New awareness has shown me that I’ve never used my diaphragm correctly. I can’t be the only person to realize I’ve only grazed the surface of something I thought I understood perfectly well.  Maybe you too have experienced something like this. Breathing in the Rearview Mirror I’ve always included breathing in my teaching and writing. But a revived interest in breathing has shown me how little I’ve actually understood about it, and how inefficiently my own body has been doing it, for decades.  I now see—and fully feel—that I’ve never used my diaphragm completely.  Yikes! Th ..read more

Sometimes the road goes uphill more than you anticipate. I was prepared for the summer’s predicted heat to be challenging for a couple of reasons:  1) elderly people are greatly affected by hot weather—at 80, I am officially “elderly”—and 2) heat is stressful and any kind of stress exacerbates symptoms of parkinsonism. I didn’t expect to be stopped in my tracks. I had plans—workshops I was going to teach, research I was going to do. Instead, I spent vast amounts of time reading detective novels and taking long afternoon naps. Dehydration Because it affects the autonomic nervous system, P ..read more

Relationship Between Support and Openness    Recall a time when you let yourself be vulnerable—when your heart opened—and ended up bruised. Someone took advantage of your generosity or in some way abused your tenderness. The sinking sensation you felt then may be poignant even now. A sinking sensation suggests that at that time you lacked foundation for your feelings. Later on, and with luck, you developed ways to support your openness. Although hardening your heart was an option, you chose instead to back it up with solid friendships, nourish it with creative endeavors, and str ..read more

One of my online coaching clients — I’ll call her Sally — is 85 years old and has fallen in the street several times. Watching her walk, it’s easy to see why she falls. Her legs rotate outward to about 45 degrees and her feet are set wide apart—beyond her torso.  For each tiny step forward, she tilts her whole body sideways. With stiff ankles, knees, and hips, her movement has a puppet-like quality.  The wide stance feels stable to Sally when she’s standing still, but any movement threatens to topple her forward or back, even when she uses her walking sticks. Sally hates catching gl ..read more

Stopped in My Tracks I’ve had a long-time bias against Physical Therapy. It seemed to me that PTs addressed only one body part at a time (whatever part the supervising physician prescribed) and that every problem was regarded as weakness.  When my Rolfing® Structural Integration clients demonstrated their PTs’ homework regimens, the exercises were always for building strength. It seemed as though anything wrong or painful in the body could only be corrected by getting stronger. As a Rolfer dedicated to restoring holistic order, I found this notion of “strength is everything” rather simpli ..read more

A Map Whether your client is seeking your help for better artistic or athletic performance, or for deeper personal embodiment, your role as coach is to accompany her on a journey through her body. As “tour guide”, you need understanding, empathy, rapport, and creativity.  These were the themes of Part One of these notes. You also need a theory, a map that tells you where you are with the client and keeps you from getting lost. And you need a portmanteau of techniques—exercises, meditations, experiments, explorations—ways to help your client become at ease with unfamiliar terrain of hersel ..read more

Compare the movement of humans crossing a busy intersection with that of a herd of antelope crossing a savannah. In one scene you sense synchrony; in the other, cacophony.  We humans are both blessed and cursed with individuality. We are crooked, elegant, awkward, expansive, hunched, rigid, powerful. The diversity of our attitudes keeps politicians up at night.  And offers the student of the human body a lifetime’s worth of challenge and learning. Is it possible to help a twisted body move with grace and efficiency? Yes, but it takes understanding, empathy, rapport, creativity and t ..read more

Conventional approaches to improving posture typically posit alignment of head, shoulders and spine. But however carefully tutored the upper body may be, improvement in uprightness is unsustainable so long as pelvis and hips lack appropriate foundation, orientation, mobility and adaptiveness. Ida Rolf was adamant about this. In fact, one might suggest that Rolf’s 10-session protocol can be interpreted as “ten steps to freeing the pelvis.” Pelvic Design Shaped like a gently molded figure-8, the pelvis receives the scaffolding of the upper body through the sacrum.  Legs and thighs rise from ..read more

I had great fun speaking with show hosts, Nikki Olsen and Andrew Rosenstock.  Our chat covered a lot of ground:  Ida Rolf and the Principles of Rolfing, what Fuller’s idea of tensegrity has to do with organizing bodies, the notion of perceptual tensegrity, Godard’s tonic function theory, the importance of rapport between client and practitioner.  And I offered an answer to the question, “What is Rolf Movement®?” Even if you’re not a practitioner of Structural Integration, I think you’ll enjoy listening to our gabfest.   © 2021 Mary Bond ..read more

Throughout history, harvest time has evoked traditions of giving thanks. Today our connection with nature’s bounty tends to be shrink-wrapped. But giving thanks for our blessings as the year draws to a close continues to be meaningful.  What are the sensations of gratitude? I might say, “I’m so grateful for today’s rain.” (There’s a drought in California.) But those words, that thought, is an interpretation of bodily experience.  Our feelings are seeded within our bodies. I know I’m grateful because of what I feel in my body. It’s easy to distinguish the feeling of gratitude from th ..read more