I arrive for my first Rolfing session. My Rolfer is David Frome, a physical therapist who specializes in Rolfing. I obtained David's name from a list of referrals of Certified Rolfers furnished me by the Rolf Institute. I selected David after interviewing several Rolfers over the phone. David's low-key caring attitude toward his work made me feel we'd be a good match.
I arrive at David's office on a sunny midsummer afternoon. His practice is affiliated with the New York Rolfing Associates, a group of Rolfers united in a professional suite occupying a sprawling apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He also maintains a practice in suburban Montclair, New Jersey, which includes Rolfing for infants and children.
David shows me to the treatment room. It's a bright, sun filled room with a padded massage table in its center. David asks me to undress down to my underwear. He leaves the room, then reappears after I have disrobed. I stand before him while he appraises me and takes Polaroid photographs of me from front, back and in profile. These are the before photos.
David asks me what my major complaints are.
"Tension," I reply. "Chronic tension in my back, in my thoracic area, especially on the right side. Plus my hamstrings, which get tight. And my spine is curved due to a scoliosis, so that my head tilts to the left side. And, oh, yes, most important of all, my posture: My chest is rounded forward so that I feel like it's sunken in. I'd like to stand tall with good posture."
David eyes me like a painter scrutinizing a blank canvas. I can sense his mind working as he evaluates my structure. He agrees with all I've said, then adds: "Plus I'd like to see you lengthen, become taller, relieve some of the compression in your body."
David asks me to lie down on my back on the massage table. He begins to stroke my chest with long, slow, deep strokes, At first there is no discomfort, just a sensation of pressure. But the work seems to go deeper, and soon I feel he is stretching layers well beneath the skin into long strands, like separating tufts of taffy and lengthening them. I experience some pain, but it is a kind of pain that feels good.....
I can feel my chest starting to lengthen and expand. My breath swells to a volume I had not known before. David explains that he's working to free up the chest to increase my breathing capacity. His goal is to turn my ribs into something like venetian blinds that open and close independently rater than as a single large shutter with no flexibility. He also works on the fascia of the upper abdomen, where it meets the rib cage, and along the side of the body.
"Try to picture your breath as coming all the way from your pubic bone and fanning out laterally to the shoulders, forming a V shape," David coaches me with his verbal imagery.
I follow his subtle suggestion - and my abdomen fills with breath. "Good. That's good breath," David coaxes and encourages me. He then works on the fascia on my thigh. He asks me to raise my knee to a flexed position in preparation for separating the fascia of the hamstrings and the outer thigh. As he works, I slowly flex and extend my foot.
I can feel the tightness as he remarks that I'm tense there. "Many people are," he adds. I can fell the pressure here, a searing pain, and I ask if he's using his forearm.. No, he's pressing his elbow into me, slowly sliding it along, using it to spread fascia masquerading as bone.
David also adds that my abductor muscles, the muscles of the outer thing are confused with the quadriceps, the muscles that form the bulge at the middle top of the thigh above the knee. I like his use of the word confused, because it can be interpreted both physiologically and mentally. I can't help but wonder, if the fascia is confused, can my mind, which is connected to my body, not help but be confused, too?
After working the right side of my body, David asks me to stand up. I feel light-headed, very relaxed, almost groggy. Despite the pressure and mild passing pain I experienced, the work has been very relaxing. ( David tells me some of his clients actually fall asleep while being Rolfed.)
David asks me how I feel, what I notice. I report that my right side feels much more open than before, much lighter: my left side, which has not yet been worked on, feels tense and tight.
I return to the table, and David repeats his maneuvers on my left side, which is less constricted than the right. David explains that he usually begins a session with the tighter side and moves to the less tight side. My right foot has always turned out, and I ask if that is because my right leg is tighter, shorter. David affirms that, yes, the fascia on that side is shortened, tighter, so it pulls on the bone, rotating it into a distorted position. Future sessions will address that problem.
Periodically, David steps back and, even with my eyes closed, I can feel him observing me, like a sculptor eyeing a blank block of marble waiting to be carved. He says, "You may think this strange, but I sometimes feel like I'm making a sculpture." No, I don't find this strange, because Rolfers seem a powerful combination - part scientist, part artist. I can understand how David could stand there and appraise the plastic medium before him to see how he should mold it next. I am reminded of a famous comment attributed to Michelangelo about how he would just look at a cube of marble and see what its final form should be. He felt he was just liberating the form that was already contained inside the marble. And, yes, I feel as though David is looking beyond the constraints of my current physical organization to liberate the structure of the unique and free being within. Ida Rolf herself described beauty as "an intuitive appreciation of normalcy."
David completes this first Rolfing session by having me sit erect on a round, low stool. He has me slowly curl my head and neck and then whole spine, down, until my back is parallel to the ground. He places his elbows in the grooves in the middle of my shoulders. His elbows glide slowly, firmly, deeply down my back, along the length of the rope like erector spinae that line either side of the spine. This is painful at moments as the bony surfaces of his elbows work the way down the bony surfaces of my back with its tight muscles.....
David then has me return to the table. He encourages a lengthening in my pelvis by having me tilt it forward and up....
As David works on my pelvis, I can feel my abdomen opening up even more a the breathing filling it more deeply.
I have seen pictures in various books of people before and after Rolfing treatments. One in particular caught my attention - that of a middle - aged man who lost his love handles during the course of treatment. I would love that result.
"Can I expect such a result," I ask David, as you lengthen my spine and my abdomen sits back into my pelvis?"
I can't say what will happen," David says candidly. "I 've only been doing this work for eight years. But often that is the case." David's modesty and lack of expectation impress me as hallmarks of a healer.
"Thomas Claire is a licensed massage therapist. A graduate of the Ohashi and Swedish institutes, he teaches and practices a wide range of bodywork modalities, including shiatsu, Swedish massage, Therapeutic Touch, CranioSacral Therapy, Reiki, and Myofascial Release. He lives in New York City and travels throughout the United States and abroad as a popular lecturer and teacher. For further information, you can contact him by telephone at: 212/647-1620, or
explores a wide variety of healing arts including Swedish Massage, Structural Integration, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais and others. Published by William and Morrow it may be purchased at area bookstores or link to: Amazon.com
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