invisible
Ida Rolf’s pioneering work in structural integration invites us to look at the body as a whole, and our connectedness with the world around us.
An illustration from Rolfing,
showing a few of the infinite permutations of imbalance in every day posture.
All of the manifest world is connected. The invisible ties that bind us together are like a web; luminous and dynamic. Our entire experience exists within the web, and therefore we are part of it
and inseperable from it. Ida Rolf understood this, and showed us how it works in the human body. The very real myofascial network that permeates the body literally holds us together. It is an ancient
fabric comprised of countless ties, through which flow consciousness and primal intelligence. To understand as yogins what asana really does to us in a proper practice is to understand our connection
with Nature and our surroundings, and most of all our connection with the Divine and with each other.
I am not a Rolfer, but my deepest intuition and feelings about the way structure and dynamism work in the human experience are confirmed and inspired by Ida's teaching. She speaks of relationships in the body that need to come into balance. She speaks of softness as being true strength in a balanced system. She talks about our innate gift of verticality, and how important our relationships are with the ground and with gravity. Amen.
form and
Rolf’s metaphor of ‘blocks in a sack’ is illustrated here in an image from
Rolfing.
Rolf’s ‘invisible sky hook’, our capacity while upright to experience great ease against the pull of gravity. Image from
Rolfing.
The adductor and abductor muscle groups in the leg and hip must balance each other for ease in upright posture. Image from
Thieme.
Ida Rolf recognized that our truest form is closest to a vertical line, or the gravity line. When our structure is disorganized, then prana cannot flow with maximum efficiency. Structure literally is a
container for formlessness, for prana. Everything in the physical world demonstrates the infinitely manifest permutations of life, bounding forth as countless examples of intangible prana contained within
structural vessels. The vessel and the animating prana are not separate, but are simply complements to each other. They are the same thing.
Balance in structure invites stillness, or it is stilness that resides in any state of balance. Another way of describing this is that we must find our true form (svarupa) to find peace. Stable structure, or true form, are taught by inner intelligence and wisdom. The pure magic of what brings us to life yearns for structural equilibrium. It is a classic yinyang relationship. Balanced structure leads to release of tension, release of tension and distraction leads to stillness, and stillness is infinite and cannot be bound by form. And, as is the case in the yogic tradition, this is another example of the journey from gross to subtle.
Our bodies function as an orchestration of relationships. Bringing them into balace with each other and within the global body context is ultimately the role of asana, the third of eight limbs in the Patanjali tradition. As we continue to refine the practice and our understanding of the celestial vessels we call our bodies, it becomes obvious that asana should be therapeutic, sattvic and ultimately healing. The more we feed our tendencies, the longer we keep ourselves from coming into balance. Cultivaing a practice that reverses our patterns, our samskaras in our bodies, truly awakens the latent energy in the root of the spine and pelvis. Like Rolfing, a smart asana practice is really another form of structural integration.