What is Structural Integration?
Structural Integration is a series approach to deep myo-fascial bodywork and movement education that aims to increase postural ease and movement freedom. The modality uses a system-wide lens to see the patterns and posture that may lead to less than optimal function and comfort in clients bodies. In a series of 12 Sessions, the practitioner uses manual techniques and movement education to help the clients body relate harmoniously with gravity.
The way you've used your body; hobbies, work, athletics, injuries, and experience are physically recorded as patterns not just in the muscles and nervous system, but in the fascial net that connects every cell in the body. Structural Integration addresses restrictions in fascia, progressively unwinding global patterns. Structural work can help enhance the way you use your bodies and help shed the patterns that are no longer serving them.
Who is it for?
Everybody!
This work helps you gain awareness, increase mobility, and deepen your sense of support and comfort in your bodies. This work is anyone who are curious about their body, for people who think "I am too young to feel this old", for people who want to enhance their movement practice. It is not a treatment for acute injury or mental health or a cure for any disease processes. However, it can help you feel stronger and more supported in the challenges you face.
What to Expect in Session
Each ATSI session begins with a body reading evaluation assessing posture, gait and movement. Clients should come prepared with comfortable undergarments, bathing suits, or loose fitting shorts. Structural Integration is collaborative process between the practitioner and the client. The majority of each session involves hands-on manipulation of your fascia & muscles. As I work, I will ask you to make small, gentle movements to help facilitate change in the tissue. In addition, you will periodically be asked to stand and walk to evaluate the change. The process of opening our myofascial tissues can be ‘sensation-ful’ - involving feelings of stretch, or perhaps some burning, as in a yoga stretch or when exercising long unused muscles. The level of this sensation is in your control and entirely up to you.
What are the Benefits?
By taking on this project, clients may feel more easeful in your body, areas of discomfort may feel more supported or may be eliminated, and they may become more aware of the strength and resources their body holds for them. Many clients experience a sense of renewed youth, lightness, height, and increased capacity for breath. Structural Bodywork is wonderful ‘tonic’ for posture and movement, but it is no cure-all. The tonic offered by the Series is one comprised of improvements in body awareness and alignment, soft tissue organization, tissue hydration and homeostatic balance. Many clients find that discomfort and limitations are reduced.
Why 12 Sessions?
The Structural Integration 12 series explores the structure and function-ability of the system as a whole. The 12 series is a process of unwinding restrictive patterns, while reorganizing the bodies soft tissue, restoring balance, renewing body intelligence and cultivating spatial awareness. Each session builds on the previous and provides clients with a three dimensional understanding of their body.
Four sessions will address your superficial patterns, four sessions will address your deeper structures where your deepest postural and movement patterns are held, and four sessions will help you integrate the change allowing the superficial and deep structures to work in symphony.
Does it have to be 12 Sessions?
No! Try one session to get a sense of the work and to begin to notice if this modality helps you. Since each session builds on the previous session, 3 sessions is usually enough to address all your superficial muscles and fascia and will help bring some ease into the body allowing for increased freedom of movement. Three sessions is a smaller commitment that can be experienced as a stand alone project, transition into a full twelve series or be used as a tune up after a 12 series once or twice a year. It is an excellent way to experience Structural Integration in a shorter format.
