Bodywork for Structural Integration

Ready to move beyond chronic pain?

Want to get "unstuck" and express your creativity?

Pursuing mind/body/spirit integration?

Discover the "miracle" of bodywork

When you change the way you stand and move in the world, you transform how you feel IN your body and how you perceive the world OUTside.

Structural Integration bodywork offers a lasting pathway to:

• Unwinding of chronic, stored pain and stress patterns
• Healthier, more disease resistant body
• Jump in energy
• Live your authentic life with more choices

How Does It Work?

Bodywork changes the physical body by adjusting the structural alignment and balance via soft tissue massage. The process unlocks your potential by:

• release of chronic, stored muscle strains and deep fascial bindings.
• alignment of body structure in earth's gravity to be more efficient, freer, and more integrated.
• healthier, more disease-resistant body
• jump in energy

How is Structural Bodywork Different from Massage?

Bodywork is focused on body posture and structure over the long term. By working to improve body alignment and functioning, chronic strain patterns are alleviated, and pain and stress decrease. Massage focuses on relaxation to promote health through improved circulation, boosting the immune system and the relief of muscle discomfort. Bodywork and massage are both healing modalites, and can be effectively combined. But for long-term change in chronic stress and pain, a bodywork component is usually necessary.

Session Info

Sessions are 75 minutes. We will discuss Structural Integration theory and practice, your health history and concerns, and your goals and expectations for the work. We will begin the ongoing process of getting to know your structure, posture and movement patterns.

After a postural evaluation, you will be asked to lie on the table. Session one focuses on freeing the torso to allow fuller breath. During the session, you will to breath into areas being worked and move your body in various directions. In addition to facilitating the lengthening, freeing, and repositioning connective tissue, this participation allows your system to explore unfamiliar movement patterns and refine body awareness.

Throughout the session, you will get a chance to walk around, evaluate your experience, note changes, and provide input for continuing the process. Movement homework is often provided. The amount of time between sessions varies and is determined on an individual basis.

The Gravity Game

Every object in the universe is motivated by gravity. Gravity, the force that binds us to the earth, is generally unrecognized as a factor of our physical wellbeing. Yet, since our bodies are physical structures, they're subject to the same physical laws as any other structure on the planet. A structure that is not in a balanced relationship to the pull of gravity will eventually fall over.

Gravity may be temporarily defied by other factors: by mechanical energy, by speed, for example, but when push comes to shove, down you go.

Our first instinct when we go out of alignment with gravity is to brace with tension against the fall. Engineers know that the structural soundness of a building requires a mobile foundation and flexible supports: required for all buildings in the San Francisco area due to the earthquakes. This is no less true for the human body. Rigidity spells disaster in one of life's "quakes:" losing your job, car accidents, having the rug pulled out from under us. But we can learn to let gravity support us instead of fighting a losing battle with it. We can win with Gravity -- if we play the game.

Repetitive use of your structure effectively molds your shape. It's easy to recognize the turned out thighs of a ballerina, the bowlegs of a cowboy, or the hunched shoulders and forward-reaching head of a computer programmer. The nervous system tells the muscles what to do, and the fascia accommodates. The neuromuscular system gets into a groove, executing the command over and over. As the muscles tire, the fascia will build straps to help support them. You've created a habit, a postural pattern. Habits seem efficient because they are familiar. But they can build up a huge amount of chronic tension, and finally pain.

If the self-perpetuating postural pattern of imbalance and stress is allowed to continue, you could say gravity wins the game. Luckily this outcome can be reversed through awareness, release, and the formation of new habits.

In Context

Body/mind/spirit integration refers to how our emotional patterns are reflected in our body and posture. Every body is a reflection of that person's experience: the way we inhabit our bodies, we twist, breathe, hold tension, favor one side. It tells the story of what it was like growing up, what traumas we experienced, how much love/support we were able to receive.

Bodywork includes a component of listening and responding to your body's signals. Getting in touch with the body allows us to become aware of our attitudes. We can choose to discard outworn ones for new attitudes that support us in our goals. This is our birthright as creative individuals: to make choices about our lives.