What if I were also to tell you that your bones do not hold you up? If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. If joints were cubical or flat they could stack on one another but they are not; joints (diarthritc joints) are round with a capsule and synovial fluid in between. So just standing up in gravity is somewhat like balancing a few basketballs on top of one another. Right? Of course not. What’s the matter with you?

I would like to introduce you to a concept that physicist, inventor, and all around awesome guy Buckminster Fuller created. It’s called tensegrity. It means the structural strength found in the simultaneous tension and compression between different parts of a whole. You can see this when you look at a suspension bridge, a woven hammock, or in Fuller’s case the geodesic dome. Nature figured this out far before Fuller did actually. It can be found in the cellulose of a tree, the structure of a Carbon 60 molecule, or (you guessed it) fascia. In fact it is this tensegrity in our body that makes standing so much easier and why standing, for us, is not like balancing balls on top of each other. When you bend backward using the muscles of your back you will feel a stretch on your corresponding front side. Take that stretch far enough back and you will feel it from your eyes to your knees. Why? Because large movements, especially ones that happen with greater frequency (bending back and forward), tend to happen in pairs with other movements. In this example a giant network of fascia is formed longitudinally up and down the front side of the body to add strength and protect you from falling over or worse breaking in your back! The posterior side of a body has the same thing but it goes over the skull and all the way down the back to the underside of the foot. Feel it for yourself folks. Lie on your back. Now reach down and touch your toes. Reach until it is difficult. Now pull your toes and feet up toward your head (like taking feet off the gas pedal). Harder to reach now right? Why? Because they are neurologically and fascially paired. In other words, in that action they effectively become one unit. And the other side of the body must play along so it also pairs. One side of the body flexes the other extends. For the client this usually presents as fatigue and weakness in some muscles and tension and shortness in others.

As much as tensegrity protects us it can also become disturbed by trauma and cause problems in the structural balance as well as our proprioception (awareness of spatial position and movement of the body). Tensegrity feeds back into the information gathering system. If don’t have the proper tensegrity to support our bodies we don’t have good proprioception. We begin to think that back is forward and crooked is straight. I have had many clients tell me that they feel self conscious about their rear end sticking out behind them when it is plainly tucked under them and actually causing pain in the back. It is not their brain that misinformed them. It is the information gatherers that feed into the brain. Translation: you may end up with a body that is tired, weak, and literally doesn’t know where its parts are. That person is residing in a body that is not enjoyable to be in.

Hands-on work (Structural Integration) is really the process of going only where the work needs to be done on the tissues and treating them with specificity. As someone who has had a Yoga practice for many years now I will contend that it is the best exercise you can do for yourself. That said you can almost never stretch your way out of the problem. Lifting weights at a gym usually won’t help either. If you think that your body doesn’t have the proper tensegrity that I am talking about then Rolfing may be the answer.

Session 1: Opening the sleeve (freeing breath & superficial fascia) Territory: ribcage, sternum, shoulders, neck; lateral pelvis/leg & hamstrings tension relief in the ribcage to improve breath releasing the superficial connective tissue layer of the body lengthening the torso away from the pelvis defining the relationship between legs and pelvis.

Session 2: Support (establishing relationship to the ground) Territory: feet, lower legs, and knees mobilizing the ankle, the toe hinges and the knee release restrictions and tightness in the lower leg achieving even weight distribution through the whole foot.

Session 3: Lateral line (creating front/back dimension) Territory: neck, arms/shoulders, torso, pelvis, thighs and knees addressing structural relationships that limit depth (anterior/posterior) differentiating the rib cage from the shoulder girdle and the pelvis for better support extending midline through neck and cranium.

Session 4: Medial line (building up core support and strength) Territory: ankle, knees, medial thigh, pelvic floor establishing an inner pillar from which the limbs can hang initiating the support of leg through the pelvis freeing the leg from the pelvis evoking the span/tone of the pelvic floor (core support) addressing torsions, by de-rotating lower leg relative to upper leg & hip.

Session 5: Anterior line (visceral organization and core activation) Territory: front of the legs, abdomen, diaphragm, ribs & sternum addressing visceral adhesions that cause structural restrictions creating more abdominal space for the inner structures “waking up” and reasserting the deep, abdominal musculature (core strength) initiating psoas-rhomboid balance, as well as rectus-psoas balance.

Session 6: Posterior line (creating a poised vertical line of symmetry) Territory: posterior ankle, calves and thighs; gluteals, deep rotator muscles, sacrum, spine (lower and upper back) addressing rotations in the leg (hip rotators) freeing the sacrum from the ilia (SI joint) coordinating the hinges in the back (lumbo dorsal & mid dorsal hinge) enhancing and extending symmetry above and below the pelvic girdle.

Session 7: Adaptability (balancing the neck & head on the spine) Territory: chest, shoulders, neck, jaw, cranium creating relationship between neck and thorax improving range of motion of neck establishing the inner line through the head horizontalizing the cranial diaphragms releasing exterior & interior fascial tension of the face, throat & cranium.

Session 8: Structural Integration (stability and adaptability) Territory: girdle that shows more restrictions (upper or lower girdle) identifying and addressing girdle that shows main obstruction to bring the body into the best possible relationship with gravity freeing structural and functional inhibitions relating girdles to the vertical (mid) line.

Session 9: Functional Integration (contralateral movement) Territory: girdle that shows less movement (upper or lower girdle) creating an intervention that encourages movement across one or more joints refining contralateral movement encouraging that all initial movements comes from the LDH (pre-vertebral.)

Session 10: Final integration & closure (horizontal lines) Territory: ankles, knees, hips, diaphragm, neck, cranium preparing client for assimilation and manifestation stabilizing layers (surface to deep) for uniform, structural awareness of up and down integrating and balance diaphragms in relation to each other horizontalizing joints

My main office location is on the Oakland Berkeley border. Easily accesible for those without a car. Ashby Bart is 7 blocks away. AC transit bus line 1 will also take you there. I am on the 2nd floor where you will find a waiting room and a lovely courtyard. I’m really happy with the new space and the neighborhood. Located just down the street from Whole Foods ,small book stores, and many cafes and restaurants. So come on down, get a treatment, then integrate the work with a nice walk to Whole Foods and get some healthy organic food.