Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/720675
I was first introduced to the word fascia in early 1974, when I made the acquaintance of Dr. Ida P. Rolf in California. At the time, I had no more than a passing interest in the word or its implications—I was simply amazed at what Dr. Rolf could do with her hands. It was the opening day of a Rolfing class in a slightly tacky motel meeting room on Santa Monica Boulevard. All the students (and some other interested people like myself ) were gathered to get more of the skinny on this new thing called Rolfing we'd been hearing about —"it's so strong," and "it hurts," and "it's cool." Dr. Rolf was in her 70s, white-haired and slightly stooped, but still strong in voice, hands, and character. She gave her stump speech about fascia and human pattern change, and then she did a demonstration of her first hour in the 10-session Rolfing recipe. 1 For her model, she chose Steve, a man I knew well and lived with in a communal house in Laurel Canyon (hey, it was the '70s). Steve was one of those people who looked normal from the front, but from the side looked as thin as a piece of paper. He was so collapsed his chest nearly touched his back, meaning he was pulled down in what I would today call his Superficial and Deep Front Line. 2 He lay down and Dr. Rolf set to work on his rib cage, prodding and shifting very specific tissues with a direct, even painful, determination. But how effective! When Steve stood up 30 minutes later, he was visibly deeper in his chest, even to my untrained eye. His breath was slower and showed more rib excursion. His voice was deeper and—Did I make this up? I don't think so—more emotionally resonant. Those changes sustained over the coming days and weeks, and I saw how Steve interacted differently with our housemates. As I transitioned from bodywork recipient to neophyte student, I certainly paid more attention to fascia, because at that time, the emphasis on fascia is what made Dr. Rolf's work unique. "We're working the fascia," we said, "not the muscles." Of course, we had no idea what we were talking about at that time. You cannot work the fascia without also working the muscles and the neurovascular substrate. Thus, the debate began about whether fascial work is a subset of massage or should better be seen as a subset of osteopathic manipulation, as Ida would have placed it. Dr. Rolf's own journey started first with yoga in an attempt to help her spinal arthritis, but yoga in the 1920s had zero anatomy and next to no explanation for how it worked physiologically. Soon, Dr. Rolf blended osteopathy into her mix, and the early osteopaths were hip to fascia; Dr. Andrew Taylor Still even wrote a book about it, summed up in the famous quote: "I know of no part of the body that equals the fascia as a hunting- ground. I believe that more rich golden thoughts will appear to the mind's eye as the study of the fascia is pursued than of any other division of the body." 3 So, when I say that Ida Rolf was a lone voice crying, "Fascia!" in the wilderness at that time, understand that the study of fascia had been going on uninterrupted from the 16th century, when Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) pioneered the technique of "clearing off" the fascia to reveal other structures, and then on through Antonio Scarpa, Edward Singer, and others. 4 Nevertheless, modern anatomy chooses to deal with the fascial system in terms of its named parts— the thoracolumbar fascia, the iliotibial tract, the Achilles 66 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k s e p t e m b e r / o c t o b e r 2 0 1 6 Dr. Ida P. Rolf, 1896–1979, was the creator of structural integration. I signed up for the bodywork immediately and had my 10-session series in conjunction with the class. Again, it was not the theory but the effects that won me over. Yes, it was painful (more painful than it needed to be, honestly) and it was strange to have someone using their knuckles and elbows on some really sensitive spots of my anatomy. But it was fascinating to record the physical changes. Still more fascinating, and what sold me on becoming Dr. Rolf's student, was the emotional development I felt in myself and my housemates noticed in me. How can working on the body promote emotional development? Fascinating. Fascia-nating, maybe. A B Quite startling changes in posture, structure, and movement are possible with strategic bodywork in the fibrous (fascial) body. MY FASCIA STORY