RM Courses

Integrative Studies Program & CE Course Descriptions

VIEW UPCOMING ROLF MOVEMENT CERTIFICATION CLASSES

Below is a list of recent Rolf Movement Certification offerings. The Rolf Movement faculty organizes its work around a consistent body of knowledge regarding human form and function. The diversity of this community brings great depth to its teaching. Students may check the website for upcoming classes and should feel comfortable contacting faculty about organizing a workshop in your region of the country.

Three-Day Workshops

Why Heads are On Top – What Truly Lifts Us: An exploration of the seventh hour from a movement perspective

Rebecca Carli andTessy Brungardt

Tessy and Rebecca will explore the anatomical, neurological and phenomenological underpinnings for the skyward orientation of our heads. Habitual patterns of response to environmental stimuli and our capacity for exteroception, expression and orientation are most visible in the carriage of our head, which profoundly influences our posture and capacity for movement. When we bring fluidity and balance to the orienting nature of our heads, we have the potential for balanced posture to be a continuous experience. 

Tessy and Rebecca enjoy co-teaching in order to bring together a high caliber of structural and movement information and techniques. This workshop is a combination of anatomical presentations, innovative cervical and cranial manipulation techniques, movement theory and experiential exercises designed for personal embodiment. Through integration and embodiment, we have a strong foundation available for creating sessions appropriate for clients.  

The Embodied Gait:  A Workshop Exploring Gait 

Rebecca Carli andTessy Brungardt

This workshop explores the many factors that combine in the creation of a person’s gait. Given that our gait is one of our oldest and most complex patterns of coordination, knowing how and where to intervene can be a challenge for even the most skilled practitioner. Yet how a person walks greatly influences their structure and ability to integrate session goals. Therefore, as practitioners, expanding and refining our skills in gait intervention is fundamental to a successful practice. 

The Functional Aspects of the Series: Remapping our Clients’ Coordination throughout the 10 Session Series   

Jane Harrington and Suzanne Picard

Every series has a beginning, middle and end. During our three days together we will work with the functional aspects of this cycle. The integration of Rolf Movement philosophy into our work enhances our clients’ embodiment. Educating clients in the remappingof their movement brain is empowering for them and makes our job easier and more creative.

Aesthetics of The Balanced Movement

Jane Harrington and Suzanne Picard

Our clients learn and sense themselves and their world in unique ways. You’ll learn how to recognize and work with these differences. Part of working with the uniqueness of each client is in the application of the session themes into daily life.

Four-Day Workshops

Yield:  An Alternative Perspective for Effecting Functional & Structural Change

Carol A. Agneessens and Hiroyoshi Tahata, guest instructor.

This 4-day exploration presents new dimensions in working from the perspective of Yield. This approach arises naturally as a practitioner cultivates awareness of their own interoceptivestate. Shifting to this point of reference establishes a neutral field of relationship between practitioner and client. Attending to this ‘field phenomena’ facilitates a depth of transformation.

In this context, Yield is an active orientation and contact with the scaffold (the cellular matrix). The cell is the minimal unit of life. The cell interacts with its surroundings for survival and growth. This interaction is the most primal movement of life. After moving independently, the cell is in interactive communication with its surroundings, transforming itself toward greater "order" and a collective and functioning form, (such as an organ). Yield underlies all other movement and supports the emergence of a coherent and motile field throughout the body, cultivating both depth and reorganization.

The Ground of Movement: Growth Gestures and the Embryonic Journey

Carol A. Agneessens

"At every stage of its development, the embryo is performing expressive gestures out of which specific structures congeal. In fact, all patterns of behavior have embryonic developmental processes as their precursors." (Freeman)

This workshop takes an in-depth look at the developmental gestures underlying movement. By having knowledge of the patterns informing the way we move our bodies in and through the world, we open a path that traces functional / structural problems and pain back to their origin.

This workshop will include specific approaches to both explore and address the origins of movement patterns.

The Face We Wear: A Unique Orientation to 7th-Hour Dynamics

Carol A. Agneessens

In this workshop, the underpinnings of facial development will be explored. Our faces develop between brain and heart and are an expression of each.  Our ability to engage with others depends on a fully functioning social nervous system with its emergence from the nerves, vessels and tissues comprising our face.  As we learn to engage these embryonic beginnings, we cultivate and enhance both communication and integration between brain, heart, self and other.

Five-Day Workshops

Our Spine in Motion: A Workshop Exploring Spinal Patterns

Rebecca Carli and Tessy Brungardt

Many people who seek 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 direct correlation to the ability of the spine to access appropriate stability and adaptability in order to successfully meet the demands of everyday life. 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 structural integration.  

Breathing and Walking: Embodiment and Intervention

Mary Bond     

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 sustain the benefits of structural work. The class is designed for practitioners looking for improved skill in assessing functional restrictions, practical movement interventions to compliment the Ten-Series and enhanced personal embodiment. We will explore the fundamentals of a sensory approach to movement education with respect to the basic human activities of breathing and walking. The workshop will include theoretical presentation, experiential group work, body reading and brief practitioner exchanges.

Neural-Remapping Cranial Sacral, and Rolf Movement Integration

Jane Harrington and Suzanne Picard

Cranial Sacral work combined with Rolf Movement Integration allows us to facilitate our goals and integrate the changes that emerge in our sessions. Our focus is the support and blending of Cranial Sacral and Rolf Movement work.

Six-Day Workshops

Embodiment and Intervention: Movement Education Focused on the Lower Extremities

Mary Bond

This workshop is designed for structural integration practitioners and somatic educators who wish to gain skill in assessing movement inhibitions and in creating transformative and practical movement solutions for their clients, especially with respect to the feet and lower legs. The first three days will focus on refining practitioners' embodiment as foundational to body-reading precision. The second three days will incorporate movement education into the Ten-Series. Topics include the biomechanical articulations of the feet, relationships between feet, pelvis and spine and head, the effects of foot mobility and support on overall body function including breathing and balance, a deeper understanding of the principle of support, and self-help for deficiencies in our foundations.

Embodiment and Intervention: Movement Education Focused on the Shoulder Girdle and Arms

Mary Bond

An exploration of the influence of shoulder girdle integration on the actions and gestures of work and play, on our interactions with others, and on breathing, core stability and gait. Beginning with spinal support for the shoulders, we look at the interactions between the biomechanical, functional and psychodynamic aspects of the upper extremity. The workshop is designed for structural integration practitioners to gain body reading confidence, skill in verbalcuing, and success in creating practical and transformative movement solutions for clients.

Embodying Tonic Function: Perceptual and Coordinative Skills that Integrate Structure

Kevin Frank

This workshop is a chance to learn basic principles behind the “Body as a Movement System Approach” to structural integration. We will move together to verify, in our own bodies, the truth of Dr. Rolf’s vision. We will consider how biology demonstrates gravity response; and how gravity response underlies the effectiveness of Rolf’s approach. We will explore how these insights revolutionize the way we work with clients; it helps us enroll and motivate people to embrace our work. Tonic function removes the artificial distinction between structure and function so every session embraces both. Tonic function helps clients understand the power they have to remake their movement patterns and posture. Tonic function helps us trouble shoot issues that fascial mobilizationalone may not touch.

Embodying Rolf’s Structural Integration Recipe

Kevin Frank

Fascial mobilization isa uniquely effective strategy for integrating structure. At the same time, fascial work can overshadow what lies behind its effectiveness. Posture integrates because of inherent Body Movement Intelligence, something Ida Rolf defined in specific terms. This workshop is a chance to clarify what inherent body movement intelligence is, and to learn how each step in Rolf’s ten series is about specific coordinative goals, goals we can demonstrate to clients so they can more fully understand the Rolfing process. Each step of the series also links to specific self care exercises that refresh and deepen the goals of our work.

Orientation, Perception, and Resonance: Skills that Speak to the Psycho-biological Dimensions within the Structural Integrative Process

Kevin Frank

A course about orientation as a fundamental skill for bringing presence, safety, and depth to somatic work. This workshop focuses on how we can notice moment to moment perceptual shifts through exercises that build a quality of shared awareness and sustained presence. Our biology is pre-wired to orient to gravity and to build a map of body and space. We will learn to consciously sense the orienting dimensions within us; and we will learn how orientation supports the structural integration process and helps our clients meet practical and relational challenges in their lives. We will also examine how orientation and perception underlies posture and pre-movement. This course will involve extensive time in partnered sense perception tracking and reflection, as well as stability exercises that provide daily self care. Movement will be explored as a tool for self regulation in the autonomic nervous system.

Perceptive Core Stability

Kevin Frank

The Rolfing Structural Integration series touches on, but doesn’t fully address core stability, leaving unresolved issues that fascial and spinal manipulation can’t truly repair. Stability is part of healthy coordination and healthy coordination can be restored through rehabilitation based on perception?based movement. To restore normal stability we learn to consciously feel the body’s gravity orientation process. Embodied orientation to the sense of weight and to spatial dimensions allow our postural habits to shift, habits that don’t change via conventional exercise, weight training, etc. Through a perceptive training process, we revive motor patterns that support healthy response to challenge.

Rolf Movement Teacher Practicum: Refining Skills for Teaching and Eliciting Movement

Kevin Frank

Teacher Practicum adds a new dimension to movement teacher development – a context where teachers support each other as colleagues to share insights and creativity in a safe and interested group. It’s an opportunity to improve confidence and competence with skills for somatic movement education – an opportunity for cross pollination among teachers and teachers in training and an opportunity to enrich one’s tool set. Practicum offers an opportunity to slow down and attend to some of the more subtle nuances and aspects of our being. Peer to peer instruction reminds us that we learn best in an atmosphere of resonance and rapport.