ten Series is Dr. Ida Rolf’s (1896-1979) original 10 principles for reorganizing the human body to create length, dynamic balance, and core stability. The method unblocks pathways to new ways of moving. The goal of Dr. Rolf’s work is to evoke harmony in the body by getting seemingly disconnected parts to wake up, communicate and to work together, hence Structural Integration.
The goal of the first session or ‘first hour’ is to expand breathing capacity. As practitioners, we work with our hands to free expansion around your ribs so that a deeper breath is possible throughout your day. We begin with the chest, collar bones, shoulders, back, and open the hips.
The Ten Series can take place over 10 to 20 weeks, which allows time to drop expectations and to source good self-care that lasts. The ordering principles become clear to clients as the work progresses, and the experience is naturally benevolent and life-affirming.
