I greatly enjoy spending time outdoors. My husband and I love to backpack, hike, kayak, and camp. Yoga, swimming, gardening, and cooking are also activities I enjoy. I absolutely love to read and learn new things. Rolfing® is a passion and I find the human body profoundly fascinating. The main reason I became a bodyworker was my desire to help others. After high school, I worked as a certified dental assistant for ten years. I developed chronic headaches and neck pain from my job; fortunately I found myofascial release and deep tissue massage which were effective at reducing my painful symptoms. I was in search of an occupational change and after much consideration began classes at East West College of the Healing Arts in Portland, Oregon. I graduated in spring of 2013 as a licensed massage therapist starting a private practice focused on structural bodywork. Approaching the body in a holistic way has always made sense to me. Why treat symptoms of pain and restricted range of motion when you could learn how to address the main cause of the concern? I continued to read, study, and take continuing education from structural integration practitioners. I enrolled in The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration summer of 2015, finishing the program and becoming a Certified Rolfer™ winter of 2016. Rolfing Structural Integration has profoundly changed my life. Receiving this work has taught me how to listen and work with my body, enabling me to move with increased efficiency and ease, resulting in more energy and vitality to better enjoy my life. Rolfing has offered me many new options in moving, standing, sitting, and being, so I operate less on autopilot and am consciously choosing what works best for me. I credit Rolfing with allowing me to move with ease the way I imagined possible in my mind, for most of my life this wasn’t the case. While I wouldn’t consider myself uncoordinated before my first Rolfing 10 Series, it felt like I had excess tension and exerted too much effort in everyday life. This changed after the 10 Series, my joints and tissues felt like they had been oiled and freed like the rusty tin man from Wizard of OZ. My overall bodily tension greatly reduced and my mind seemed to know better where all of its moving parts were.  I truly believe that Rolfing is a gift to both give and receive.

 

 


 

“When a body is in pain or discomfort, whether physical or emotional, the unconscious response is to tighten and shorten in an effort to “get away” from the pain. Rolfing focuses on lengthening and balancing the body in order for the tightened tissues to have some place to go after the release.” – Dr. Ida P. Rolf

 

 

“If you can imagine how it feels to live in a fluid, light, balanced body, free of pain, stiffness and chronic stress, at ease with itself and the gravitational field, then you will understand the purpose of Rolfing.” – Jeffrey Maitland, PhD