Feeling Your Substance - Besel Van der Kolk on Trauma, Rolfing and Yoga

How Rolfing and yoga are important for healing trauma. Trauma is in the body. "If people need to overcome the trauma, we need to also find methods to bypass what we call the tyranny of language." -Bessel van der Kolk

Human memory is a sensory experience, says psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. Through his longtime research and innovation in trauma treatment, he shares what he's learning about how bodywork like yoga or eye movement therapy can restore a sense of goodness and safety. What he’s learning speaks to a resilience we can all cultivate in the face of the overwhelming events — which, after all, make up the drama of culture, of news, and of life. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/restoring-the-body-bessel-van-der-kolk-on-yoga-emdr-and-treating-trauma/5801

Ida Rolf Describes Structural Integration

Classic! I couldn’t describe the work better myself.  Below are two videos of the woman who created ‘Rolfing’ or Structural Integration, Ida P. Rolf.  Back in her day there was a lot more use of the metaphor of stacked blocks to describe the body and it’s alignment, though her understanding was incredibly nuanced.  I remember hearing Joseph Heller (created Hellerwork) tell a story about how they were at a restaurant and when a waiter walked in wearing a suit, she could pick out that his quadratus lumborum was short.  Amazing.