Page Contents:

1: “Fleshing Out” what S.I.

2: Who this is for

3: Session Outline

4: Series Outline

5: Policies

1: What are some of the ideas behind your practice

There’s a lot we do in S.I. (Structural Integration)

Mostly, I use gentle hand-on directional pressure in specific ways while you do gentle movements and breathing.

This work helps in single sessions, and is wholly transformative as a literal journey over the Series of 10 sessions.

Both of us want each session to be worth your time and money, and I commit to let people know if a session or series won’t be greatly helpful. For most people, it is; I can tell based on my assessments before we commit to try a session.

To fully understand how and why it works, it’s first important you know that I deeply believe healthy ways of living our emotional, social and physical lives all mirror each other.

But to illustrate and learn about how SI helps, read on:

1A: The Village Analogy

Our body is a community, just like a family or village. In the happiest family or village, everyone feels like a friend. 

In S.I., we are focused on helping our unique internal village of connective tissue. Every member of our village has different talents and responsibilities to help contribute to a thriving community.
But what happens if some villagers stop contributing, because they feel neglected (and finally, depressed)? The other villagers have to pick up the slack.

Those villagers become either resentful or neurotic/fearful because they know they have so much responsibility! So they begin making a lot of noise, which manifests as aching and soreness.

What happens if we ignore that villager’s stressed condition? They burn out. They crash. Then the whole village starts crashing. This is what causes pain.

So how can we help? By encouraging the depressed family member/villager that it is loved and appreciated- to inviting them to the party (which is what living in a body can feel like).

Then, the overworked-stressed villager can get rest. There can be emotional release. They can feel loved and supported again, they can do what they love and are good at with joy and love, instead of stress and fear, feeling like they need to clench all the time, 

1B Encouraging the Villagers and Village to be Open-Minded:

That illustrates the “What” but not the “How” we work. The How is to change both of those villagers’ perspectives. 

We can ARGUE, IGNORE, SHAME, or use passive-aggression with them. This rarely ends well 😂

We need to change their minds by making them feel validated and encouraged of their worth 💗

They have beliefs of who they are and what they need to do. 

Just like them, we live our lives through the lens of our beliefs of what is normal. But, since we only ever live in this one body and mind our entire lives, everything is already normal to ourselves (the village).

So to feel different, we need to be curious about our beliefs and if we’d prefer different ones.

This may seem like semantic minutiae, but is critical if we really want our lives to become a life-long adventure!

We think walking, sitting, standing is normal for us. And it is! Our bodies are our literal autobiography which our cells and genes are constantly scribing and editing!

So we feel the same, yet our bodies are always already editing and remodeling itself. See the issue? This frog in boiling water sets the precedent for aches and pains. We are resisting and ignoring the moments and months where our body is sharing how our story is changing. And it’s SO easy to ignore in our speedy lives- BUT “good posture” (which is simply “feeling good in how we embody ourselves with space”) should absolutely never feel like a struggle.

It’s only hard when we are fighting and ignoring signals of parts of our mind or bodies over time. We tell our village friends that they aren’t welcomed, even though they are part of us.

So we could realize our body’s autobiography and our mind’s autobiography sync-up. Only then, can we decide if it would feel good to “edit” our story, writing our chapters intentionally.

TL;DR 

Structural Integration helps us as a bottom-up approach. Changing our bodies so we can change our minds (And changing your mind is always our choice; you don’t have to do it. 

2: The Work
Those metaphors are amongst how I work and use Structural Integration to help. I’m here to help frustrated members of my literal community (with you and I both being villagers) and spot ways that they can feel better.

Within each session, and groups of sessions within the series (1-3, 4-7, 8-10) in this progression:

A: Witnessing: noticing what parts of the body are doing and how it moves and interact together

B: Communicating: 1) Make space/prep 2) deep conversation/connection 3) inviting the villager back into the community (limb work into the spine)

C: Playing: noticing what’s changed and doing easy movements with my contact to help it feel even better

You’ll notice in the communication phase:

1: is surface (“How has has your job and life been?”) 

2: is deep (“It sounds like you’ve been really struggling! I love you; is there anyway we can help you feel loved? Would you be open to trying X, Y, or Z with us?”) 

3: is middle (“okay, so we’ll be there at 7pm Tuesday night, what kind of food should we bring 🙂”)

That’s simply it! In the physical sense, a 10-Series is a “series” of conversations. But what I like about it, is that we can actually see and feel the differences physically, unlike actual conversations or therapy, where we can have a more subjective opinion of how helpful and nice those conversations were.

In summary, I love sharing S.I. because it feels tangible, unlike many other modalities which can rely on placebo effect. 

It helps posture and movement, but really, it’s a catalyst to enable realization that we are free to choose to change both physically and psychologically… when coupled with the right support from friends, whom you are filled with, and filling the space all around you.

“This is the gospel of Rolfing: when the body gets working appropriately, the forces of gravity can flow through. Then, spontaneously, the body heals itself.”

Dr. Ida P Rolf.

• Dr. Ida Rolf created Structural Integration (which had been called the term “Rolfing” as a result)
• SI (Structural Integration) is the philosophy that when our connective tissue pressure is equalized throughout our bodies, we are aligned, and the body can heal and self-regulate effectively for decades to come.
• Her Recipe of the 10-Series has been refined by artisan SI practitioners for over 50 years.
• The Recipe eliminates and addresses structural imbalances in the body, scoliosis, imbalanced hips, joints which are painful with arthritis, and resolves the root cause of the parts of our bodies which are tight compressed, and uncomfortable.
• The Guild for Structural Integration, located in Salt Lake City (Brice being a graduate), teaches the Recipe according to Dr. Rolf’s original interpretation of The Recipe
• I suggest clients try one session and see if it’s right for them.
• If you find Session One helpful, I recommend trying the first three sessions, and if you continue to be impressed by the results, I suggest continuing with the 10 Series. I will also be able to tell, based on my experience, whether you would be a good candidate or not.
• This work should feel relieving and calming, and is safe and painless. In all things, we want to work with your body, not against it. These sessions should never feel painful, they should feel rewarding and exciting.

What makes SI so different from massage, chiropractic, and other therapy is we respect the reality that our body is a process of interconnected systems which are always changing and developing. This is not a bandage-approach. We want your body is heal and move on, not for you to be reliant on us.

You and your body are capable of having an incredibly comforting and happy relationship with each other! All we do is equip you by helping erase decades of tissue compression to give you and your body a fresh start!

What I love most about SI is that changes from single sessions are predictable and result in permanent changes in the body. The body of myself, colleagues, and clients are seemingly improving year after year, despite the fact that we receive fewer and fewer SI sessions now!

Each of the sessions builds on the previous session, and prepares for the next. The original Recipe of Dr. Ida P. Rolf has stood the test of time (and even to self-proclaimed skeptics like myself). The crux of the philosophy that the body works best and heals itself if the pieces are working together as one whole. The 10 Series works through the entire body to align and organize separate parts together, and achieve a body that is an order of magnitude greater than the sum of its parts!

Clients often report relief from chronic pain, feeling more balanced, feeling lighter and younger, more resilient, improvements with posture (validated by optional before and after photos), and an overall sense of physical and emotional wholeness. 

2. Who does this Help?

1. You want to make space for change in your life. Our bodies are autobiographical, and it’s so helpful to have a reset to “clean house”, and want a tune up because your body does not match your personality anymore.
2. You have had a surgery, injury, trauma, pregnancy, athletic pressure, or are a human in modern society which has encouraged a persistent structural deformity or tightness of your body
3. You are sick of “bandages” and want a long-term solution to what bothers you in your body
4. You are tired of the feeling of your health in a “downward spiral” and want to begin an “upward spiral”. Improvements commonly to continue to occur in the 6 months after completion of the Ten Series (which is why we encourage you to pausing receiving Structural bodywork after your series… Your connective tissue renews every 3-9 months, and we don’t want to waste your money).
5. You have begun the journey of healing from trauma patterns, and are in therapy (healing from trauma patterns) and want to body to be able to let go of your constant “fight or flight” state of nervous depression cycle, and recognize that your body has “kept the score” and want to be able to facilitate your body to naturally release trauma from your body (I do not encourage or evoke the releasing of trauma, but if intuitively you do have a “somatic emotional response” during a session, I do my best to hold space and honor whatever you need to release.
6. Thousands of people who swear by it (having had their lives changed through the process)
7. You don’t want something that is merely “hippy-dippy” or “woo-woo” which relies on the placebo effect. You can observe objectively the changes occurring in your body during the session and days/weeks after. You don’t want to deal with yet another charlatan, and Brice will tell you if this work will not actually help, because got into this to help people, not to hurt them with false hope.
8. It is science-based, evidence-based, accurately predicting what anatomical science has learned only recently!
9. It increases balance and mobility. Your fascia is your bodies organ which uses our sense of “Proprioception” (the awareness of our body in space). Freeing this organ/connective tissue allows you to literally feel more of your body and enjoy it more. We are not our brains.. We are the awareness of our whole body all at once!
10. It feels amazing… Life is too short to not feel good!!!

3: That sounds really good, but what are these sessions like?

First, we would meet and discuss your goals and issues. Then we would have you dress down to your level of modesty. This generally is swimwear, underwear, or athletic clothing which can be adjusted to work on the skin (with consent of course). We do require you to be clothed, in accordance with Utah State Law and best practices.

Second, we would have you notice where you feel yourself “catching” through gentle movements. This is often standing, a slow knee bend, breathing, or arms overhead, and gives us an both an insight of what’s going on within your body.

Thirdly, we would guide you to lie on the treatment in one of several comfortable position, and begin. I then engage with your nervous system and connective tissue together through a gentle, sensitive, and pressureful comforting contact. I might ask you to draw your awareness to enjoy how one part of your body feels, and/or guide you in an invitation to engage in a small, gentle movement.

We both should feel exactly what is being release, so you will be able to feel how it is effective and helping you, moment by moment. Every session has contrasting and complimentary content- and every stroke on your skin should feel like we have never done it quite like this before!

Each session ends with us contacting your sacrum and cranium, integrating the changes we’ve made through your global “appendicular” body into your central spine and nervous system.

Lastly, we would have you in a seated or standing position, and would you further balance you in gravity with slow enjoyable movements.

Then you stand up, see what things you notice, and we make sure you feel grounded and centered before you leave the session and go back to the rest of your life.

4: That sounds great! But how are the sessions designed anyway?

Here is the outline of the goals of each session. I adapt and tailor each session to your body’s unique pattern:

Session 1: Release Superficial Fascia

Increases the space to breath in your torso and decompress the body. A feeling of “wow” is common after this, especially if you have never experienced SI.

Session 2: Balance the feet, ankles, and low back.

Creates a happy relationship between the ankles, knees, and low back. This session is surprisingly effective.

Session 3: Free the outer leg, ribs, and shoulder

Balances tension from the sides of the hips and shoulders.

Session 4: Feet, Adductors, and Sits bones for a level pelvis side-to-side

Continues to build a happy relationship between arches of the feet with the arches of the pelvic floor (through the inner side of the leg). This session is excellent at leveling the hips.

Session 5: Free the hip flexors, abdominal tissue, and free the front-body

Builds a happy relationships between the arches of the pelvic floor and diaphragm

Session 6: Expand the breathe into the tail

Back of legs and pelvis to free the back-body,

Help the balanced Sacrum be able to expand during inhalations

Session 7: Expand the breath into the head

Spine and hands to the head.

Help the cranial bones to be able to expand during inhalations

Session 8: Complete lower body integration

Session 9: Complete upper body integration

Session 10: Integrate entire body

*Advanced work and post 10 sessions can continue to help the client achieve progressive improvement over the rest of their lives.

This one is for the nerds like me, or those who are very curious . A lot of thought goes into these sessions to make sure we continue to improve the organization of your body by working with it and gravity.

5. Here are my policies:

Pressure is always adjusted to your needs.

You are always in control- there is a clear line of communication and consent.

Professional bodywork is non-sexual.

Please give 24 hours notice for any cancellation.

I am dedicated to the ethical standards outlined for Massage Therapists by the Utah Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, and the standards for professional conduct outlined by the Guild for Structural Integration.

I will want to know your unique needs and preferences.  You’ll investigate your stance and what you notice.  Next, you get on a massage table for hands-on myofascial release and integration.  Communicate about your sensations throughout the session.  Expect to be comfortable with an easy breath flowing.  And, expect to be challenged.  You’ll be asked to isolate movements of your bones while Brice contacts layers of your myofascial tissue.  Pressure is adjusted based on your sensation.  Some hands-on myofascial work may be done with you sitting and/or standing.  The session ends with you and Brice investigating how your stance feels and looks at the very end.  Each session should prepare you to get out in the world with ease and greater ability to do what you do.