Fascia or connective tissue, is our Organ of form. It is the filmy, white, and sometimes transparent substance that surrounds and penetrates all of your muscles, ligaments and tendons and wraps your bones, nerves and organs. It forms an all pervasive 3-dimensional web that holds in place every other structure in your body and also transmits the forces produced by your musculature to create your gestures and movements.
Without enough movement, and particularly after injury, our fascia can thicken and become less mobile, hydrated, and elastic, which can diminish our ability to fully use the potential of our body. In the course of your sessions, your Rolfer spreads, separates and moulds your fascia to create more elasticity, evenness of tone, and fluidity in your tissues, thus giving your body more balance, resilience, adaptability and ease.
The Neural-Fascial Web is a relatively new term that we use to describe the relationship of the fascial web with the nerves of the nervous system which interpenetrate all throughout it. This web maps all the parts of the body into a part of the brain called the homunculus. It is a living adaptable map that we use to know what precisely we can control, and we feed and update with our every movement. Through the Rolfing process, we build new information into your brain map so that your possibility for using your body in new ways increases. Basically, to be able to hold your body in a more efficient, graceful posture, you need to know that the potential for that posture exists. The Rolfing process helps map those potentials in your brain.