Structural Integration is a process-based approach to somatic education, typically involving manual therapy, that explores the possibility of change in how you use and experience your body. Through education, awareness, and therapeutic touch, you can release painful, stressful patterns of tension. Effortful habits are replaced with feelings of comfort, ease of movement and posture, and a sense of whole-body coherence.
When we suffer from trauma or injury, or by adopting postural habits, we create restrictions that can be manifested in the body in many ways. As my teacher Tom Myers in his video explains below.
I did my Structural Integration Training at Anatomy Trains Structural Integration School in Walpole, ME., with Tom Myers, author of the book Anatomy Trains. Myers is a worldwide known fascia expert and the creator of the myofascial trains (a blueprint of how our organ of communication in the body, fascia, connects the body).
Tom Mayers was trained by Dr. Ida Rolf, the creator of Structural Integration Therapy, better known as “Rolfing” technique. Myers evolved Ida’s Structural Integration Therapy, by studying human anatomy and how the body parts relate to each other by this sensory net known as fascia and its implications in movement and postural efficiency.
Structural Integration is one of the fields of the new Spatial Medicine concept. Body, mind and soma are integrated as part of one whole. Anything that stimulates one part will impact the rest of the system. By manipulating the body inviting it into more space for better ways to experience itself, we impact our feelings and beliefs as well. Letting go at all levels of existance what we do not need anymore and creating space for the new.
My experience as an ATSI receiver of the technique was a life-transforming experience. Reorganizing my body more coherently, gave me a deeper understanding of my own movement patterns and how to create a better relationship with gravity and ground forces. I experience better results in my exercise and movement practices by allowing me to overcome my physical challenges with more fluidity, energy, better digestion, calmer mind, sense of grounding, confidence, balance and resilience but also it transforms the way I carried myself through.
As a practitioner I am honored to become a channel for transformative experience to anyone who wants to allow more space inside their bodies to create better life experiences.
Structural Integration process happens over a series of sessions. The Anatomy Trains Structural Integration process has 12 separate and progressive sessions, although the actual number you need may vary. To begin these sessions, we will talk over your history and help you set realistic goals for the process. i will take pictures of your body posture to have a record of where you started or may just examine your postural pattern with you in front of a mirror.
Most structural integration sessions are done in underwear or a bathing suit. Your comfort is paramount, but we need to get directly to the tissues that are restricting the free flow of movement. Much of the session work is done on a treatment table, though some moves are done on a stool or even standing.
I will contact tissues and ask you to move, thus freeing old restrictions and encouraging the tissues back to a freer place called for by your body’s inherent design. We can work out how deep or how gentle you want the progression to be.
The sessions progress through the body: the first four sessions are generally more superficial, freeing the tissues on the front, back, and sides of the body and freeing the shoulders and arms from any binding to the trunk. The middle four sessions address the “core” of your body, working into the central stabilization muscles closer to the spine. The last four sessions integrate “core” and “sleeve” into your habitual movement (and address specific problems you bring to the table), leaving you with a lasting and progressive change that will echo throughout the rest of your life.
“You can be fully incharge of your life, only if you can acknowledge the reality of your body in all its visceral dimensions"
Bessel Van Der Kolk. The Body Kepps the Score.