The Ten Series

The Rolfing® Ten Series systematically addresses imbalances in your fascial network over the course of 10 sessions. It first frees your superficial fascia then addresses deep restrictions, with each session building upon the previous to create support for the next level of release. If you have never received Rolfing before, this is a good place to start.

Session 1: Enhance breath

The first session focuses on structures affecting breathing. We will differentiate your shoulder girdle and pelvis from your torso. These structures should slide and glide on the trunk, but fascial tensioning can “knit” them down, inhibiting breath and movement and effectively acting like a straight jacket.

Session 2: Provide support

The second session focuses on your lower legs and feet. This session is intended to better connect you to the ground and to provide a strong foundation of support for the rest of your body. We will also enhance the function of the ankle and the toes so that they can participate fully in sensing the ground and in propelling you through space with ease as you walk.

Session 3: Open the sides

The third session focuses on the side “seams” of your body from your ears to your lateral ankles. The goals of this session are: To give your body more space from front to back, and to better organize you around an imaginary plumb-line from head to heels, through which gravity moves most efficiently.

Session 4: Connect lower body to core

The fourth session organizes your legs in relationship to your core by addressing restrictions in the “medial line” of the lower body — from feet and ankles to inner thighs and pelvis. The goal is to encourage a sense of effortless lift from the legs into the muscular hammock of the pelvic floor. This reduces strain on the legs, provides support for the organs, and helps activate the deep postural muscles.

Session 5: Connect upper body to core

The fifth session extends the lift achieved in session four up the front of the spine. The key structure in this session is the psoas muscle—a deep hip flexor that connects your legs to your low back. We will also address restrictions in your abdominals, chest, and neck to lengthen your whole front body.

Session 6: Open the back

Session six addresses the back of the body, starting with the calves and working up to your hamstrings, gluteal muscles, and the muscles supporting your spine. The goals of this session are to better organize your pelvis on top of your legs, to differentiate spine from pelvis, and to support and organize the natural curves of your back.

Session 7: Orient the head on the spine

The seventh session focuses on your head, neck, and muscles of facial expression. It also includes work inside the mouth to release tension in the jaw. The goal of the session is to allow your head to rest with ease on top of your spine.

Session 8: Lower body integration

The eighth session is the first of three integration sessions that close the Ten Series. The work will be lighter during this and the subsequent sessions, and you will be asked to be more involved—for instance flexing or extending a joint during the work or focusing your breath more consciously. In this eighth Rolfing session, we will focus primarily on any remaining trouble areas in your lower body.

Session 9: Upper body integration

The ninth session, another integration session, will focus primarily on any remaining trouble areas in your upper body.

Session 10: Whole-body integration

The last session of the Rolfing Ten Series covers the entire body. The work is more superficial as we address any restrictions affecting healthy movement at your joints. ✦

“Some individuals may perceive their losing fight with gravity as a sharp pain in their back, others as the unflattering contour of their body, others as constant fatigue, yet others as an unrelentingly threatening environment. Those over forty may call it old age. And yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem so prominent in their own structure that it has been ignored: they are off balance, they are at war with gravity.” - Dr. Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D.