What does the hand of the massage therapist do? Does it glide oil over the body, soothe the skin, quiet the mind? How does someone go from a bundle of jumpy over-primed muscles and fascia to the clear, calm and collected?I think most therapists have a thousand answers to the question. I’ve had more than a few. I was reading Ida Rolf’s classic book and I think I found a good explanation: We boot.
Yes, we boot.
A bit like what happens when the computer gets slow, the screen gets fuzzy. We hit the switches that take the system down and bring it back up and in doing so restore order. Everything works well again.
Rolf talks about the “glue” we feel under the skin, a material I think more often as “wet cement” in which tissues are just glommed together without orientation or separation. The hand of the therapist knows what should be there and seeks it. The hand talks to each muscle, each tendon, conversing with structures that should glide and coordinate and reminds them of their purpose.
“This is the work, the energy that must be contributed by the hand of a practitioner before the chaotic undifferentiation gives way to orderly pattern.” Rolfing, by Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D. Chapter 2, p. 35.
Rolf has a way with words, and with tissues. When we boot, we find those areas that have stopped helping the body and have become dysfunctional. The touch communicates, restores and revives.
Rolfing is a great book. Makes a lot more sense the more massages I do.
1 comment:
Massage can help "reboot" the body by getting rid of the stress that the body feels. Great article you have here. Thanks!
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