The word “Palintonicity” comes up frequently in Rolfing. Derived from the Greek word palintonos, meaning “to stretch in opposite directions,” it is hard to grasp because it does not even appear in an English dictionary — but it is a term unique to Rolfing that captures the importance of seeing two directions within movement.
I have described before that, in Rolfing, walking is a matter of “increasing the mobility of the upper body upon the foundation of the lower body firmly receiving the ground (a state of having landed together with gravity).”
This accords with the principle of Palintonicity — that the body holds two directions: the lower body feeling gravity (downward), and, on that foundation, the spine of the upper body extending and moving freely (upward). It is in this state that the most natural movement becomes possible.
For example, when sitting in a chair, too, the most fitting movement arises when the feet rest on the ground, the chair supports the sit bones (the feet and sit bones going downward), and there is an awareness of extending the upper body upward from the base of the sit bones (the upper body going upward).
Also, in breathing there are three kinds of movement — up and down, left and right, front and back — and this, too, is precisely an expression of bidirectionality; when these movements can be felt, the breath deepens. Bidirectionality matters when taking a yoga pose as well.
When I took yoga teacher training in 2013, I learned that the way to observe a yoga pose is to look from the bottom upward. That is, when observing a pose — when a student has trouble with it and the yoga teacher adjusts (assists) so that the person can arrive at a comfortable pose — one looks from the bottom and gradually moves upward. The bottom is the foundation; it means ordering that firmly first, and then ordering what is above.
When taking Triangle Pose (Trikonasana), one adjusts after looking at the foundation of the feet (how is the balance of left, right, front, and back?), and then proceeds toward the upper body. Doing so makes it possible to arrive at a comfortable pose.
When following movement with attention to bidirectionality, stiff shoulders, lower-back pain, and the like often arise because the upper and lower body are not in two directions but have both fallen into a downward awareness. This is because, when sitting, awareness of the sit bones declines, the back rounds, and the awareness of extending the spine of the upper body disappears. The Alexander Technique, which I have also touched on in this blog, offers a method of easing these through the relationship between the spine and the head: in effect, the head stops pressing down on the spine, the spine of the upper body extends as a result, and the direction shifts upward.
Observing the body from the standpoint of bidirectionality is fundamental to Rolfing. When observing the body, I would very much like to keep this principle in mind.
Note, August 2026
At the time of writing in 2014, Palintonicity registered as a term unique to Rolfing, understood as a basic principle of body reading.
That the word carries a more definite position became apparent in the 2025 Advanced Training. It is treated there as one of the five Principles of Rolfing — WHOLISM, SUPPORT, ADAPTABILITY, PALINTONICITY, and CLOSURE — formulated by Jeff Maitland together with Jan Sultan and Michael Salveson (see “Principles and Observational Skills in Rolfing — Jeff Maitland’s Approach“).
Looking into it after the training: Maitland published “The palintonic lines of Rolfing” in Rolf Lines (19:1) in 1991, and the following year, with Sultan, “Definition and principles of Rolfing” (Rolf Lines 20:2). According to Pedro Prado, Maitland worked alongside Sultan and Salveson in formulating the Principles of Intervention, and the organization of these principles belongs to that period.
The five principles are also the framework that made a non-formulaic Rolfing possible. Rather than following a fixed protocol, one observes the client, determines which principle is currently lacking, and designs the session accordingly. What was written here in 2014 as “fundamental to body reading” was, precisely, a tool for that.
Four months after this piece, during Phase III, the breathing series applied bidirectionality to the observation of breath. Breathing in a body whose posture is not organized is called Concentric breathing; breathing in which bidirectionality is at work is called Eccentric breathing (see “When Posture Collapses, Breathing Changes — Extensors, Flexors, and the Scalenes“).