This Thanksgiving, reflecting on some of the things I am thankful for I realize that I am greatly honored to have been able to assistant teach with Certified Advanced Rolfer® and world-renowned deep tissue massage specialist Art Riggs at the San Francisco School of Massage. Over the past two weekends I spent three days with some of the most positive, inspired, curious, passionate and dedicated San Francisco body-workers that I have ever met.
Helping them to refine their touch, one of the things I learned is that the standpoint you take as a practitioner will have a big effect on your client, as well as your ability to work.
Rolfing Touch
To teach Rolfing touch as I was taught it by my mentor Dr. Jeffrey Maitland is to teach how to contact a person in such a way that both client and practitioner disappear into a singular fundamental reality and reappear changed. It is a unique kind of touch deeply informed by phenomenological philosophy and Zen Buddhism. What was exciting to see these past two weekends at the San Francisco School of Massage is that this profound way of contacting a person can easily be taught.
A Personal Account:
This personal account from CMT Frank Lopez explains more than I can say:
“I am indebted to you for teaching me a different, gentler means of penetrating the body for deeper work. I accept rather easily the clearly mechanical means of making adjustments: in this case, to rib alignment. That you were able to help me follow the subtle movements of the body to satisfactory resolution of a compromised rib really blew me away. It did, in fact, require me to take a leap of faith. That I have been able to replicate this approach on my own has really had an effect on me: it has altered my approach to massage. So, again, thanks for helping me see this option to working with the person on my table.
Last night I did back-to-back massages of nearly 2 hours each. And through a fair portion of the massage I just let my hands follow the body. I felt to some degree like I was just along for the ride as knot after knot melted to my touch, ribs settled themselves into place and vertebrae gently eased into more natural positions. What’s more, I was able to “work” those longer sessions last night because I felt no fatigue due to this new approach.”
Mirror Neurons, The Physiological Explanation
There are actual physiological explanations for the effectiveness of this kind of touch, especially as explained by the recently discovered function of mirror neurons. But that is more than I have time to go into now. (For more information about Mirror Neurons, either send us a request with your email address and we’ll hook you up with some terrific links, or stay tuned, as this will be a topic that we treat in great depth in an upcoming blog).
San Francisco Tutorials
Also, many of the students at the San Francisco School of Massage were interested in having more practice with this way of doing massage, so we are now providing two-hour tutorials for up to 4 people. If you would like more guided instruction or want to learn more about what goes into this kind of touch, feel free to give us a call. We will also keep you updated about upcoming tutorials and other events.
Learning a profound way of touch is an opportunity for you and your clients to be greatly transformed. Introducing Rolfing touch to your practice will most likely bring a lot more enjoyment and ease into your hands, body, and life.