The recurring question,” is Rolfing painful”? From its inception, Rolfing has earned a reputation of being painful and unpleasant. There is good reason for this. The purpose of Rolfing is to help achieve a higher degree of order in the individual’s structure, and not to simply have an enjoyable experience, as it might be when seeing a massage therapist. Like a massage therapist, a Rolfer will spend a fair amount of time dealing with muscle and connective tissue, but for the purpose of Rolfing, we are trying to address restrictions and holding patterns.
Ida Rolf had a reputation for being very direct and deep with the pressure she used and so did her students. Part of the reason for this was the belief that we were trying to “liquify” connective tissue and “melt” what is restricting itI, and to do so the use of a fair amount of force is required. This attitude even led to some practitioners concluding that “the more force used, the better the results” and so many Rolfers did practice with this idea in mind.
Over time our understanding of how muscle and connective tissue work has changed, and Rolfers have continued to educate and re-educate themselves accordingly, but even the old school Rolfers who were unnecessarily brutal were probably functioning according to misunderstanding and insensitivity. When addressing muscle restriction, we sink down to the layer of restriction and challenge it there, and no further. If the layer of restriction is superficial, we work superficial, if the layer of restriction is deep, we sink in deep but no farther than necessary, without excessive force.
We now know that connective tissue and muscles do not “liquefy” or “melt”. Muscle tension and restriction can only let up when the nervous system allows it. Carefully administered pressure and manual elongation of the muscle will often send the signal to the nervous system to let go. If approached in an effective way, the nervous system may not take up a protective posture again, the muscle restriction may be taken out, and the changes might be retained. Although a certain amount of pressure and shearing motion is usually required to encourage this.
It is important to understand that if a practitioner goes overboard with pressure, goes too deep too fast, or just over works a client in general, the sympathetic nervous system can be triggered and go into a state of fight or flight. Though the symptoms may be mild, the client will be subconsciously resistant to change, and even more likely to slip back into old patterns.
This is what is currently being taught at the Rolf institute. Any Rolfer who has stayed in the know of how our education has changed understands this. As a result some Rolfers take a fairly light handed approach, and some are more direct. The Rolfers who are working toward the high end of an individual’s threshold may be old school Rolfers, but even many of the Rolfers who received their education from Ida Rolf herself currently have the understanding that to over work a client is to defeat the purpose of what you are working for, and is not an effective or efficient way to work.
More often than not, when I have met a client that has been hurt or senselessly over worked by a manual therapist, it is from a massage therapist trying to do deep tissue work without an understanding of the principles of deep tissue. They are really just doing a hard massage rather than carefully sinking down to the level of restriction and challenging it there. If a client is very sore, especially for days, they have been overworked and there has been some mild tissue damage that needs days to heal. To work with an over use of force is to work with violence, which is often directly from misunderstanding and insensitivity.
The understanding that one does not need to use excessive force to get results had led to a backlash in the opposite direction. Forms of tissue work, like John Barns' myofascial release, have been developed that use very light pressure. Although this approach and these techniques should not be written off, I have found that the body responds more effectively to the careful administration of deep direct work. Some Rolfers also work with feather light touch. I have had many clients who have come to me because their Rolfer, in their words ``barely touched them” and were looking for something that felt more effective. Really one need to pay attention to what is working and what is not. I used deep pressure, but only just enough. When that does not appear to be working we will do light work and see if that works. It is all about trying to be attentive and sensitive to the changes taking place. If the use of force is excessive, the practitioner is working with violence, but the appropriate use of force is not violence.
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