Why Get the 10-series™?

As I mentioned previously, receiving Rolfing® SI doesn’t have to be a once a week for the rest of your life experience. Ideally you get the 10-series, experience change, and then go live your life with more freedom and alignment in your structure.

How can this be??… two things come to the top of my head: 1) the quality of contact performed in a Rolfing session and 2) how the progression of the 10-series allows your body to make and integrate change.

I’ll start by explaining the type of contact: slow, steady pressure aimed at the fascia. This slow moving pressure allows the fascia to make changes in its tension patterns. Fascia research is ongoing, but my current understanding points toward the nervous system and its connection to fascia. Without trying to write a scientific paper right now, I’ll describe my understanding in layman’s terms.

Fundamentally, we want to feel safe and our nervous systems are constantly assessing whether we are safe or not. Fascia, being the highly innervated connective tissue that connects every part of our bodies, is constantly responding to input from the central nervous system (CNS) as well as sending that information back up the chain.

When we do the same movement over and over again, we get better and better at performing that motion. Our bodies might even respond to the stimulus by laying down more collagen fibers in the fascia, helping to make that line of tension stronger and more stream lined to that particular motion. If we, as bodyworkers or massage therapists, came in and tried to quickly lengthen that line of tension by rubbing it vigorously we would most likely meet resistance. Our client’s nervous system would not register safety and would continue to hold the tension that it deemed necessary to complete life’s tasks in the first place.

Conversely, steady pressure that moves at the rate in which the fascia responds (which is typically quite slow) does register to the CNS as safe. This type of contact gives the nervous system time to respond to the new stimulus and adjust how much tension the operating system says to hold in any given area. Basically it’s like we are saying to the CNS “here, look. You don’t have to stay clenched and short. It’s OK for you to lengthen and try something new.”

As complex human beings, our nervous systems don’t only take cues from physical stimuli, but to the degree in which physical contact does initiate change and increase awareness, the Rolfing® contact does just that.

In addition to thoughtful contact, the sessions throughout the 10-series build upon each other. Just like you wouldn’t start framing a house before pouring the foundation, we don’t just address the psoas before introducing more adaptability and balance in the body’s foundation either. To do so could cause the body to feel unstable and any change that happened unsustainable. The body then would most likely go right back to the way it was before.

The progression of the 10-series sets our bodies up to make and integrate lasting change.