Rolfing® Structural Integration is a powerful vehicle for profound and lasting transformation in our lives and maximization of our human potential. It is truly a holistic therapy, treating the body by recognizing its total interconnectedness and honoring its inherent wisdom. Rolfing structural integration seeks to remove inhibitory patterns of dysfunction and compensation, allowing the natural order and balance of the system to emerge. In this state, the body functions more efficiently and effectively, posture is effortlessly upright, movement is fluid, ease and comfort are achieved.
When we are supported by our bodies and comfortable in our skins, our environments and relationships feel increasingly supportive and enriching. When we are free from pain and restriction, we have more energy and clarity to express our highest personal potentials — physically, mentally, emotionally, and creatively.
“An effective human being is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. A joyous radiance of health is attained only as the body conforms more nearly to its inherent pattern. This pattern, this form, this Platonic Idea, is the blueprint for structure. The fixation of the flesh interferes with the energy flow that is the essence of life… there is an ongoing psychological change as well toward balance, toward serenity, toward a more whole person. The whole person evidences a more apparent, more potent psychic development.”
— Ida P. Rolf
Dr. Rolf’s quotes are taken from “Ida Rolf Talks About Rolfing and Physical Reality,” edited by Rosemary Feitis and “Rolfing: Reestablishing the Natural Alignment and Structural Integration of the Human Body for Vitality and Well-Being,” by Ida P. Rolf,Ph.D.
I like to say that Rolfing structural integration reverses the aging process. What I mean is that Rolfing makes us feel more vital, more mobile, and more at ease in our bodies. I envision the degenerative process that we associate with aging as a downward spiral, and the Rolfing process as an upward, expanding spiral. We all enter the world with structural imbalances and also acquire imbalances from injuries, from mimicking disorganized movement as we develop as children, or from adapting to our environments. Our fascia shortens around these imbalances to stabilize posture with the unfortunate result of reducing mobility. As we go through life, injuries and imbalanced repetitive movements accrue.
Our bodies respond by thickening the connective tissue to buttress us in an upright position. The thickened tissue reduces our range of motion, ultimately deepening the imbalances and requiring more buttressing. It’s a cycle, a downward spiral, which drives us deeper into the postures that we associate with old age. But in reality, these postures have little to do with age. The shape of the body reflects how it is being used. Rolfing opens up the restrictions in our connective tissue in a strategic way that moves us toward balance. This new balance and freedom in the tissue allows for greater range of movements which helps the restrictions to continue lengthening and unwinding — an expansive cycle, or upward spiral. When our bodies achieve alignment through Rolfing structural integration, we move more fluidly and effortlessly, and feel more centered and balanced, physically and emotionally. When our movements are unrestricted, we look and feel more graceful and have more freedom and energy to express ourselves authentically and joyfully.

Rolfing®, Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® and the Little Boy Logo are service marks of The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®, Boulder, CO.
Dr. Rolf was a pioneering biochemist who originally called her work “structural integration”. She recognized that almost every body exhibits some degree of imbalance, and that such imbalance leads to chronic stress, pain, and dysfunction.