Rolfing is performed by adjusting the energy fields in an individual’s body. The fields are manipulated by an individual who is trained in structural integration. Many times, hands are never even laid upon the individual who is receiving the treatment. Often, the patient simply relaxes and allows the individual performing the task to adjust the patient’s energy fields by discovering blockages in certain energy fields, and then subsequently adjusting those energy fields in order to restore them back to unobstructed paths within and around the body. This in turn has the potential to increase the health of the patient. The results can be real. However, Western medicine still refuses to accept that this can be an effective treatment option. Individuals are increasingly looking for ways to supplement their health, including receiving nontraditional medicinal treatment. This unfortunately creates something of a tug of war between the patient and the insurance company, as they routinely decline to pay for any treatments which are not considered mainstream.

One of the groups of individuals who are most severely affected by the decision of the insurance companies not to pay for alternative treatment is those who are receiving home health treatment. These individuals are often older and on a fixed income. Many of them do not have the financial means to pay for treatment out of their own pocket, alternative or otherwise. Sadly, this typically limits them to receiving only the treatments that are covered by their insurance companies. In an ironic twist of fate, the very demographic that may be assisted most by alternative treatment is often incapable of exploring these options.

In some communities, providers of home health services are beginning to take notice of these issues which are faced by so many individuals. In some rare cases, the home health industry is attempting to integrate both mainstream and alternative treatment options. For some individuals, the ability to receive alternate forms of treatment makes all the difference in giving back that person a chance at living life to the fullest. As more programs explore the effectiveness of providing alternate forms of treatment, there is real hope that techniques such as Rolfing will become more mainstream.

The real beneficiaries here are the patients. Any time that additional treatment options are made available, the patient has the potential to benefit from it. In addition, it is necessary to expose a greater section of the population to alternative forms of medicine as a means of providing a more complete picture of overall health, as well as determining the general effectiveness of certain alternative treatments within the public.

These measures are taken in the larger corporations, where everybody’s errors do add up to unreasonable financial and market losses. In today’s technological environment, with the extremely fast expansion of the web, error can have dramatic effects, as newer modernly organized organizations can use this technology to become quickly market leaders and leave the traditional providers behind.

One of the key concepts of quality, as taught in the business world is the Zero Error concept. Just like our “ideal integrated body”, zero error doesn’t mean you have to be there, but you have to commit yourself to try your best to get there, otherwise someone will beat you to it, trying harder than you are. In the real world of the Economy, Error has to actually be a measured concept. Otherwise, how could one improve one’s quality? There are 2 areas where our community “error” is unacceptable: The choice of a wrong imaging system is one of them.

The other is the fact that our gurus sensitivities doesn’t allow the most efficient use of information technology (through a federated web forum and web information resource center, instead of individual communities not talking to each other); think about it, every similar question (same medical condition for ex.) that is asked by 4 different students (or MD or general public) in four different schools will get one answer from his/her school, instead of the answers of all schools.

A truly web-integrated profession such as Biomechanics offer a wonderful illustration of communication beyond schools divisions, with their over 30,000 members: Suppliers, schools, Ph.D.s, students, general public, MDs, etc. can find all kinds of answers. You bet it has boosted their whole profession to a scale that could not be achieved without co-operation of all institutions! By the way, discussion groups and professional forums are a major component of the Internet and contributed to its expansion long before web pages and browsers were even invented.

But this is another subject isn’t it? And it looks like we are just going to have to wait a generation or two, before the imprint of our elders lack of perspective finally fades away. For reference it happened just like that with the Alexander Technique (One of the root components of Ida’s work), whose schools were very divided for a few generations before they created an integrated Federation, instead of fighting over who has got the best version of the teaching.

This is very serious: how much community leaders impose both their qualities and their flaws. However, we do not have to make the same technological choices. In this case “alternative” is a figure of speech: our founder was of the scientific world after all. Some options can, I am convinced, bring all of us closer to that original spirit, instead of encouraging non-conclusive, non-productive, and egocentric studies, absolutely non-exploitable by scientific standards, and from then by the whole world, which will keep ignoring us just as long and just as much as we ignore it.

However, this is no excuse to not answer the issues I address on this subject, to not read, to not show the slimmest interest. The subject is to important, and I have made enough noise, for this to not attract some attention.

There are those who don’t want to know, and might sadly never read me (or pretend not to read me), to the point of not answering openly to direct open critiques and suggestions. There are those so comfortably installed on their guru throne, that it has become very hard for them to even hear anything that makes sense, especially when these things that make sense do question their moral authority and the soundness of their investment choices.

This attitude has a name in French: the Ostrich way, because ostriches hide their head in the sand when a predator shows up. That way they don’t see the danger, and if it kills and eats one of their kind, what is left alive can start running, but mostly pretend they haven’t seen anything.

It may seem that the actual expert in Video Imaging entrusted by the schools has an obvious interest in hiding all these wonders that technology has to offer. I am talking about Jeff LINN, current promoter of the NIH at both the Rolf Institute and the Guild for SI. However, I am not convinced that this is the right way of looking at individual’s interests and fidelities:

If the schools decided to take a more advanced system, they would still need a computer expert to not only look for the right options, but also make the acquired system run… Jeff Lynn doesn’t have to be denied the awards of his long efforts within our community to sensitize our elders into getting equipped in the first place,

Even if it is might have been a wrong technological choice (data not exploitable by the scientific community to evaluate our effectiveness, does not promote full data disclosure, no numbered comparisons Before-After, the developer of the macros is not a PH.D. or a Masters in Biomechanics, etc.).

Lately Jeff let me know that he is working on getting the skills (mathematician) to accomplish the adjustments. For over 5 years, at least one other solution was available. How long more do we need before we can play in the grand court of science and worldwide communication?

By the way I will always be admiring Jeff LINN for these efforts, more so now that I know that the people he had to convince are being extremely reluctant to new ideas, to the point of not reading my messages.

Watch for the wolf! Yes you can ignore my writings, but none will miss the real danger when it strikes. And we will wake up one day realizing that there is a mainstream version of Ida’s work, with an initial ten series just like Structural Integration that is established through all kinds of Bodywork, Physical Therapy, clinics, etc.

Throughout the world (and I am sure it has already started). Only this time it might be called the “John Doe method of Postural and Movement re-patterning” or so, and History will record John Doe for a while before justice can be made to Ida P. Rolf, our founder.

The real interesting part is that it wouldn’t matter then that our schools had such a small vision of our potential market. Ultimately Ida’s “vision” and the recipe win, and the clients too; but what a waste of time. Of course, the losers are Structural Integrators, practitioners of Rolfing (®!), our dear schools, but mostly, all the victims of our stupidity, that in the meantime had to do with fewer options for their own healing, simply because we didn’t tell them: “Hello we are here, this is what we do, and this is how good we usually are”.

I am not talking about merely putting up a few web pages, but about reaching out to the maximum scale, so that people of all kinds end up visiting those pages, because they might use some work, or their patients, friends, etc.

This forum unites Schools, Faculty, Students, Ph.D.s, Masters, Publishers, Suppliers, Job searches and offers, etc. throughout the world, relating to Biomechanics, … By the way this site is a model our community could use instead of the historical divisions by schools, as it is much more efficient in researching and accessing information, and expanding everyone’s knowledge about the subject. The big areas, Posture, Gait, and Movement analysis, of the human body, but also other species.

Systems vary in the technology they use: often it starts with a Video acquisition (usually several cameras for gait and movement, one for posture only), but some systems can be expanded to use very specific acquisition devices such as weight sensitive hardware, etc. Of course they provide all kinds of 3D models for the entertainment industry: movies, cartoons, computer animations, etc…

They are taking the human movement into all kinds of little pieces, as well as general integrated Posture-gait-general-movements analysis. the top systems can tell you how imbalanced gait is (R-L, Phase Timing…) as well as if the patient is faking the complaint (for insurances), or how much off-Plumb Line people are in standing Posture.

They are on the edge of measuring Movement Harmony, equilibrium positions (of walking, running, etc.). They are discovering and refining everyday, in computer and mathematical terms, among other things, the gravity plumb line, the “ideal” posture, the “ideal” gait, “ideal” movements. They are novelizing what we thrive to experience.

Of course they are also deeply involved in the philosophical and sensual debates of Posture-Gait-Movement analysis. What am I saying(?): they ARE at the core of those reflections. This brings up the questions: shouldn’t we be involved in these debates, where philosophy meets science and where science thrives to meet the ultimum experience of a “perfect Body”. Shouldn’t our very own Integrated Body model be confronted to the latest scientifically operational models?

When I look at our literature from the 70′s (our very own textbook), I think I see that Ida Rolf herself was certainly not closed to documenting and analyzing our results in a format that others would understand (especially science: the single reference for the world of decision makers). Her academic strong scientific background suggests that she would actually be quite open to fully disclosed statistical reports (see: case study).

A system that lets everyone including doctors, insurances, and researchers know exactly how much change happened for all clients (objective because automatically generated, and outwards oriented, towards efficient marketing and full data disclosure). To put it bluntly, keeping the existing imaging system that merely serves our own self indulgence and egocentric view of our work is not going to open any significant door for our profession.

Of course, in order to be credible, a serious study should show all data, not just selected clients. In other words, to fully benefit from a system, we have to be willing to show all clients postural grades before and after, not just those that have significantly changed in the process. This state of mind seems to me very different than.

The one modern biomechanical systems promote. With our current system, changes are so hard to be seen by untrained eyes, the temptation is huge to show only those records where everyone can see a positive change. Question: do you think responsible health professionals trust that kind of incomplete data? …

With an automatic computer analysis, the temptation might still be there, especially in the absence of proper impartial supervision, but we can rely on the machine to actually see for us the changes that are not obvious on a picture (some of those systems are very precise, even make up for what they can’t really see, with sophisticated algorithms). And therefore, it is my estimation that “almost” all changes will be noticed by the system.

And we might have a few “no change” or even negative changes that won’t hurt the statistics at all; as a matter of fact, without those few extremes (no change, and negative changes), statistics would look suspicious and unnatural. So, the spirit of NO censorship, of disclosing ALL clients results would be smoothly and naturally promoted, which is a must for the credibility of statistical studies.