Continuing Education Workshops for Rolfers^™

United States and Canada

Rolf Institute Classes
• Focus on the Functional Aspects of the Series - starts Jul 13
• Our Spine in Motion - starts Jul 16
• Embodying Rolf’s Structural Integration Recipe - starts Aug 22
• Advanced Training - starts Sep 24
• Interoception: The Primordial Roots of Sensation, Tonus and Gesture - starts Oct 9
• Breathing and Walking - starts Dec 5
Rolf Institute Workshops
• Sunday Sessions w/Jan Sultan - starts May 6
• Structural-Visceral Integration - starts May 4
• Energetic Foundation for Rolfing - starts May 7
• Principles of Self-Care and Well Being - starts Jun 1
• Breathing and Walking - starts Jul 16
• Perception, Touch, and Structural Change - starts Aug 4
• From Fascia to Fluids - starts Aug 23
• Structural-Visceral Integration - starts Sep 7
• Structural-Visceral Integration - starts Dec 7

CE Payment and Refund Policy

International

Rolf Institute graduates can now take part in trainings offered at The Guild.

Description:

The first year of life is filled with developmental opportunities for our spine to find vertical orientation in gravity, and become a central facilitator for movement and locomotion. Through movement exploration, motivated by innate needs and interactions with our caregivers and environment, we develop the capacity to embody a fluid adaptable spine. As our perception of the world becomes larger and our intentions and demands increase, spinal adaptability must balance with spinal stability in navigation of a compatible relationship with gravity. It is the continuum between spinal adaptability and stability that determines our ease in spinal function and freedom from dysfunction.

Many people seeking out structural integration sessions are interested in relief from issues based in spinal dysfunction, resulting in pain and loss of mobility. Postural concerns and movement limitations have a direct correlation to the ability of the spine to access appropriate stability and adaptability in order to successfully meet the demands of everyday life. Enhancement of athletic and expressive arts performance is dependent on the integration of therapeutic interventions in the coordination of the spine. Having the knowledge and embodiment to skillfully address spinal patterns in order to restore and establish spinal fluency is essential to address the concerns of our clients and successfully meet the goals of Rolfing® Structural Integration.

Tessy Brungardt and Rebecca Carli have designed a 5-day workshop to cover structural, coordinative, perceptual and expressive dimensions of “our spine in motion.” Resolution of segmental spinal dysfunction through working with spinal mechanics will be taught, along with the restoration of coordinative functional capacity in corresponding spinal movement patterns. Skills in spinal manipulation will be coupled with skills in spinal movement rehabilitation and enrichment. The workshop will provide practitioners with a substantial variety of strategies and skills to address clients’ relevant spinal concerns, with the most important tool being our personal embodiment of a healthy and resilient spine. An customized program for the development of an adaptable-fluid and stable-supportive spine will be covered including design process through implementation

Tessy Brungardt started her professional career as a scientist with a BA in Environmental Biology from New College in Sarasota, FL in 1976. After receiving Rolfing, she was inspired to become a Rolfer, completing her certification in 1985. She became a Basic Rolfing Instructor in 1994 and a certified Movement teacher in 1995. She was certified as an Advanced Rolfing Instructor in 2002 and teaches classes internationally. She maintains a practice in Baltimore MD where she specializes in working with musicians, children, and animals.

Rebecca Carli became interested in somatic movement studies while pursuing B.A. and M.F.A. degrees in dance performance and choreography. She earned certification in Rolfing Movement Integration in 1987 and in 1989, she became a Certified Rolfer and in 1992, a Certified Advanced Rolfer. In 1994, Rebecca graduated from the Pennsylvania Gestalt Center for Psychotherapy and Training and joined the movement faculty of The Rolf Institute. Rebecca’s understanding of gravity and human movement potential has been enriched by her long time studies with Hubert Godard. Godard’s work provides the chief theoretical and practical foundation that inspires her teaching. Rebecca is a past Chairperson of the Rolfing Movement faculty and ISMETA board representative.

Description:

A 6 Day Course to verify Rolf’s insights regarding “normal” body posture and expressive dimensions in gravity. Rolf’s 10 session recipe builds a step by step restoration of competent function, through differentiation of the body’s sensory and motor maps. Fascial work, an essential dimension, often obscures the inherent functional goals that each step highlights. How do we evoke the hall marks for each step of integration in the absence of fascial manipulation? And how do we help our selves (and our clients) bring alive structural integration as integrated movement? In this course we learn to feel and teach the natural truth of the structural integration series as perceptive/coordinative experience Housing: Course is residential at lake shore property in rural NH. Housing available for $45 per person/night. Private accommodations available nearby.

Kevin Frank has practiced Rolfing Structural Integration and Rolf Movement Integration education since 1987. He practices, writes and teaches from a model of structural integration based on the body considered as a movement system, in which lasting improvements in posture and well being are expressions of the "normal" that Dr. Rolf proposed. Kevin emphasizes, as did Dr. Rolf, that structural integration is primarily an educational approach to human health, from which there may be therapeutic consequences. Our role is to educate clients and students in matters of perception, differentiation of the body maps, and coordinative skills. He is the co-author (with Caryn McHose) of How Life Moves, Explorations in Meaning and Body Awareness.

Description:

Interoception is the ability to read and interpret sensations arising from your own body. “The more viscerally aware you are – the more emotionally attuned you are.” (Blakeslee)

In this 5 day training, students will discover the primordial roots of interoception by delving into the science of embryology. Embryology illustrates the integrative flow of development and underscores the somatic truth of connectivity and wholeness.

A kinesthetic experience of the first developmental movement – yield – engages parasympathetic signaling of the autonomic nervous and allows for a deep settling into a state of sensory awareness. Three major neurological centers will be explored through movement, guided meditation and neurological study: the reflective brain, the centering heart and the instinctual belly.

Each of these centers is deeply rooted in a ‘midline’ relationship. By attuning ourselves to the energy and information flow emanating from these centers we can evolve our own perceptual acuity, instinctual knowing and depth of listening through touch. As we cultivate whole body presence in relation to our client and surrounding space, a greater sense of safety is transmitted within the treatment session as well as sustainable results.

In this module, participants will cultivate a whole body-feeling sense of:

• the embryological development of the neural matrix
• the first developmental movement – yield – engaging and setting autonomic tonus
• gamma touch: supporting receptive listening by the practitioner
• engaging the spectrum of tissue qualities: from defended to porous.
• kinesthetic discovery / awareness of coherence between self-other and surrounding field integral to the transformational process

Carol Agneessens, MS. has been practicing the art of Rolfing SI and movement for over 30 years. She serves on the faculty of the Rolf Institute. For the past 10 years, she has been actively engaged in the study of embryology. As a Rolfing Trainer, Rolf Movement Instructor and as a teacher of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, her focus includes cultivating an expanded perceptual field, receptive listening, and deepening sensory awareness. She has come to appreciate that these are key factors for sustained transformation within oneself and in working with others. She is the author of "The Fabric of Wholeness" (2001), and is currently working on her second book entitled, "The Embryonic Universe: Traversing the Primal Thread."

Hiroyoshi Tahata, Rolf Movement instructor from Japan, has developed a unique approach to engaging and transforming limiting structural and functional patterns through his work with the movement of yield.

Description:

This workshop is based on two premises: first, that our capacity to accurately assess our clients’ movement patterns evolves through deepening our personal embodiment. Our mirror neurons accurately reflect others’ movements and sensations to the degree that our own bodies are versatile and self-aware. The class includes movement explorations designed to deepen awareness and through which to experience a template for assessing movement patterns.

The second premise is that our embodied presence informs our invention of effective sensory-motor interventions to help clients replace poor motor habits with beneficial ones. We consider the anatomy of habits, and practice using our deepened awareness to create original movement interventions, cues, and client homework.

Workshop limited to 14 students. Housing options available.

Mary Bond studied with Ida Rolf from 1969 to 1972. US Rolf Movement® Faculty Chair, she has been involved in the development of movement education for SI from the early days with Judith Aston to the current evolution through the work of Hubert Godard. She is the author of Balancing Your Body and The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand and Move in the Modern World, and producer of a DVD: Heal Your Posture—a 7-week Workshop. It is her joy to share her perspective of the functional aspect of our work. Read Mary’s blog at www.healyourposture.com.

Description:

Each phase will be 6 days.

This is a residential/retreat style training. Claymont is a retreat center and provides everything for us. Classroom is there, they will cook 3 meals per day for us (vegetarian & meat).  Each of us will have a private room. You can share a room, but the cost will be the same since it is a retreat center. Cost of room and board at Claymont will be determined. Claymont really caters to all of our needs. Students in the past have loved Claymont and the trainings there. It is peaceful.

Description:

While this course offering flies under the banner of “Sunday Sessions” and follows a cycle of five classes, the material is not a repeat of the earlier class, but continues the investigation into the nature of structure, and how to work with the common themes that our clients bring to the practice.

This series of workshops will constitute a cycle of investigations into structure. The emphasis here is to build confidence in pattern recognition in body reading and how to develop strategies of intervention based on observation. We will go into the anatomy of the region, the patterns of strain that are common to the region, and some tactical approaches to integration into the whole body and into the gravitational environment. Each intervention will reference to the 10-session "Recipe," so that the student can integrate the new information into a familiar baseline.

Each one-day class will present a discrete block of information that can be taken straight to the daily practice, and the whole cycle of five classes will constitute a round of investigation to deepen understanding of the Art of Rolfing SI. Each class will have a brief review of the previous class material for continuity and will then build on that information.

The classes are designed to be a sequence, but they are also stand-alone in that a practitioner can take any combination of the courses.
January 29 - Radial Decompression; the extremities in relation to the spine. a look at how the arms and legs consistently reflect the deeper structures.
March 4 - Big Joint decompression; How the shoulder and the hip joints work, and how to intervene coherently.
April 1 - Working with the Dorsum; how the intervertebral, and costo transverse joints work within their neuro muscular environs.
May 6 - Deconstructing the “Seventh Session” of the recipe; what are we trying to do here? a look at the neuro and visceral crania, and how to work economically and profoundly in the region.
June 10 - The Pelvic Floor; A review of pelvic floor work, with an eye to trans pelvic structure. How to get from here to there.

Jan Sultan is a student of Rolfing SI, praciticing for 40 years. He is also on the faculty of the Rolf Institute, teaching basic classes, continuing ed, and advanced classes. He currently lives in Los Angeles, and teaches there.

Description:

Visceral & Membranous restrictions are often the missing anatomy in the therapeutic equation. They are the proverbial "anatomical elephant in the room," easily overlooked, unidentified and/or marginalized. When relevant, they can easily present the primary fascial restriction offsetting alignment, balance and structural integration. Troubleshooting and differentiating the inter-relationships between the musculoskeletal, membranous and visceral layers is a critical component to helping clients not responding to conventional SI methodology. Offering both holistic and orthopedic applications to your SI practice, this class correlates neighboring worlds of fascial anatomy. 

Appropriate for complete beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, this class offers an unique perspective on Combined Technique primarily set up in Direct Technique. With the intention to support, empower and evolve your Structural Integration practice, both inside the classical recipe as well as outside it, students will develop clinically oriented skills and fascial manipulation techniques through lecture, demonstration, video, palpation and hands-on exchanges.

In the era of specialization, S-VI cultivates better Generalists by way of seeing the forest and the trees. From the whole form and container of the musculo-skeletal system we will now follow the fascia and familiarize our hands with what lies underneath.

Primary objectives to be covered include:

• An understanding of common cross-over Structural-Visceral strain patterns.           
• A ‘Combined Technique’ approach to SI, Membranous & Visceral Manipulation.  
• Joint mobilization & fascial manipulation techniques incorporating long levers.
• Correlating the spine & sacroiliac joints with associated viscera and membranes. 
• A conceptual understanding of ‘The Primary Lesion & The Lesional Chain’.
• Postural assessment skills correlating visceral & musculo-skeletal anatomies.
• Palpation & ROM assessment skills regarding mobility, symmetry and tone.
• ‘Systems Anatomy’ perspective to enhance & evolve your troubleshooting skills.
•  Differentiating symmetrical & asymmetrical variables effecting structure.     
• A ‘Ventral Approach’ to the Low-Back, Abdomen, Pelvis and Peritoneum.   
• Complementary 5th/6th hour perspectives & Post-10 Series strategies in SI.           
• Develop practitioner’s 3-D technique and direct interfacing w/ the ‘Sliding System’
• A Body-Based Approach to Mind-Body, Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Container

Bruce Schonfeld is a Certified Advanced Rolfer and Rolf Movement Practitioner who has taken the Advanced Rolfing training three times. He has studied Visceral Manipulation intensively since 1997, including over 300 hours directly with Jean-Pierre Barral D.O.. He has taught orthopedic applications of Structural Integration since 1996 and been continually inspired through anatomical dissection. With an emphasis on the ‘sliding system’ of the membranes and larger visceral ligaments, Bruce has synthesized and developed his dual roots into a user-friendly approach to systems structural integration.

Description:

In this 6-day workshop we will explore an integration of the goals of Dr. Rolf’s work, and an energetic approach, which is simple, accessible, and effective. The approach, SourcePoint Therapy developed by Bob Schrei, aligns and relates a person’s physical body to the energetic blueprint that Dr. Rolf referred to in her book, “Structural Integration”. Utilizing a body scanning technique, we locate blockages, discontinuities, which result in global patterns of dysfunction and compensation. Also, The scan informs the questions: “Where do we start”, “where do we go next” and “When are we done.” This information enables a practitioner to reliably optimize the strategy of a session, be it a basic ten series or a non-formulaic advanced series. Rolfing Structural Integration and SourcePoint Therapy are two distinct, separate modalities. They are highly complementary and share the goal of creating order and integration in a person’s structure and lived experience.

Ray McCall has 33 years experience as a Rolfer. As a RISI Advanced faculty member he teaches Basic, Advanced and Continuing Education classes both in the States and Abroad. His particular interest is the energetic taxonomy and how change occurs: how we more fully become and express who we are.

Bob Schrei is a Certified Advanced Rolfer with 23 years experience, an artist and former Zen teacher.

http://sourcepointtherapy.com for more information.

Description:

This workshop takes place in rural NH by the shore of a quiet lake. Housing is available for the weekend for $45 per person per night. Family members are welcome to stay as well. The location has kayaks, a canoe, and sailboat , and wood fired hot tub by the lake.

Pain, tension, diminished pleasure in movement—these conditions can result from conflicted motor control and lack of awareness/attention to our bodies’ signals for self regulation. We ignore these signals because we have not been taught how to listen to them; how to listen to the body’s language. By learning to hear and speak this language, the language of the “movement brain,” we awaken body movement intelligence. This capacity allows us to feel flow as we meet challenges in life as well as reviving coordination that’s in harmony with our architecture.

Specifically, we can notice alignment that supports coherent function, health, and longevity. Body sensibility leads to cooperation across joints rather than conflict between them. When this sensibility is coupled with responsiveness to impulses that indicate the need to adjust, refresh or rest: the result is somatic wisdom. This wisdom is applicable to the most mundane of everyday activities as well as competitive sports, and body/mind practice.

This weekend workshop addresses two sides of the somatic wisdom: form and flow. Form means a particular coordination, or the skill to meet a specific challenge. Flow means the manner in which the movement happens. As such, the workshop has a technical, as well as a creative side: time to learn some tools and understanding, and time to integrate and find one’s personal relationship to the material.

Gael (Ohlgren) Rosewood is an authorized Continuum™ Movement teacher, Certified Advanced Rolfer, Rolf Movement Teacher, and Emeritus faculty member at the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration.  Continuum Movement has been her personal practice and inquiry since she met Emilie Conrad and Susan Harper in 1981.  She travels and teaches internationally sharing her somatic wisdom.

Kevin Frank is an Advanced Certified Rolfer™, Rolf Movement Teacher and Rolf Movement Faculty member and long time practitioner of Continuum movement. Kevin has a background in awareness practices (Zen meditation and meditative inquiry) and teaches courses in Rolf Movement as well as use of perception to change coordination. Kevin is the co-author (with Caryn McHose) of How Life Moves, Explorations in Meaning and Body Awareness, and has written extensively about perception based movement.

http://sourcepointtherapy.com for more information.

Description:

To do a holistic session or series, it is necessary to work with our modes of perception.

In this 5-day workshop, we will explore expanding our perceptual orientation to include, not only the client's body and the field around a client’s body, but also  the natural environment in which the session occurs. We will explore the implications for structural and functional interventions when we hold an inclusive perceptual field.  Carol Agneessens and Ray McCall will cover structural, and movement sessions from a perceptual orientation. Development of perceptual acuity and touch, manipulation and movement interventions will be utilized to design a non-formulistic series.

In this workshop participants will:

• Refine their ability to experience their internal feeling state while cultivating an awareness of the field in which they are working.
• Increase their skill of negotiating contact and qualities of touch which reflect these perceptual shifts.
• Explore the informational dynamic that occurs when one expands their perceptual field.
• Practice designing a session incorporating both the principles of Rolfing and the information received from this expanded awareness.

The workshop will include lectures, demonstrations, practicums and session exchanges.

Ray McCall has 33 years experience as a Rolfer. As a RISI Advanced faculty member he teaches basic, Advanced and Continuing Education classes both in the States and Abroad. His particular interest is the energetic taxonomy and how change occurs: how we more fully become and express who we are.

Carol Agneessens has been practicing the art of Rolfing SI and movement for over 30 years. She serves on the faculty of the Rolf Institute. As a Rolfing Trainer, Rolf Movement Instructor and as a teacher of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, her focus includes cultivating an expanded perceptual field, receptive listening, and deepening sensory awareness. She has come to appreciate that these are key factors for sustained transformation within oneself and in working with others.

Description:

The purpose of this 4-day workshop is:

1. to broaden the range of contact by developing the listening and contact skills needed to perceive the various rhythms of inherent motion. 
2. to apply this perception to a broad range of techniques commonly used in Structural Integration practice.
3. with these techniques you can:
   - Palpate inherent motion as a movement of self-organization and wholeness.
   - enhance integration
   - work more efficiently and effectively with less effort
   -  resolve layers of dysfunction and disorganization within all layers of fascia including bones and the ligamentous bed
   -  learn to bring the body’s resources to injured tissue allowing fascial interventions to be easier and longer lasting

In this workshop, you will learn to experience Inherent Motion as a palpable ordering and organizing phenomenon and learn at a beginning level how to integrate its effects into our Structural Integration world view. You will be introduced to the contact skills necessary to relate to Inherent Motion and how it manifests in the various tissues and fluids of the body. This class provides a logical, accessible bridge between working with the physical body and the energetic body.

This class is for those who have no experience with cranial touch as well as those who are experienced. Often those who are inexperienced integrate the skills more easily as there isn’t any unlearning of inefficient habits. For those who have cranial contact skills, learning how to apply these skills to the whole body and fit them into the Rolfing paradigm will be explored.

Different tissues express Inheret Motion with different tempos and qualities.  Easing superficial fascia is different from rehydrating ligaments or untwisting a bone. Since our bodies are 70 - 80% fluids it is important to examine its function. In the model we will study, the ordering and integrating motions of Inherent Motion are in the fluids. By learning to perceive and palpate the fluid body, our work with the very fluid fascial system will be greatly enhanced.

How one relates to the various fascial components requires that we shift within ourselves in subtle yet significant ways. You will learn how to shift your perception so that a much broader spectrum of what is under your hands reveals itself. This will require a different way of thinking and being while working, thinking differently about oneself as a practitioner, and about how you “engage” tissues.

To provide a foundation for thinking differently, you will be introduced to The Continuum of Contact™ which is a summarization of the process Dr. Sutherland went through in experiencing, working with and describing the 3 forms of cranial osteopathy - biomechanical, functional and biodynamic.  The Continuum of Contact provides a logical, seamless progression of learning to experience Inherent Motion and its expressions in different tissues and fluids.

One could say that the goal of Structural Integration is to optimize embodiment. An examination of how we become embodied as embryos will give us clues about how that process continues in the adult body. We’ll look at how Wholeness, as expressed through Inherent Motion, forms our 3 dimensional body and maintains and organizes it in the adult. This examination will reveal how function precedes structure and orders the anatomy. Learning to synchronize with these expressions of function and order will reorganize structures in the adult.

A vast majority of class time will be dedicated to hands - on learning. As you trade sessions you will assimilate skills which may be easily integrated into your practice. Practicing these skills will greatly enhance the ease with which you work and the breadth of each intervention.

Thomas is a faculty member of the Rolf Institute ® and has been a Rolfer® for 25 years.  He has studied craniosacral therapy since 1993 and has over 900 hours of training in biodynamic craniosacral therapy. Thomas found it difficult to integrate his initial crainiosacral training into the Rolfing paradigm. Typically structural integration involves working with the pieces to get the whole more emergent (integration). Biodynamics taught him that wholeness, as expressed through Inherent Motion, is always present in the body and by orienting to wholeness, the pieces will reorganize to the whole. He has studied and experienced the mechanisms involved in how we first become embodied in the embryo which gives us clues about how the adult body maintains its health and is reordered when it gets disorganized. Thomas has spent the last 19 years integrating this knowledge into the Rolfing® paradigm and integrates this into all of his sessions.  One of his clients, an osteopath who was initially a Rolfer, has stated that, ”If I had learned how to Rolf like this, I never would have become an osteopath.”

Description:

Visceral & Membranous restrictions are often the missing anatomy in the therapeutic equation. They are the proverbial "anatomical elephant in the room," easily overlooked, unidentified and/or marginalized. When relevant, they can easily present the primary fascial restriction offsetting alignment, balance and structural integration. Troubleshooting and differentiating the inter-relationships between the musculoskeletal, membranous and visceral layers is a critical component to helping clients not responding to conventional SI methodology. Offering both holistic and orthopedic applications to your SI practice, this class correlates neighboring worlds of fascial anatomy. 

Appropriate for complete beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, this class offers an unique perspective on Combined Technique primarily set up in Direct Technique. With the intention to support, empower and evolve your Structural Integration practice, both inside the classical recipe as well as outside it, students will develop clinically oriented skills and fascial manipulation techniques through lecture, demonstration, video, palpation and hands-on exchanges.

In the era of specialization, S-VI cultivates better Generalists by way of seeing the forest and the trees. From the whole form and container of the musculo-skeletal system we will now follow the fascia and familiarize our hands with what lies underneath.

Primary objectives to be covered include:

• An understanding of common cross-over Structural-Visceral strain patterns.           
• A ‘Combined Technique’ approach to SI, Membranous & Visceral Manipulation.  
• Joint mobilization & fascial manipulation techniques incorporating long levers.
• Correlating the spine & sacroiliac joints with associated viscera and membranes. 
• A conceptual understanding of ‘The Primary Lesion & The Lesional Chain’.
• Postural assessment skills correlating visceral & musculo-skeletal anatomies.
• Palpation & ROM assessment skills regarding mobility, symmetry and tone.
• ‘Systems Anatomy’ perspective to enhance & evolve your troubleshooting skills.
•  Differentiating symmetrical & asymmetrical variables effecting structure.     
• A ‘Ventral Approach’ to the Low-Back, Abdomen, Pelvis and Peritoneum.   
• Complementary 5th/6th hour perspectives & Post-10 Series strategies in SI.           
• Develop practitioner’s 3-D technique and direct interfacing w/ the ‘Sliding System’
• A Body-Based Approach to Mind-Body, Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Container

Bruce Schonfeld has is a Certified Advanced Rolfer and Rolf Movement Practitioner who has taken the Advanced Rolfing training three times. He has studied Visceral Manipulation intensively since 1997, including over 300 hours directly with Jean-Pierre Barral D.O.. He has taught orthopedic applications of Structural Integration since 1996 and been continually inspired through anatomical dissection. With an emphasis on the ‘sliding system’ of the membranes and larger visceral ligaments, Bruce has synthesized and developed his dual roots into a user-friendly approach to systems structural integration.

Description:

Visceral & Membranous restrictions are often the missing anatomy in the therapeutic equation. They are the proverbial "anatomical elephant in the room," easily overlooked, unidentified and/or marginalized. When relevant, they can easily present the primary fascial restriction offsetting alignment, balance and structural integration. Troubleshooting and differentiating the inter-relationships between the musculoskeletal, membranous and visceral layers is a critical component to helping clients not responding to conventional SI methodology. Offering both holistic and orthopedic applications to your SI practice, this class correlates neighboring worlds of fascial anatomy. 

Appropriate for complete beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, this class offers an unique perspective on Combined Technique primarily set up in Direct Technique. With the intention to support, empower and evolve your Structural Integration practice, both inside the classical recipe as well as outside it, students will develop clinically oriented skills and fascial manipulation techniques through lecture, demonstration, video, palpation and hands-on exchanges.

In the era of specialization, S-VI cultivates better Generalists by way of seeing the forest and the trees. From the whole form and container of the musculo-skeletal system we will now follow the fascia and familiarize our hands with what lies underneath.

Primary objectives to be covered include:

• An understanding of common cross-over Structural-Visceral strain patterns.           
• A ‘Combined Technique’ approach to SI, Membranous & Visceral Manipulation.  
• Joint mobilization & fascial manipulation techniques incorporating long levers.
• Correlating the spine & sacroiliac joints with associated viscera and membranes. 
• A conceptual understanding of ‘The Primary Lesion & The Lesional Chain’.
• Postural assessment skills correlating visceral & musculo-skeletal anatomies.
• Palpation & ROM assessment skills regarding mobility, symmetry and tone.
• ‘Systems Anatomy’ perspective to enhance & evolve your troubleshooting skills.
•  Differentiating symmetrical & asymmetrical variables effecting structure.     
• A ‘Ventral Approach’ to the Low-Back, Abdomen, Pelvis and Peritoneum.   
• Complementary 5th/6th hour perspectives & Post-10 Series strategies in SI.           
• Develop practitioner’s 3-D technique and direct interfacing w/ the ‘Sliding System’
• A Body-Based Approach to Mind-Body, Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Container

Bruce Schonfeld has is a Certified Advanced Rolfer and Rolf Movement Practitioner who has taken the Advanced Rolfing training three times. He has studied Visceral Manipulation intensively since 1997, including over 300 hours directly with Jean-Pierre Barral D.O.. He has taught orthopedic applications of Structural Integration since 1996 and been continually inspired through anatomical dissection. With an emphasis on the ‘sliding system’ of the membranes and larger visceral ligaments, Bruce has synthesized and developed his dual roots into a user-friendly approach to systems structural integration.

Description:

“We are not made of stuff that abides. We are made of patterns that repeat themselves through time.” – Ida Rolf

This Advanced training will focus on how to take those patterns that repeat themselves through time, disintegrate the dysfunctional aspects of those patterns, and integrate them into functional support for the human organism.

“Almost everybody is average, almost nobody is normal.” –Tessy Brungardt, talking about the application of Ida Rolf’s ideas

This Advanced Rolfing Course is an opportunity to explore what it might mean to be ‘normal’ in the field of gravity. Having been a Rolf Institute Instructor for 20 years and an Advanced Rolfing Instructor for 8 years, Tessy will show attendees of this class the way to create ease and efficiency for your clients according to their needs and preferences.

Strategizing to meet your clients’ needs, this class will focus on client pain relief, client activity integration, and bringing your clients into greater body awareness, and what this awareness means in the context of the paradigms first elaborated by Dr. Rolf.

As a former Chair of the Faculty, and former Chair of the Board of Directors of the Rolf Institute, Tessy brings to the classroom not only the awareness of the integrity of being a practitioner of the art of Rolfing, she brings the awareness of the history of the evolution of the art. Her skills in the articulation of the art of Rolfing SI, and the integration of the practice in daily life, will give the attentive attendee of this class the skills necessary to be both firm and creative in the resolution of their clients’ difficulties.

This class is also deeply focused on the needs of each student getting what they need personally in the context of giving and receiving a 5 series.

The class will consist of lectures, demos, exchange of work with classmates, and giving work to outside clients, all integrated toward meeting the needs of both the practitioners and their clients.

Download a Flyer

Tessy Brungardt received her BA in Environmental Biology in 1973, and was certified as a Rolfer in 1985. She combined her love of teaching with her love of Rolfing SI, becoming a Rolfing Instructor in 1994 and an Advanced Instructor in 2002. She has maintained a practice in Baltimore, MD, since 1986 where she works with a wide variety of clients, specializing in work with musicians and children. She also works with animals, particularly horses, dogs, and cats.

Perhaps most well known for being featured in the Academy Awards nominated documentary “Two Hands” – the story of pianist Leon Fleisher who regained the use of his right hand through Tessy’s Rolfing SI, Tessy has, over the years, taught 14 Basic classes, 8 Advanced Rolfing classes, and almost two dozen CE classes in all aspects of Rolfing in the United States, Brazil, Australia, Japan, Germany, and Switzerland.

Description:

The learning objectives of these first two weeks of training are:
• To arrive at a clear system of analysis before starting treatment by using the traditional visual approach looking at the body – and a step-by-step palpative evaluation of the different layers of fascia and membranes
• To use the findings of our analysis to make a clear choice about the few main restrictions
• To choose from the technical catalogue to be able to release the main restrictions
• To develop communicative skills to work whith the clients capacity of orientation and coordination

The learning objectives of the second part of the training are:
• To see the goals of the basic ten sessions in new light and to practically do “traditional” Rolfing SI with less effort
• To recognize clearly the main restrictions within the individual pattern related to all types of fascia
• To develop a sequence of three sessions that meets the client’s needs
• To master technique in such a way that allows communication with all the different types of connective tissue
• To apply technique in a way that is convincing to the client’s organism, using various modes of touch in a precise and efficient way

Peter Schwind has been working as a Rolfer in Munich since 1980. As an instructor he has taught basic classes since 1985. He assisted and cotaught several advanced classes since 1991 and was certified as an Advanced Instructor in 1999. Peter has shared his view of working with the human organism by writing several books. Recently his book "Fascial and Membrane Technique"(Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier)has been published in English. Peter`s special interest is to build a bridge between that, what he considers to be the "classical" approach of Structural Integration and new developments which came up during the last years.

Description:

The lower pole as stable and flexible base where we meet the ground and use the ground for support. three days of practice, theory and experiential work from the Rolfing and Rolfing Movement perspective. Stability and flexibility are qualities that help to build a good relationship with Gravity. During the workshop we will explore how mis-coordination, restrictions in the tissue and psychobiological aspects can interfere with the use of the ground. Feet, legs, pelvic floor, front of the spine will be our territory of exploration and intervention.

Pierpaola Volpones is Advanced Rolfer and Rolf Movement Practitioner. She is certified as International Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement instructor.

Description:

Dr. Rolf believed that Structural Integration should be understood as education rather than as therapy. This workshop focuses on the educational aspect of our interactions with clients: ways to engage clients in helping themselves to sustain the benefits of structural work. Participants will gain:

• Grounding in sensory-based movement education
• A template for assessing dysfunctional movement habits
• Principles for creating effective movement interventions
• Practical protocols for increasing clients’ body awareness
• Enhanced personal embodiment

Mary Bond studied with Ida Rolf from 1969 to 1972. Currently U.S. Rolf Movement® Integration Chair of the Rolf Institute, she has been involved in the development of movement education for SI from the early days with Judith Aston to the current evolution through the work of Hubert Godard. She is the author of "Balancing Your Body" and "The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand and Move in the Modern World," and producer of "Heal Your Posture: A DVD Workshop." It is her joy to share her perspective of movement education.