Introduction
As this blog has discussed, Rolfing is a method that works primarily on the fascia within the structure of the body, so that the body organizes itself through the influence of gravity. There is an order to it: the work begins at the more superficial fascia of the Sleeve and moves toward the deeper fascia of the Core, approaching the body the way an onion is peeled one layer at a time.
Fascia is the connective tissue that wraps and interweaves the muscles and everything else throughout the body — the translucent tissue shown below.
As the photograph below shows, tension at even a single point exerts a large influence on the structure of the body. For this reason the work proceeds by removing the red pins one at a time — that is, by lengthening the fascia and releasing its tension.
Now, seeing the human body as a large vessel — in Rolfing, the container — an upper body and a lower body become apparent. Rolfing considers its approach while observing gait, and what matters in gait is that the lower body receive the ground fully, grounded together with gravity, while the mobility of the upper body increases, its direction being upward. Building the body this way establishes the foundation.
Session 1 therefore addresses the upper body, Session 2 the lower body (for detail, see “Session 2: Organizing the Foundation of the Feet”), and Session 3 the integration of upper and lower — removing the red pins of the Sleeve one at a time, organizing the body as it goes (for detail, see “Phase II: The Sleeve Sessions“).
The tool used in organizing the upper body in Session 1 is the breath. Breathing, occurring some 28,800 times a day, is one of the repetitive movements every person performs without exception. Observing how the breath spreads reveals how well the upper body is organized, which is why it serves as the tool.
That breath receives attention first is interesting, since yoga also attends to the breath. In yoga, taking the postures creates a position in which breathing comes more easily, and the deeper breathing that follows settles the mind. It may help to think of Rolfing as doing the work of the yoga posture by lengthening the fascia instead. And in the case of Rolfing, as the frequency of anatomical terms suggests, science sits underneath, so the aim stays explicit.
One thing that stays constant across Sessions 1 through 10: after watching a demonstration by the teacher and the associate teacher, with a client brought in from outside, the students work on each other — each student takes one fellow student and works with the same person for all ten sessions.
The goals of Session 1:
- Release the superficial tension of the fascia related to breathing — around the clavicles, the ribs, and the sternum.
- Differentiate clearly between the pelvis and the thorax, the aim being to establish an awareness that separates upper body from lower.
- Secure the range of motion of the pelvis around the hip axis.
In Session 1, three positions are observed — standing, walking, and seated — and the work is considered while checking points of body reading: where gravity is felt, whether the breath is shallow or deep, whether it is thoracic or abdominal, and what is obstructing it.
Discussing this with the fellow student I was working with, the body reading came out with the following tendencies:
- Effort enters on the inhalation, with a sense of congestion below the sternum. Abdominal breathing is available; thoracic breathing is not.
- The hip joints tend to travel forward, with the pelvis tilting backward.
- Effort enters the knees.
- The body inclines forward, and the use of the feet in walking pitches forward with it.
The work of the first session — in Rolfing, the Strategy — proceeds from these observations: releasing tension in the fascia around the ribs, the spine, the costal arch (the region below the ribs), the pelvis, the iliotibial band, and the hamstrings, varying the pressure and using the fingers, the palm, the back of the hand, and the elbow. Where the manual technique for spreading fascia is unclear, asking the teacher settles it.
Even from this single session, unnecessary tension came out.
For instance:
- Both thoracic and abdominal breathing became available to awareness, and the effort on the inhalation dropped away. The breath grew deeper.
- The feet made contact with the ground, and the footing became solid.
- The front-back balance of the body became distinct.
- The curve of the lumbar spine, below the vertebral column, came more clearly into awareness.
Ten sessions, at a pace of one or two a week, worked on each other by the students. How the body will change from here is something to look forward to.
Note, August 2026
This piece was written during the Phase II training, from the position of receiving the work. The body reading recorded here is an observation of my own body.
“A tendency to apply effort on the inhalation, with a sense of congestion below the sternum.”
What that observation meant became explicable as theory only four months later. In February 2015, during the Phase III training, came four pieces on the physiology of breathing.
In unconscious breathing, exhaling requires no muscular contraction. When the muscles of inhalation contract and then fail to relax properly at the changeover to exhalation, Phasic muscle begins to work (see “Exhaling Takes No Effort — Conscious and Unconscious Breath“). Rolfing calls breathing of this kind, in a body whose posture is not organized, Concentric breathing (see “When Posture Collapses, Breathing Changes — Extensors, Flexors, and the Scalenes“).
Which is to say: the observation recorded here — applying effort on the inhalation — was Concentric breathing itself. At the time it was written without knowing that it had a name.
Seven years further on, in 2022, the same subject was written from the practitioner’s side: what gets asked in the first session, and what is being observed (see “Why Breathing Comes First in Organizing the Body — The First Rolfing Session Is ‘Breath’“).
The learner’s position, the theory, and the practitioner’s position. The same first session, written from three places.
One note: this piece gives breathing as 28,800 times a day, while the 2022 piece gives twenty thousand. Resting respiratory rate is generally put at twelve to twenty breaths per minute, so the latter comes closer to the actual figure.