How To Stop Body Tightness With Rolfing Structural Integration

(0:00) In today’s video, I’m going to talk about general over all body tightness,

(0:04) muscular tightness and how structural integration helps resolve that.

(0:08) Periodically,

(0:12) people will come into my office with overall body tightness

(0:15) or you might have a range of motion limitation where you can’t raise an arm or

(0:19) you can’t raise your leg past a certain height. All of these

(0:23) stem from either

(0:26) areas of the body having excessive tension and tightness

(0:29) and compaction or the overall body

(0:32) having that. And they are a little different . Some are more localized areas and some are across the

(0:37) whole body.

(0:38) Either way, structural integration is fabulous.

(0:42) It’s probably one of the best things you can do you for this type of situation.

(0:45) The reason being is without knowing what the origin of that tightness is –

(0:52) there may be many things in your past, or there may be genetics, or there may be diet, or there may be

(0:57) stressed patterns in your life, there may be  very traumatic injuries,

(1:00) there may be movement patterns, there may be all those things combined.

(1:03) It doesn’t matter because the tissue is tight

(1:06) and you can’t move. What structural integration

(1:09) does is it works the soft tissue. It works the soft tissue in such a way

(1:15) that we’re working layers of tissue to free them up

(1:18) so that the deeper layer can then release and then we work the deeper layer.

(1:22) We’re always working the layer that is ready to release.

(1:25) Some deep tissue work go

(1:28) deep into the body immediately and try to release things that will never let

(1:33) go unless the surface structures are released first. This may sound like a very

(1:38) esoteric idea, but it’s not. It’s actually quite simple.

(1:41) If you imagine that you are wearing layers and layers of clothing

(1:44) and all of the the body is

(1:48) tense and stiff, if you remove a deep layer

(1:51) of clothing, it might help a little bit, but it won’t allow you to expand,

(1:57) it won’t allow you to lengthen. If you remove a surface layer

(2:00) of clothing, the tightest layers usually being on the surface, then

(2:05) because there is a tensional relationship between the layers

(2:08) themselves, the inner layers will have to release,

(2:12) they’ll have to respond to what was done. So

(2:16) one of the best ways to figure out

(2:19) if it is going work for you is to come in and try a session. And this is what I

(2:23) suggest: don’t think about having to commit to ten sessions.

(2:26) Come in and try one session. Tell me what your problems are,

(2:31) tell me what the situation is, tell me what your limitations are,

(2:34) tell what you can and can’t do – “I can’t tie my shoes”,

(2:38) “I am having trouble doing a full squat”, “I’m

(2:42) this/that”, “my yoga teacher says I need to be deeper into

(2:45) this pose” – whatever it is, we can work on it.

(2:48) However, although you’ll get greater benefit through the course of

(2:53) ten session series,

(2:54) I suggest you try just one session. Try a session.

(2:58) See if it is going to work for you. You’ll know during the session whether this is a change

(3:02) you’ve experience before

(3:09) if this something that is no different than what you’ve already experienced.

(3:13) If it’s not different, it won’t make sense to continue.

(3:16) If it is different it will make a lot of sense to continue. It’s entirely up to you

(3:21) and I suggest you try it once so that you can make that decision.