Rolfing in Massachusetts - Suburban Boston Guide

Rolfing is the practice of massaging and manipulating the connective tissues of the body to promote harmony and structural balance in the body, to increase flexibility, and to decrease pain. Due to the effects of injuries, repetitive stress, and continual physical changes to the body caused by gravity, the fascia that envelopes and connects every muscle, organ and bone in the body becomes strained, misaligned, and misshaped, causing the corresponding muscles to similarly become out of alignment and balance, causing a host of physical problems, including pain, stiffness, decreased mobility, poor flexibility, and poor posture.

Rolfing is typically practiced in a series of ten sessions, conducted one week apart. Each session is adapted to the needs of the individual and will build on the advancements gained by the previous sessions. After the tenth session, the manner in which individual stands, sits, moves, and breathes will have been adjusted to promote health and balance, and release the individual from structural patterns that promote pain, restriction, and misalignment.

Ida Rolf, founder of Rolfing
Ida Rolf earned a PhD. in biochemistry from Columbia University in 1916. Somewhere in her scientific research, she made a fundamental discovery about the body: the same network of connective tissue which contains and links the muscle system when it's healthy can be used to reshape it when it's been pulled out of proper order. Dr. Rolf's realization of the importance of the fascial system revolutionized thinking about the body. As she taught her insights and techniques, her students focused not on muscles, but on the fascia that enwraps muscles, supporting them and holding muscle-bone combinations in place. The term "Rolfing" refers to the system of hands-on bodywork and movement education that Dr. Rolf originally called "structural integration." As we know it today, rolfing is the product of fifty years of study and practice by Dr. Rolf, and the efforts of many people who have carried on her work since her death in 1979.1