Rolfing" 51 and the BrainAn Interview with Kevin FrankBy Sabine Weis, Certified Rolfer™

IntroductionJ iJ!ten;iewed Rolf Movement' InstructorKeoiu Frnnl: to di9C1/55 1/ icoviing model fromneuroscience tha: supports Rolfins StructurnlIntegratioll (Sf) toitl: a credible explanation and~tory - wily it work".

As bllckgrolwd, let me share a part of mystory. The Rolf tviooement aspects of my basicRolfing training completely chllnged mywily of perceiving Ilnd 1.lsing my body. As (Iteen-aced athlete it lind seemed to me that themost effective thing was to "work harder" illorder to gft stronger, faster, mu! fitter throughweightlifting and countless repetitions of IheSilme kinds of exercise. III Rolj?vfotJemen t, lwllSfaced with Dery different concepts that J could1101 wholly grasp, but started playing with. Forexample, at thirty [started dm!cing salsa. AfterDery few months, 1 stopped Inkillg lessons midinstead applied ideas like challging my spacelind ground capaci Iy, depe/oping a better sensefor my inner line during spin« IIl1d turns.Also, 1experimented with inherent mouementsduring freestyle and colll1eclioJl to I11y partnerwith orient atiou exercises. I'v1If dancingimproved dramaticalli;

Despite the improvement, 1 I!e'UeT reallynumaged to articulate what 11('(/5 doing. In myRollillg practice, Ialso find it quite c/WllCllgil1gto speak about the work other than throughpersona! experience or case studies, alld 1see thisissue troubles some Orilly 51 colleagues as well.1 believe it is our jo/! to co1l1mwlicnte clearly to

STlWCTCRA'. INTEGIC\TIO~ !DECF'.Il\ER 20]2

support our credibilits; Outside ofMll1lich andBoulder, toeface a public unatoare of Rolfing Sl.A market sun'ey ill Germany (commissionedby the European RO/fing Association 10 developour PR strategy) showed that "the man on thestreet" does not know allythillg about what wedo or how it can be of beuefit. EVeIl people whohave exncrienced Rolfing sessions nuike z'aguestatements - "esoteric," "very painful," or"strange but helpful bodywork." We know thatRoi;fing Sf is not jllst allother bodywork method,but do we lIIa1wge to convey this? Yes, thegmpity story does nutke sense to many people,but dealing 'witil posture does Hot generate muchexcitement, ~A/emight want to cOllsiderfindingttnother story to reinvent ourselves.

During a R..olfMopement workshop with KeviniI12(J1O, lfelt a "click" in my mind aboui houibody movement affects the orain. Ttuu inspired/I year of self-study anriappiicatioll. There mightbe potential to explain our work anew - andmore accurately - through neuroscience. 111this light, I interviewed Kevin, 7.1'i1O has takenideas from scientific studies, espeCially fromneuroscience, and collllecled the findings totohni we do as Rolfers. 111 my interview withKevin, I was particularly interested ill how 10tmnslate these conclusiolls for other medicalprofessioJll!ls and for laypeople.

35

Sabine Weis: Over several years,Rolfcrs and the Rolf Institute" of StructuralIntegration (RIS1) have become more andmore interested in science. Some possibleexplanations of how and why the Rolfingprocess 'works have been found. Kevin,why are Rolfing 51 and neuroscience agood team?

Kevin Frank: Luckily for us, science,especially neuroscience/brain science,seems to suggest that the brain is formedon an ongoing basis. Researchers keepfinding more evidence supporting thisview. Structural integration is likely to be anexample of this ongoing formation.

SW: But science takes time, and if we waituntil our concept is supported we all mightbe very old. So what can we do until then?

KF: We can point to analogous procC'ssesthat arc well-studied, ones in whichbehavioral changes and brain changes arecorrelated. We hitchhike on these studies.It's now quite plausible.

SW: The concept seems complicated, evenfor health experts and doctors. How did youbecome interested in neuroscience?

KF: First, I agree that we need ways toground the abstraction of brain plasticityand postural plasticity in simple examples;otherwise the "new explanation" willnot help. To answer your question, itwas a natural progression that startedwith satisfaction about the experience ofreceiving, observing, and beginning to dothe work, but great dissatisfaction withthe story we were told about what we aredoing and why it worked. Ida [Rolf] saidthat fascia is plastic and therefore bodyposture is plastic. Attractive notion. Asso well summarized in Robert Schleip'swriting [sec bibliography], the fascia ismuch more likely a conduit of informationto the brain about movement and positionthan it is a set of guy wires that hold it ina certain position. Hubert Godard's workdemonstrated that what we call "structure"can change in a few seconds or minutesbefore ou r eyes and then often change backagain. He showed how the fault is often notthe tissue but the way tissue is orchestrated.Suddenly we are left with a great new idea:posture and coordination are the productof our way of perceiving and making theworld up in our imagination. Viow.

SW: Do you ever expose your clients tothis insight - we make the world up inour imagination?

36

KF: VVe must first re-define the word"imagination." Vv'e think of imagmation.generally, as just making things up orpretending something that is not real. Thatis imagination that belongs to the thinkingprocess. Imagination is the foundationof much more than thought. r n tact theworld is something we "imagine" in orderto perceive it. Th,1t'S a wa , of describingthe mechanism behind w h at we callexperiencing the world .. And the waywe perceive the world shapes our bodyand our movement. Coriver selv, how weimagine our bod)' affects how we sec theworld and how we move as well. VVeareusually somewhat stuck in our ways ofimagining the world and our body. Becauseour perception tends toward what Gibsoncalls "invariant" versions of what we see,even if the world around us changes, wetend to feel the world is constant, but it'sour perception that is. Our imagination canbe plastic. Ideas about the world, about ou rbody, 'Ire based on what we have been toldor what we learn {rom our family, school,and training. Some of these ideas lead tobody dysfunction. And our work is aneffective approach to evoking plasticity inthe 'ways we imagine our body.

What I am describing are the layers of"body image" that are associated withrestriction. Tf a person is told to position[his] pelvis in a certain way, for example,this is a way of imagining the body - 'wearc steered by automatic images withinour subconscious. \Vhat we are doing instructural integration is helping peoplefeel how imagination can liberate us fromunhelpful images. For example, learning toarouse a palpable feeling of omnidirectionalspace surrounding the head is a \yay ofusing conscious imagination to supportorientation to space. The latter form ofimagination uses an image to arouse' nativemotor intelligence. I describe this to clientsby distinguishing imagination that speaksto the thinking brain versus imaginationthat speaks to the "movement brain" orthe sensorimotor system, [which] is a placewhere our conscious awareness can affect theparts of us beyond OLi I' conscious awareness.

SW: How do you raise the topic for newclients?

KF: Beginning with the first phoneconversation, I introduce what I wouldcall the "new story." That's what's exciting:we have a new story that is going to bequite different from the P.T., the D.C., theM.D., the massage person, or the traditional

structural integration story. The story isabout how coordination gets shaped, howit isn't meant to change casually but wehave a combination of things that help ithappen. According to what the personcan understand the explanation differs.And I offer concrete examples of howcoordination becomes corrupted, overtime, or during some incident, how we(appropriately) need to resort to effort,and how compensatory patterns of motorcontrol can often fail to reset, leaving thebody functioning in an efforted state. Whatdoes an efforted state look like? It is the bodyworking against its own inhibition. It's thebody using last-line-of-defense muscles firstand first-line-of-defense muscles last. It's Clstate of motor-control confusion and we seeit everyday. The tascia story was convincinguntil it became obsolete. Now the fascia-as-plastic theory is both incomplete - becauseit really doesn't describe why posturechanges - and unfortu nately it is also moreand more physically improbable.

SW: Probably not all golfers think thefascia story is obsolete. What made youstop using it? Do you think both fields couldcomplement somehow?

KF: Vle really don't know if some aspectsof the fascia-as-plastic story are true ornot. I keep waiting to hear somethingdefinitive but I don't hear it yet. Schlcip'swriting is pretty convincing. I don't knowhow many members of our communityhave necessarily read it or integrated histhinking into the teaching. Most S1 peopleusually talk about fascia being plastic. Myofficial position is that I will not say it'sfalse until pro\'en one way or another, butin the meantime it's not a smart wav totalk about our work. Vv'hat sours me is thefollowing: First, it lumps us into the basketwith all rnyofascial therapies, which areproliferating, and J think SI is not myofascialtherapy. Second, it lets our clients off thehook before we even start. TIle fascia storysays all we have to do is unglue the tanglesand stuck places in the fascia and life willbe just fine. 1 think fascial mobilization willhave a much greater effect when we enrollclients in the process, in participating inlasting coordinative change. Posture is acoordination. \,Vhile fascial mobilizationis a great input to change motor-controlpatterns - coordination - we want clientsto understand that what they do with theirminds and how they approach movementis every bit as important.

www.rolf.org

http://www.rolf.org

SW: What is the possible connection ofneuroscience to ou r work?

KF: It's not that neuroscience explains itdirectly, but it's now very close. You takewhat we know about fascia, motor control,perception, and pre-movement and youobserve changes in coordination beforeyour eyes and draw the conclusion thatfascia must be a great way to inform themotor-control system about better choices.

This means that what we call the functionaland structural taxonomies collapse as beingone and the same thing. We can continueto argue for teaching fascial mobilizationskills, a taxonomy of manipulation perhaps,and a taxonomy of coordinative education,but really fascial work is probably goingto turn out to be more about educationand less about repairing fibrous fixations.Schlcip's writing is quite effective in thisregard. Then we laboriously read aboutperception and motor control in the articlesthat Godard seems to effortlessly digest.They all pointed to this new idea being avery smart idea, but the picture didn't cometogether as neatly until functional MRI(fMRI) work propelled neuroscience intoa new field in which the brain's plasticitycould be observed directly.

Blakeslee and Doidge, and many others,saw this as a huge journalistic moment tosummarize. Now, it's quite easy to put thepieces together. Rather than research articleswith often difficult-to-discern implicationsfor our work, we have story after storydescribing amazing tales from clinicalpractice, that are then related to how brainchanges accompany the improvement infunction, It's easy to get carried away with"brain plasticity" as the explanation foreverything. It has become a bit of a fad. Still,the basic message has been revolutionary:behavior changes the brain, if the behavioris sustained. And we have the tools and theunderstanding to make this kind of lastingchange in the brain mapping of our clients.We have v','ays that people can feel how thebody behaves suddenly in ways of greaterease, greater length, greater spaciousness inthe face of demand.

SW: What does a person "on the street"know about neuroscience? Why would hebe interested? What do you say to describeRolfing 51 and what you do?

KF: It depends on the person but someversion of: "The programs that run ourmovement are full of corrupted code, likecomputer viruses. We clean up the code

www.rolf.org

"vith two powerful forms of education:fascial mobilization and perceptualand coordinative guidance. Our worksystematically and comprehensivelyrestores the body's native movementintelligence." People need some simplecxa mpl es to explain motor control, orcoordination. They want to make aconnection to what you know is great stuffbut to their ears sounds a bit abstract anddifferent from what anyone else is tellingthem - therefore suspect. Our trump cardis that INe know a lot about orientationand a lot about foundational orienation,which is orientation to gravity. This is theplace INhere biology, physics, and existencecome together. \I\Then we enroll a systemin working with this level of responsewe find greater plasticity to posture andcoordination. VVecan demonstrate howweight and space orientation changeseverything, and makes it fu nat th esame time.

SW: And imagine you only have thirtyseconds ....

KF: I give them the bra ke-and-gas-pedal-glued-together story. It's clear and anyonecan imagine it. Unglue the two and lifeis better. 1£ they give me five minutes,r give them some more based on whatthey already want in their life. I take thepredicament they offer me and explain howit could change based on things like howone prepares to move, or based on habitpatterns based on dealing with overloadat some point ill. life. Or I tell them thatthey may be usi ng secondary stabilitymuscles before they use primary - that's anexpensive choice they are making every daywithout knowing it. I use different stories,all based on motor-control models that arecorroborated by various pieces of research.

SW: What do physicians and psychologistsknow about neuroscience? How do youconnect to them about what we do?

KF: I am likely to talk about posture andlasting changes in posture derived frombetter mapping at the sensorimotor level. Ialso would add the business about primary,secondary, and tertiary stabilization. I alsomight speak about preparation to moveand the manner in which this relates tostability. We are always wise to find outwhat interests them before launching intoa lecture, and to give them a very specificconcrete example. In person, I have thempushonme and I respond with a defensivestrategy and contrast it with a strategy

STRUCTURAL lC;TE(;RATIO' / DECF\!DER 2012

built on perception and orientation. That'sthe best illustration - what you can showthem in your movement. People can see itright away. With psychologists, it's usefulto make the bridge between psychologicalsecuri ty and subcortical security basedon gravity orientation and orientationto "whcrr-" as opposed to "what." The"where and what model," well described inPailliard's writing for example, shows thatOLIT sensorimotor brain is mostly concernedwith "where" questions while our cognitivebrain is concerned with "what" questions."Where" information makes the bodyand sensorimotor system happier than"what" information - it provides thesecurity at a deeper level, below thought.The "where" and "what" mode] does agood job of fleshing out Rolf's claim thatstructural integration gets below the levelof conventional psychology.

SW: \,\Ihich models are your favoriteswhen referring to the body m,lp andrelated subjects?

KF: Noone in the field of neurophysiologyis going to hand us a new model on a plate.Vv'hatViC can do, however, is look at modelsof brain maps of the body - sensory maps,motor maps, even language maps - andsee that much of what we are doing isabout refreshing or reviving or enhancingmaps so the brain can make better choices.Further, we can look at the various waysthat the brain has been divided into corticaland subcortical processes, or "where"and "wh at " processes, and see that isvery attractive to speak about structuralintegration as being a way of speaking tosubcortical processes, the sensorimotorside of the equation. Now we arc doingwhat Pailliard was advocating: we arebridging the chasm between psychologicalapproaches to human improvement andneuroscience. further, we have authorssuch as Daniel Siegel who tell stories abouthow he and his colleagues worked for along time to find acceptance in the medicalworld for the idea that behavior changes thebrain. So he helped to con vince doctors thathow we meditate, how we process (thingslike Somatic Experiencing" for example),lead to integration of experience and thenchill1ges in brain activity, Vv'hat we add asstructural integrators is a package of toolsthat speak to the sensorimotor brain, to thesubcortical processes that lead to lastingshifts in posture and movement strategy.Bodies behave as if "hungry" for betterinformation at this level.

37

http://www.rolf.org

SW: How would you explain the conceptof "body maps"?

KF: You start by hel ping people realize thattheir brain map of the body has gotten abit generalized and vague. You bring alivea sensory distinction and you tell them,"Now your map has a clearer distinction,a dearer location of this part of the body.That leads to better movement choices thanbefore." The map story can accompanythe visual anatomy model and skillfulfascial touch. Also useful arc stories about"where" and "what" - the storv about IanWaterman who lost his proprioception (nowhere and substitute of what to make upfor it), and the blindsight phenomenon (all"where" and no "what") in which a personcannot consciously see an object but walkaround it to avoid walking into it; these aredramatic illustrations that ground the topicvery succinctly. A great book that illustrates"where" and "what" differentiation is Visionand Art: The Biolo,?,y of Seeing by MargaretLivingstone. She shows, for example, howskillful artists build coded messages toour "where" brain. This gives the paintingimpact in ways ,\ie feel without knowingwhy at a conscious level.

SW: Terms like "sensorimotor control"and "secondary stabilization" sound quitetheoretical. Which concrete examples orstories do you use?

KF: "Sensorimotor" means the ["movementbrain," the] part of the brain that doesn'trequire conscious thinking, that actsautomatically, faster than we can think.You feel [its] intelligence when you tie yourshoes in a flash. But there is much moreto the sensorimotor brain than just littlecoordinative patterns. It is the subcorticalpart of the equation for keeping us uprightand for perceiving what our body needs toknow, bu t we don't notice it consciously."Secondary stabilization" is about is usingthe auxiliary muscles before we use theones that axe for normal levels of stability.It's very "expensive" for clients - they lift ajugof milk [and] squeeze the abdomen andclench the pelvic floor, either because somewell-intentioned but misinformed exerciseteacher told them to, or because they hadan accident and never stopped bracing, orbecause they are in some state of fear ordefensi veness all the time. For whateverreason, they are using a motor pattern thatshould be saved for loads that are verylarge and in which the primary stabilizersturn on first.

38

SW: Does neuroscience offer anyexplanation about the relevance of instinctsor automatisms? And how would you linkthis to Rolling SI?

KF:Ithink neuroscience and developmentalpsychologists have been trying to figure outwhat is "hard wired" and what is learnedfor a long time. The current thinking, as Iunderstand it, is an example of dynamicsystems process. Anatomy predisposesus to movement that we learn more orless inevitably if given the opportunity toplay and explore as children. V,'e developautomatic subroutines that save the brainthe trouble of making it all lip from scratcheach time a similar movement is called for.People often live with the assumption thatyou can train to learn a new movement.But Rolfers help people as much to unlearnexpensive automatic routines, learnedduring moments of pressure or overwhelm,or just plain unhelpful guidance from well-meaning educators.

SW: How do YOLl guide clients to easilyfollow your suggestions?

KF: How do we help people find ease inlearning new simple things that, at first,make them feel stupid? You want to startwith slowing down the learning process;figure out the learning style of the client,make success easy at the beginning andrefer back to that baseline. Teach the skillsthat precede learning movement such assensory awareness, conscious awarenessof orientation, conscious awareness of feltsense. You want to make the process fun.IVe learn most when we are having fun.

SW: How would you guide clients whenthey ask "What am Isupposed to feel?" or"What does this have to do with my pain? rr

KF: Start early with teaching the client theauthority of his experience and [noticingthe] contrast between doing some simplemovement from effort and from ease.Make it very simple so there is no questionof skill. For example, "push my hand likeyou want to do a good job of pushing; nowlet go of the good job, and feel your skin asyou push." [Look] for, [coach] for, responsesthat involve length rather than contraction,the capacity to grow more spacious in theface of demand. Learn what the clientlikes. Help clients build a vocabularyof experience and remember that whatresources them is the path to finding easeand flow and often relief from pain.

STRUCTUR,\ t, INTr-:cRATION !DErnlBER 2012

The body learns new coordination byrepetition. It's that simple. We are mostlyhelping the person to interrupt the oldpattern, by stopping, by slowing down,by inhibiting the old one, with sufficientsupport and safety so it's not overwhelming.Then we teach what to pay attention to asthe initiation of the movement begins. Eachtime the old pattern shows up, we stop andgo slower and find better resource. In theabsence of the effort pattern, the automaticsystem can have a chance to manifest ease.The body automatically repeats what it likesand likes what feels easier, all other thingsbeing equal. But we often need to supportpeople to do that because all things aren'tequal, People have been taught to struggleand work harder, right?

SW: Sure. That is what most of us learnat school, from our parents, and what weassume is expected by bosses at work.One question [clients have] about what isachieved during Rolfing sessions is "willit last?"

KF: New posture and new movements lastwhen the client likesit and on reflection CaJ1allow it, meaning it is not in conflict withsome aspect of the psyche. One needs tohelp the client find the secondary benefit ofthe former pattern; that is quite importantand part of the ecology of change. Then theclient needs to find the new coordination,using his own cue, not yours necessarily.And then the client needs to find ways tointegrate the new movement into life attimes and places that feel safe and easiest.And clients need to talk to us about all ofthis, to have LIS listen to what has workedand what hasn't so they can organize theirexperience. And self-care exercises areimportant, ones done in small doses thatfeel good to do . If we change coordination,we assume this will be lasting.

SW: 111emodel, here, is about coordinationand communication working together,instead of in conflict. It takes time to growinto thinking that way; creating stabilityconstantly and speaking about actual bodyexperience. Going into the experiencecan also be tricky. What do you say toguide [that]?

KF: I attempt to get people used totracking and being tracked in their sensoryexperience. nus is not unique to my work ofcourse. But it's a huge way to "guide" eitherverbally or nonverbally by following therhythm, sensory experience, and meaningimpulses of the client. Often just listening

www.rolf.org

http://www.rolf.org

is the best guidance because it supports theself-regulatory and self-discovery processof the cl ient. As one tracks the client, onetracks one's own body experience. Thisdevelops a co-resonant state in which thepatterns that are no longer needed tend tobe the most willing to release. I think thisreinforces the mapping process in the brain,by the way.

SW: Thank you very much, Kevin, I feelexcited that a bit of your experience canbe presented here to make sense of thisfascinating field of neuroscience. I seethis as great opportunity to keep up withacademic developments, as well as valuingeven more the Rolfing work.

Sabine Wcis is !l Roljer ill Frankjur), Germany.Kevin Frank is Il Rolf b/uroemeni Instructorwith IIpractice ill Holdernes«, New Hampshire.

BibliographyBlakeslee, S. and M. Blakeslee, The BodyHas a lvTind of Its 01011. New York: RandomHouse, 2007.

Doidge, N., The Brain that Changes Itself.New York: Penguin, 2007.

Gibson, L 771.1'Senses Considered as PerceptualSysterns. \Vestport, CT: Greenwood Press,1966.

Livingstone, M" 'Visiol1 and Art: The Biologyof Seeillg. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002.

Pa il l ia r d , J., "Sensorimotor versusRepresentational Framing of Body Space,A Neural Basis for the Distinction BetweenBody Schema and Body Image." In H.de Preestcr, Body Image and Body Schema:Interdisciplin£lTY Perspectives on the Body.(Amsterdam: John Bcnjamins, 20~5).

Siegel, D., The Ne1lrobiology of "We" (audiorecordings). Louisville, CO: Sounds True,2008.

Schleip, R., "Fascial plasticity - a newneurobiological explanation." Part I andPart II. [ournal of Bodywork and MovementTherapies, April 2003, pp. 11-19 and104-116.

www.rolf.org

http://www.rolf.org

Ntr13F7.PDF