Picture an old barn falling down. That is what time and stress do to structures, both human and otherwise. Perhaps there is another possibility for the "more human use of human beings" as Dr. Ida P. Rolf has put it; for Rolfing involves moving toward an embodiment of ideas and an inquiry into the nature of human structure.

Picture having a body and spirit that are wide and free, living in opening rather than in the painful, narrow constriction of old set patterns, closed hearts, and fear-filled attitudes. Picture a blade of grass - how delicately it responds to the slightest breeze and how it bends low before the hurricane, surviving when the mightiest trees have fallen. A structure that is rigid and poorly balanced lacks resilience. A structure that is flexible and in dynamic relatioship with its surroundsing only bends with stress and then springs back.

As a fish lives in the medium of water, humans live within the field of gravity. Harmony with gravity enables that medium to become a supporting and energizing factor. As the fish is supported and lifted by water, so we humans can be supported and lifted by gravity.

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 a constant fatigue, yet others as an unrelentingly threatening environment. Those over 40 may call it old age. And yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem, so prominent in their own structure, as well as others, that it has been ignored; they are off balance. They are at war with gravity.

- Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D.