Balancing Your Body: A Self-Help Approach to Rolfing Movement

228 Pages·1996·8.561 MB·English

by  Mary Bond

SELF-HELP.
APPROACH
Tol
Mary Bond
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/balancingyourbod0000bond
BALANCING
YOUR
BODY

BALANCING
YOUR
BODY
A Self-help Approach to
Rolfing Movement
MARY BOND
Healing Arts Press
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
Web Site: http://www.gotoit.com
Copyright © 1993 Mary Bond
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher.
Note to the reader: This book is intended as an informational guide. The
remedies, approaches, and techniques described herein are meant to supplement,
and not to be a substitute for, professional medical care or treatment. They
should not be used to treat a serious ailment without prior consultation with a
qualified healthcare professional.
The word Rolfing is a service mark of The ROLF INSTITUTE of Structural
Integration.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Bond, Mary, 1942-
Balancing your body : a self-help approach to Rolfing Movement / Mary
Bond.
» em.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-89281-642-2
1. Rolfing. I Title.
RC489.R64B66 1996
615.822—dc20 96-24187
CIP
Printed and bound in the United States.
109876543241
Text design by Virginia L. Scott
Illustrations by Barbara Mindell
This book was typeset in Berkeley Oldstyle with Carolus as the display typeface.
Healing Arts Press is a division of Inner Traditions International.
Distributed to the book trade in Canada by Publishers Group West (PGW),
Toronto, Ontario
Distributed to the health food trade in Canada by Alive Books, Toronto and
Vancouver
Distributed to the book trade in the United Kingdom by Deep Books, London
Distributed to the book trade in Australia by Millennium Books, Newtown,
NS.W.
Distributed to the book trade in New Zealand by Tandem Press, Auckland
Distributed to the book trade in South Africa by Alternative Books, Randburg
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:
RULES OF THE GRAVITY GAME
CHAPTER 1:
BLUEPRINT FOR STRUCTURE
Script l: Evaluating Your Standing and Walking Patterns
CHAPTER 2:
EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE
Script 2: Exploring Your Respiratory Pause
Script 3: Fascial Breathing Exploration
Script 4: Structural Breathing Awareness
CHAPTER 3:
HOW TO THROW YOUR
WEIGHT AROUND
Script 5: Exploring Your Back Half
Script 6: Exploring the Core
Script 7: Rolling up to Standing
Script 8: Standing and Walking
Script 9: Exploring the Sitting Zone
CHAPTER 4:
THE PELVIS CONNECTION
Script 10: Thigh Release and Lift
Script ll: Knee Circles
Script 12: Forward Thigh Drops
Script 13: Pelvic Rolls
Script 14: Pelvic Floor Exploration
Script 15: Seated Pelvis Exploration
Script 16: Integrative Knee Bends
CHAPTER 5:
GOING WITH THE FLOW 89
Script 17: Toe-hinge Exploration 92
Script 18: Toe and Ankle Integration 93
Script 19: The Drawbridge 95
Script 20: Drawbridge, Drag, and Drop 96
Script 21: Pelvic Roll, Roll to Standing, Knee Bends 98
Script 22: Activating Your Suspender Muscles 100
Script 23: Moving from Sitting to Standing 106
CHAPTER 6:
WINGS TO FLY 110
Script 24: Exploring Shoulder Support 113
Script 25: Guiding Movement from Your Elbow 115
Script 26: Arm Raise and Drop 118
Script 27: Integration of Shoulders and Pelvis 119
CHAPTER 7:
HEADS AND TAILS 126
Script 28: Exploring Facial Tension 130
Script 29: Cranial Support for Your Face 132
Script 30: Pivoting and Nodding around the Head Hinge 133
Script 31: Moving from the Back of Your Head 136
Script 32: Movement Mantra 138
CHAPTER 8:
SIDES OF THE COIN 144
Script 33: Blending Qualities of Your Pattern 154
Script 34: Appreciating Your Pattern 156
Script 35: Exaggerating a Tension 157
Script 36: Eliciting Messages 158
Script 37: Integrating Bilateral Balance 159
CHAPTER 9:
MY STRUCTURE, MY SELF 166
CHAPTER IO:
WINNING THE GAME 187
APPENDIX 205
BIBLIOGRAPHY 210
INDEX 212
INTRODUCTION
RULES OF THE
GRAVITY GAME
It's seventh grade and the day for posture evaluations. You line
up outside the nurse’s office, grateful for your reprieve from that
history quiz. Inside, the nurse draws dots down your back with a
marker, and pointing to a chart of spinal curvatures, explains the
dire consequences of scoliosis (lateral curvature of the spine). The
scoliosis threat is exciting for a day or two—there’s talk that Terri
Dawson has it and might have to wear a brace. For the most part,
though, posture is a boring topic that is soon blithely forgotten. Your
sophistication mimics the images you see in magazines, and “stand-
ing up straight” doesn’t look cool.
Traveling forward in time now, let’s visit your fiftieth high
school reunion. Do you look and feel as vital, supple, and dignified
as you'd like to? If not, why not? Many things affect your body in
between seventh grade and your seventieth birthday—diet, exercise,
work, play, love, and luck, to name a few. Another important factor
is your attitude toward your body. Is it just something to be deco-
rated or camouflaged, a mere vehicle to transport you from one
experience to the next?
Most of us take our bodies for granted. At the beginning of our
game of life we're dealt a number of “selves,” like cards or Monopoly
properties. There’s the mental/intellectual self—the one who goes to
college and becomes a CEO; there’s the emotional self who falls in
and out of love and cries at movies, and there’s the spiritual self who
seeks meaning in religion or peace in meditation. The physical self,
the body, is relegated to carrying the other selves to job and church
and dance floor. It’s taken for granted until one day, in the middle
of the game, the body self prevents one of the other selves from
making a move.
Your body’s “shape” is not just its appearance but its ability to
move you energetically and gracefully through your days. And your
shape begins to be determined long before that nurse’s hasty ap-
praisal of your posture. Very early we begin to shape ourselves by
modeling the people around us, usually our parents and siblings. We
unconsciously imitate their rhythms, postures, gestures, and tensions.
These people comprise our known world—we need to feel close to
them, so we do as they do.
Come adolescence, we generally overlay our familial, acquired,
movement patterns with the gestures of our friends, with the pos-
tures of our heroes, with the stance of our rebellion. Later, as we enter
adulthood, we model images of accomplishment and success. In
today’s media-rich world, we're increasingly tempted to assume
shapes we see outside ourselves.
Though women’s roles in our society have begun to change in
recent decades, the media continue to portray women’s bodies ac-
cording to outmoded physical ideals. Fashion offers women two
alternatives. One is the low-slung model’s stance—pelvis under, chest
withdrawn, and head forward—a combination of passiveness and
seduction. The other more assertive and extroverted stance has
breasts and head high, back arched and “buns” up. Both stances
suggest woman is man’s sexual adjunct. A woman is rarely portrayed
standing on her own two feet, except in a kind of mannish defiance.
As women’s changing roles and collective self-concept become more
defined and secure, the media’s portrayal of women’s bodies will
change.
As for men: you poor fellows are trained from infancy to “keep
it all together,” to project an image of rock-hard stability and sto-
icism. For men to be expressive with their bodies has been a sign of
weakness in our culture, mobility of spine or pelvis a signal of
effeminacy. Elvis Presley introduced a measure of freedom within
the confines of the entertainment industry—so as long as you're
making music, guys, it's okay to move your hips. As men’s roles
change, the media begin to portray men in more relaxed postures.
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BALANCING Your
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