Rolf Audio Tape Transcript

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Concept of Structural Integration Continued, The Shopping Bag

Concept of Structural Integration Continued, The Shopping Bag

(0:06) but in general, the lumbar vertebrae in general are apt to have been anterior; just occasionally posterior. But anterior or posterior, they are barely related in terms of length. And as you bring that sacrum down, you are organizing the potential length so that the lower lumbars and the sacrum can fit into the outside flesh.

(0:41) Now there is something that I would like to call to your attention now because you won’t see it later; I mean you won’t see it after the first couple of hours, (probably the 1^st hour), but it’s difficult to call it to your attention now because you haven’t had enough experience to really see it, so we’re sort of caught on a hook. Al, when you worked on Jimmy, you saw it.

(1:20) Where the muscles of the body seem-, or on various aspects of the flesh in the body, seem entirely independent of each other; they live literally inside of a bag. But they weren’t integrated; they weren’t knit into each other. And as you put your hand in there you feel these various levels or these various areas this way, or levels this way, or levels this way, and you feel them all separate; and they’re all going separate.

(1:56) Now somebody around here is going to jump on me shortly saying, “You’ve just been telling us that one of the goals, the objects, of this whole bit is to get these muscles so they slide.” What I’m saying about sliding is true. These other things are not bad; they’re not sliding.

(2:15) this – what I just said to you – will be meaningless until the day comes when you get your hands on that kind of a person. And then you’re going to say, “Oh yea, she told us about that.” But as I say, with Johnson here, this was so glaringly apparent. You know what I’m talking about, because you were doing the work.

(2:48) Those iron steel springs that were inside just wrapped around with something to keep him from falling apart, particularly in his legs. And you see this had-, my guess is that this is what happens when you take a body that is reasonably strong to begin with, and you just over-enforce it to greater and greater effort with respect to limited goals. By limited goals I mean there is no balance in terms of what you’re calling on the body to do; you don’t balance for-, if you’re calling on it for two hours of work with it’s legs, you are not then taking it and giving it about ¾ of an hour work with it’s arms. If you do this, you keep the body in balance, but if you don’t, you see, you’ll get this other type of thing.

(3:50) in the old [yoga] system of exercise, which is taught by [yoga] teachers who were really well informed, was that way. If you were working principally on the legs, you worked then before you finished it up you did 15 to 20 minutes worth of arm work, or vice versa. If you were working on the arms before you accrued you did 20 minutes worth of leg work.

(4:14) But you see all of these things have not been generally understood. And the people who have been the trainers of our service men, or anybody’s service men – any armies anywhere – and the children’s programs are fashioned on the army programs.

See and all of this sort of thing is what is contributing more and more to the breakdown of bodies, due to the ignorance of how to keep them together.

(4:50) The cultural pattern deliberately breaks down bodies. And Al and I were having a big to-do last night because he was carrying a flag for Structural Integration in growth centers, and I was carrying a flag for the fact that these growth centers didn’t matter a hoop compared to the necessity for getting some of these concepts into the top of such structures as the army physical education understanding. ‘Cause they’re deliberately taking these young men, and they’re literally deliberately breaking those bodies down.

2^nd Hour

(5:32) OK. Get to the 2^nd hour. Stop talking. So what happens next? Come on Fritz. Because this breaking down business I’m talking about is right there in that 2^nd hour.

(5:48 student) The 2^nd hour is devoted to the part of the body being, [in the admission, tuned-up]; in the extremities, from the knee down particularly. And this is in terms of our relationship to the earth; to the fixed structure.

(6:11 student) And analyzing what needs to be done is a matter again of testing the function to see where the person is restricted, to see where the balances are in the various joints, and where they are good, and where they are not good. In establishing better balance, you free areas that need to be freed

(6:35) Come on now. Do better than that. Where you going to start?

(6:42 student) You begin by, in the ankle joint proper, by noting where it is restricted and matted, you deal with the retinaculum across the front of the ankle and free up the fascial layers so the tendons may move more freely. You pay attention to the lateral malleolus, to the fibula, which is often too far [vistal], to far down towards the floor, and off too far posteriorly. And again in freeing the tendons at the peronease group, which comes around the back of the ankle and into the foot, the fascias around them. These tendons begin, again, to function more freely and slide over one another. Also paying attention to where the musculature may be restricted along the leg, the fascia needs to be cleared of the tibia, and as this is stripped off and freed, again you see better, smoother motions of the ankle and the leg. I deal with my hands. I’m having a-, I would approach this just by seeing what needs to be doing. I have a hard time recognizing-

(8:18) This is true and this is the way you’ll have to do it. Sometimes it becomes more important to start with the peroneal group in the legs, or in the legs, than it is to start with the retinaculum, because it becomes apparent to your fingers – if not with your head – that you’re not going to get anywhere with this retinaculum until you’ve got something in the [ ] Alright. So then you go up there. But within those limits you follow this pattern of organizing the foot and the leg and the ankle. Yes. Go on. There’s more [out]

(9:02 student) Again, as I see this it’s a matter of going back periodically and checking the function of this foot having the patient move-

(9:07) Alright. Now, what is the function of this foot? Al here was complaining that he really doesn’t understand the 2^nd hour, and between you and me we’re going to make him understand the 2^nd hour this morning.

(9:22 student) The function of the foot is to relate us to the earth and to gravity. Which means having as solid energy flow through our being that is to contact us with the earth. This means the angles of weight bearing in the foot and leg, ideally will have the weight distributed relatively through the center of the ankle, it will be an almost horizontal plane across the ankle-

(9:08) You better not give me this almost horizontal. You better give me a full size horizontal

(10:00 student) a full horizontal? I’m not sure of that yet.

(10:15) The plane on which it folds will be horizontal, the plane on which it folds is not necessarily the plane marked by the internal and external melleolus

(10:28 student) thank you. Thank you. Yea.

(10:31) There’s a functional plane and a structural plane, and if you look you see the functional, and you see that where as within limits it does-, that is if the structural plane is way off, the functional plane cannot be way on. That by virtue of the difference in length of the tibia and fibula, the structural plane cannot be precise. But it can jolly well approach it a lot more closely than many ankles do. Alright?

(11:03 student) That helps

(11:05) Does that help you, Al?

(11:10 student) Yes. No, that’s not where I’m caught. That I feel I understand-

(11:15) Alright, we’ll get to it. We’ll try to get to [the cat of the place]

(11:18) Now, go on. I haven’t heard something I’m listening for

(11:22 student) The other two thoughts on planes, and then I’ll go on to something else, is the weight should be carried at the head of the heel, and the weight needs to be transmitted down through the long arch of the foot

(11:44) The weight should be transmitted through the inner 3 toes of the foot. Does anybody know where my [Molier] is?

(11:54 student) So the inner 3 toes?

(11:55) Yea. That part of the foot to reach the inner. Does anybody know where my [Molier] is!?

(12:01 student) No!

(12:02) Well go look! I want it quick!

(12:05 student) [ ] you’ll break the tape recorder…

(13:15) yea there’s a different picture. There was a picture with 2 colors in it…Here it is. You see those two colors? What you really have are 2 arches; one sitting on top of the other, the yellow one being the top arch. Now, the gray one is underneath, and if the gray one is tipped up, the yellow one has got to be up. Is this fairly clear? So that if a foot is going to work with its arch, the outer arch – that is the gray - the part that is attached to the two outer toes has got to tip up slightly. When I will look at a foot and I‘ll say, “It’s all running down on the outside, isn’t it?” You’ve heard me say this sort of thing before; meaning the foot is down like that, and the part of the foot that’s attached to the outermost toes is down, not up. Then you get a perversion of the whole pattern of movement, and the whole pattern of energy flow. Watch this, don’t watch me.

(14:55 student) I don’t quite understand. You say if the other arch – the outer-

(15:00) That’s right. These two. These two.

(15:05 student) Now you say if this turns up, I mean the motion of your hand, it seems that you’re bringing this down.

(15:09) No. You’re not. This is happening. This turns up with respect to that, not in addition to that. Now is it clear?

(15:23 student) It can’t be simulated by the hand?

(15:25) It can’t be simulated by the hand, and it can’t be simulated by a foot unless the foot is good. You see, unless you have the kind of freedom that makes that possible. now until you understand that diagram you don’t really understand what you’re doing

(15:43 student) I don’t understand what you’re saying is the functional goal; the foot that has the outer arch up?

(Wings on the Feet)

(15:47) Yea. The outer arch comes like this. You recall-, you probably, you in this generation don’t recall as well as 10-year-ago generation. The 10-year-ago generation every telephone book had a picture of mercury standing on the globe, Up on his toes with the outer arch up, and all-

(16:15 student) That’s where the wings were

(16:17) That’s where the wings were, that’s right. Now all of these mercury’s that go way, way back to early times, not primitive times, they all had the wings on the outer arch there. Meaning, because this was the way we all caused this to start, meaning if Mercury is the principle of transportation, if you are going to get around you must act as though there were wings on that outer arch, and you will get around. That’s what they were saying

(16:51 student) [bah hub]

(16:54) Thank you. I’ve been saying [ ]. and so this is what you are trying to establish

(17:10 student) Is the mechanics of the weight baring, of carrying the weight along the outside arch first, and then transferring-?

(17:15) No! There’s no arch, no weight goes on the outer arch, and all that you ever learned about taking these kids who have flat feet and walking them on boards like that is the diametrical opposite of the therapeutic truth

(17:37) No foot has ever broken down until the outer arch breaks down. While the outer arch is intact the foot is intact. So, all that you are doing, everything that you are doing with a foot in the 2^nd hour concerns that organization

(18:05 student) But you said then that the weight transfer goes through the center three toes slightly ahead of the heel. The weight transfer then goes exactly at the junction between the two arches, according to this diagram

(18:15) There is much more, much more weight goes through to the big toe and to the 2^nd toe

(18:21 student) Wait, did you say inner three toes or center three toes?

(18:25 student) The first three toes

(18:25) The first three toes; 1, 2, 3.

(18:27 student) Excuse me. I wrote down center

(18:29) Alright. OK. That thumb of the foot, the big toe of the foot, is as important really, as the thumb of the hand. Some act differently, but this is the crux of the situation: where and how the great toe works. And as you do what I’m doing to my foot now the weight goes forward onto the big toe and the two toes together, you see, fall in the center for the weight bearing of the foot.

(19:14) Now realize what happens when you begin to do this; you’ve completely lost the structure. No matter whether you’ve turned this outward from the hips, or whether you’ve rotated it outward from the knee, or whether you’ve rotated it from the ankle. No matter what you’ve lost the structure. You’ve lost the possibility of normal movement, because normal movement deals with those two toes. And when you’ve come out with it, there is no two toes there. I mean they’re on the foot, but they’re not their functional.

(19:51 student) What happens with the reverse of a pigeon toed person person?

(19:56) I don’t care what you do, it’s aberrant; it looses its structure. There is only one position for structure.

(20:05) Automobiles are real foot disorganizers aren’t they? Usually the business of when the gas petals over there and there’s that–

(20:14) Oh yea, well that too, that too. But actually compared with the pattern of walking that you’re taught as a child

(20:25) Would a good measure of the normalness of walking be the even-ness of wearing the shoes?

(20:30) Yea. That’s one way. That’s right. OK, now Al, is your picture clarified?

(20:41 student) Yes. That really helped. I just couldn’t understand the function of the outer arch really. I just didn’t know it

(20:50) Alright. Now we’ve got to get on to the 3^rd hour, because we’re coming to the 3^rd hour today, and we haven’t done a thing about it yet, and we’ve spend a lot of time

(20:57 student) One more question: on the axis here as it goes through the talus, again should be normal to the axis of the joint-

(21:15) You see the word [normal, mathematically,] gives you magnificent illustrations in bodies. This is just some velvet that you get, you know? Now, what did you people see happen between the end of the 2^nd hour-, oh wait a minute. We didn’t lengthen those back. Let’s hurry it along

2^nd Hour Back Work

(21:41 student) Yes. After balancing the feet and legs and you have the person sit up, and balance again the spine – thoracic spine, entire spine – in reference to the changes taking place with our relation to gravity, to the better holding of the feet.

(22:08) is that all you’re doing?

(22:16 student) No. No you’re not. You’re also lengthening the spine to compensate for the lengthening of the thoracic [hour]

(22:22) See, in hour one, when you have them sitting up there, and you’re going down their back; you’re balancing as you say. But in hour 2 you have a very different goal. You have the goal of taking those anti-gravity muscles and getting them where they belong, to act as extensors

(22:45 student) Yes

(22:47 student) Dr. Rolf, I was wondering, you said that-, I can see where it’s very helpful to give one hour but from the pictures that we saw - because Al was talking about Esalen giving possibly just one hour – the pictures that we saw, there was such a difference between the-

(23:05) I can’t help it. I mean you’ve got the problem of giving one hour, I mean, would you rather give one hour or give no hours?

(23:10 student) well one hour is the subject

(23:12) 1hour is where you begin, and 1 hour sometimes does very strange things. I remember many years ago being a guest at a home of a patient of mine in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I was a guest there for one weekend or over a holiday or something. And he had an old sister-in-law that wandered up and down that road, till it drove me nuts! She was certainly 70 years old. Well, when I really came to thread this thing out it developed that this woman had had quite bad injuries during her childhood, 40 years ago! And she would never go for surgical repair. So this thing had gone on and on and on and on and on and on. And I couldn’t stand it finally, and I said, “Mrs. (whatever-her-name-was), Listen, let me give you an hour of work and let’s see what happens to you.” And that funny little gal came right along to the place where she no longer wobbled, she stepped right down the road like mad, she no longer was aware of the fact that everything inside her was hanging. And I wasn’t in contact with that woman for another 2 or 3 years, and one time I started looking for [a bell man] and I couldn’t get him at his house in the mountains, and I couldn’t get him at his house in Baltimore, and I finally thought well I’ll get him at his house with Mrs. What’s-her-names, because maybe they’re down visiting. So I called her, and she said, “I just want to tell you, I have never had a backache since you did that one hour.” And it’s true, this is an extreme case. This is the way it goes.

1^st Hour Story

(24:51 student) Dr. Rolf, you just made a distinction about the difference of doing the back in 2 hours. Will you please repeat that, something about-?

(24:58) I said, in the 1^st hour you were only trying to balance out what you had available. In the 2^nd hour you were trying to make some more available; you were progressing with your change of the body.

3^rd Hour Line-Up

(25:18) Now, what did you see in your pictures of the 3^rd hour?

(25:25 student) A bow being taken out of the front. It was like this, and it came back

(25:30) Now what pictures did you take? This was really my fault. You just took-. This morning

(25:34student) Oh this morning. The front and the lateral

(25:40) Yea, and you shouldn’t have. This was the reason, because I was preoccupied. Suppose all of you people who are coming up for work today strip off your outer clothing right now.

(25:51 student) What do you need? The back?

(25:56) I should have told you to take anterior pictures

(25:58 student) I took

(26:05) not any more! We’re getting part [ ] .You only take one picture, and in the 3^rd hour it should be the front. But that’s all right. I mean, the country is still operational…

(26:20) OK. Take you’re clothes off now and take a look at yourselves…And actually we’ll consolidate some of these people into one picture. It takes $250, $300 dollars to pay the film bills for these classes

(26:43 student) thee about 35 cents a shot aren’t they?

(26:45) And that’s why there is no sense in taking more than necessary

(26:58 student) Dr. Rolf, when did you want me worked on, does it matter?

(27:00) you keep your shirt on…

(27:20) Alright, take your shirt off and get up there. You’re supposed to do the 3^rd hour around here. And the rest of you, Evelyn get around here where you can look straight on…

(27:50) its interesting what is coming in Al’s body, isn’t it?

(28:03 student) He’s really getting crooked

(28:09) Just take a look at these knees. Just take a look at what’s under these knees. Just take a look at how far along those legs have come from where those legs have come.

(28:28 student) which are those?

(28:30) Lloyd’s, yea. You remember what they looked like the 1^st hour? Now, what’s happened with Al’s legs is that certain things have uncovered, and the [largit] see that this organization that’s in the much larger size of that hip – that right hip – and how the joint sits in; how differently the 2 joints sit in.

(29:05 student) really. It’s so clear

(29:15) Now, Fritz is coming up for a 3^rd hour. But all of these guys-. Eddie’s looking so good he’s not worth anything as a model. But Hal is worth a great deal as a model. Now, look at the difference between Eddie’s body and Hal’s; and I don’t mean between the [astheme] and the [mesomorph]. I mean look at the difference in the lines, and what do you see? Alice [Further] what do you think you see?

(30:04 student) I think what attracted my attention in Hal’s legs was a feeling that the legs are rotated inwards from the hip-. When I first looked at them they looked fairly symmetrical, but I get the feeling that underneath they are rotating inward

(30:22) Alright. This isn’t what squeezed that knee.

(30:30 student) The thing that really strikes me is the difference in the angle of the clavicles between the two. Eddie’s goes almost flat, almost none, whereas Hal’s is probably almost 15 degrees

(30:41) Ok but why is Hal’s 15 degrees?

(30:45 student) He’s crunched in. His yoke is not as far as it can be-

(30:50) Alright, but it isn’t his yoke that’s in trouble. Now look further Don, you’ll see him fine.

(31:00 student) Yea. If you pull the head out, I think the yoke is all about where it should be. I mean it’s not the yoke-

(31:05) OK. Now, Don, go on, go on, keep looking

(31:08 student) If his head can go up some, the yoke can come down.

(31:10) But it isn’t his head that needs to go up. His head does need to go up, but secondarily. [ ] what can you see?

(31:19 student) It appears to me like the hips are the problem-

(31:22) Yea. It appears as though the whole upper part of that torso is [squnched] down on the hips. Now the rest of you get up there… Now see if the rest of you are [squnched].

(31:38 student) They’re looking squnchier all the time

(31:42) Of all of them, Hal is the most [squnched].

(31:45 student) Mel is second

(31:48) Mel is second. You see Al and Eddie. You see, Eddie has had the most work around here, and this is perfectly obvious. There is no squinching. Al has had some pretty good work around here if I do say so and shouldn’t. And he squinches less than the other people

(32:13 student) Al is the most asymmetrical

(32:15) He’s asymmetrical. This is underneath, this is underlies-, this is lying underneath the level. As you can see, Hector.

(32:25 student) The key is though the way the torso is on the pelvis, did you say?

(32:30) There’s no lift to it. See how Eddie just automatically lifts his torso up off his pelvis?

(32:35 student) Ok. But I can imagine if I took Hal’s thorax and lifted it up, that wouldn’t do anything above his yoke and neck.

(32:40) Well it would, as a matter of actual fact. That thorax going upward would give a sense of support to the yoke

(32:50 student) Oh, yea!

(32:52) Oh!...

(33:00 student) [move the yoke] cause it slides the other things up under there

(33:06)That’s right. That’s right. Now you see Hal’s yoke isn’t too bad. the torso is relatively up under it, but even at that, Al, the lines of all of these men are too short along the side; between the shoulder and the hip, their lines are too short for the actual length of the bodies and of the torsos. Every last one of them.

(33:31 student) How does everybody get so squinched?

(33:36) Because you opened the front, and lengthened the back, but you didn’t lengthen the sides. So now you’ve got the job of lengthening the sides.

Random Body

(33:46 student) But I think people in general don’t have flat clavicles; like any of us. You line up 100 guys, I’m sure that they’d all be closer to Hal-

(33:53) That’s right, that’s closer to the random body. And by God, [if anybody calls to the enemy at this time, I am going to fight! ‘Cause enemy is about a hundred and fifty thousand years]

(34:12) So you see, Eddie’s is no longer random

(34:14 student) what’s the way of [hola]?

(34:20) I think Bernie [Gunther]. Yea, really. Those of you who really remember Bernie back in the old days, and really know what you can do with this. Bernie has just changed unbelievably

(34:34 student) changed his name

(34:42 student) he did?

(34:43 student) Yea, he used to be Morgan Blah something. He had some really hard-

(34:46) not now a days. He had changed his name before I came down the pike.

(34:51) Yea, Bernie and Fritz were between them, running close on. Schutz comes well up in the line too. But you see now, Eddie started in with some genetic pattern, and structure which was very inadequate physically; in terms of physics. You see the narrowness of that chest, and the length of that chest. And how other things have had to adjust: the length of his neck, the way he doesn’t have enough neck for the head. This is a genetic thing. And what you see below it is what we have been able to do in terms of the genetic difficulty.

(35:51) Ok. How about a nice cup of coffee?...

(35:56 student) I don’t see how anybody doesn’t have enough neck for his head?

(35:58) That’s right. He doesn’t have much head for his neck…

(Tape break)

(36:11) Let’s see where we are. And let’s agree that in as much as we have to get a look at a long discussion of our brief today, we don’t get too hung up on extraneous material. [Harvey] James would you like to start talking? That’s what happens when you come late

(36:42 student) I’m trying to fall out

(36:48) don’t you break your neck there Leigh

(36:48 student) huh?

(36:50) Don’t break your neck

(36:51 student) You need some help there Leigh?

(36:56 student) yea…

(37:14 student) We’re now working on the 3^rd hour of work

(37:16) Yea. How did we get there?

(37:17 student) We got there

(37:25) Two of you is twice as bad as one of you

(37:30 student) Three has no functional purpose anyway

(37:32) I know. I know. We’re not entirely functional in this class. This is just [lynng veril shmalts]

1^st Hour

(37:47 student) After working the 1^st hour, which includes-, which its main purpose is to free the pelvis, which is to be thought of as the center of the body in both weight and um

(38:10) [Hal,] is your statement that the pelvis is the center of the body? It may be, but-

(38:20 student) I thought as center it has the most important balance point of the body

(38:24) Center in that sense, yes. Center in that sense, yes. And actually the teaching is, and I don’t know whether I subscribe to it or not, but the center of gravity of the body is in front of the 2^nd lumbar, which puts it very close to the pelvis, as you see, and a little above. And as I say, I don’t know that I subscribe to it, I don’t know what evidence there is really for it. I think it’s just a wild dream somebody had one night and he put on paper. But I don’t, I wouldn’t know how to determine it in a living body.

(39:05) Ok. Go ahead

(39:05 student) In a 1^st hour, being the way that the important point is to free the pelvis from-, to free the pelvis to clean movement and balance, and this is done by working the rib cage and thorax and abdomen and freeing the upper structure from the pelvis. And once that has gained at least as much as one can do in the 1^st hour, the next point to work is the legs, to free the legs from the pelvis. And that is working around the hip joint, which includes the hamstrings muscles. And once that is accomplished there is a lengthening seam of the [ ] of the converses of the shortening of the back. From that there is a-

(40:28) At what point do you get the lengthening of the rib cage? I missed a couple of words in there, and you may have said it correctly. I missed a couple of words. See it seems to me that as I came back to thinking precisely of what you were saying as you were talking about that you get the lengthening of the front in terms of the moving of the pelvis

(40:52 student) Oh, no. because you have worked and freed the front, which gives it length

(40:54) That’s right. And the lengthening of the front is largely a question of the lengthening, of the freeing of the rib cage.

(41:10 student) Yes. And from the freeing of the rib cage and the abdomen, it is necessary then to also work the-, working the neck area to align [the pin], to better position because it has been affected-

(41:46) When do you do this?

(41:49) When? In the 1^st hour, at the end of the 1^st hour

(41:54) That’s right, at the end of the 1^st hour, but you see, to me you didn’t clarify this quite clearly enough. We you like to come into it Al? Do you agree with me that he hasn’t clarified that hour clearly enough? And if not, where is stuck?

(42:16 student) My thoughts lie somewhere

(42:18) Bring them back

(42:21 student) I just haven’t been listening, but I’ll-, I’m sorry

(42:29) Alright. Hector, do you want to comment on whether you could do a 1^st hour in the course of your own -

(42:30 student) Well, I wouldn’t myself. I was trying to-, I wasn’t being really thorough because-

(42:40) No, you weren’t being thorough, but you see as one sometimes decides when one writes an article, you put down one sentence to indicate the first thought and paragraph, and then you go on with one sentence, and one sentence. It’s only the one sentences that are [tied]. I am looking at the sequence of the one sentences.

(43:00 student) I think Owen had the concept, but he just didn’t express it well.

(43:05) Yea, well he didn’t-

(43:10 student) Because he said the pelvis as the center of the body

(43:12) That’s right. I’m fairly in agreement there, but see what he did not do was call attention to the precision of sequence which is necessary to free that pelvis, and then low and behold, he completely forgot to put in the goal of the 1^st hour, which is? Freeing the pelvis; the pelvic lift, you see. Now there’s where the whole thing gets a big, big, big red mark. Then you go to the neck. Then you go to just making the back comfortable.

Back Work

(44:00) And you remember the discussion that we had in here yesterday about what is the difference between the work on the back in the 1^st hour and the work on the back in the 2^nd hour, and we brought out an important point of clarification. Bill?

(44:19 student) During the 2^nd hour you’re lengthening the muscles back there and you’re bringing them in towards the spine, as opposed to what you are doing in the 1^st hour, which is more bringing them down in effect on the back

(44:32) Yea. More just making them comfortable with change that is already there, but not trying to make further change.

(44:43 student) Yea. I believe the words you used yesterday where balance and compensation for the 2^nd

(44:50) All right. Fine and dandy. Now the 2^nd hour, you’re adding to the material that you have. You’re adding to the [other] material by organizing and reorganizing the back

(45:04 student) I think your words were “making more available”

(45:09) Making more available. That’s right. You’re only adjusting it so the guy is comfortable. Otherwise, if you don’t do this, he gets home and he says, “oh, I’m feeling pretty good now, but gee I felt terrible for 24 hours after you worked on me.” And if you want the neighbors to hear something like that you can do it just that way, you see, because they aren’t adapted into their new posture, and so they feel “terrible”. And so those people come around and they say, “What? You feel terrible and you paid those people that much money?” You know, I mean there are lots of ways to get yourself disliked. This is one very good one.

2^nd Hour

(45:55) ok. So then what happened? You might as well go on Bill

(46:01 student) Ok. We’re now locating-, we’re in the 2^nd hour now?

(46:08) Yea, we’re on the 2^nd hour

(46:10 student) Ok. In the 2^nd hour, you’re making more available, and you start with-, the first part of the 2^nd hour you start working on the knees down

(46:15) That’s right

(46:17 student) normally you’re on top of the retinaculae, and you loosen the fascia and the material in the legs so that you can get to the loosening of the material in the foot itself. And then if you decide to go up the tibia here, and do whatever you feel is right there, then you go back up to the top side of the foot

(46:53) Don’t forget you’re go up the fibula too

(46:55 student) Yes. Depending on the external and lateral and medial malleolus

(47:01) One of the things you have to look at is where is the heaping of tissue on that leg? Is it all on the outside there along the fibula? If something has something gone seriously wrong with the fibula you’ll have a heaping and a solidifying of tissue on the outer half of the leg: The lateral half. If there is some semblance of balance, you will have tissue balanced on two halves of the leg. Legs will come along where you see them absolutely bare boned on the front and lots of tissue on the back. And you say, “I can’t get anything here. There’s nothing here but bone.” Don’t you believe it. Just go ahead and do it, and don’t think

(47:53 student) On top of the bone?

(47:56) You’ve got to take it from where you find it and put it where it belongs. It’s as simple as that.

(48:02student) I didn’t quite understand what you mean when you say “go ahead and do it”

(48:09) I mean go ahead and do it! No matter what you see, no matter how you think you’re defeated, no matter how you think there is nothing there to work, go do it!

(48:18 student) Ok. Gotcha

(48:21) otherwise I’ll have Don on you’re neck. [ ] full, 3 dimensional presence, it should be there just the same. You hold the [ ] when you [ ]

(48:33 student) I believe it. Ok. Then you, depending on what’s there, you do it on the bottom of the foot. And realizing that problems in the arches are usually not solved by working on the foot

(48:50) You’re being a little too abstracting. I allowed this degree of abstracting in the 1^st hour simply in order to get us further on into the 2^nd hour. Stay with-, imagine that you’re working on that individual. So you started on the retinaculum

(49:08 student) Ok.

(49:10) So you’re now working on the tibia and fibula

(49:14 student) And you normally will exert pressure up one side and down the other

(49:20) Which side’s which?

(49:21 student) Well, depending on where the malleii are, normally it’s up on the outside, and down on the inside.

(49:34) Yea. I can’t remember that I’ve ever seen a foot with the outer malleolus higher than the inner malleolus. I really can’t remember it, and I think I would if I had. You see the normal distortion is down on the outside.

(49:48)You watch little kids that come in here, or little kids that you see around about in [Carmel] and what have you. You always see them down on the outside, walking on the outside. And little kids as they get to stand-up you see, they stand this way; on the outside of the foot. Watch them. They don’t normally walk properly. And this is a consideration that we should have at this point. The consideration is that children are not born normal, they are not born finished. They are born very unfinished, and they do not just keep on growing until it’s all there. As they grow they use whatever they have. Because the desire that is up in their head is way far ahead of the equipment that is in that 3-deminsional body. And so they take what they have, and they use it as best they may to accomplish their end, which is to toddle after somebody or somebody. And it may well be that the pelvis is rotated at this point, it may well be that Mama puts too many diapers between their legs. All kinds of things happen at this stage so that they’re toddling this way. It isn’t that they have small developed balanced leg or leg bones. These bones are still cartilaginous; the pelvis is still lying down in cartilage. And you see all of this you have to take into consideration for your own evaluation of how the thing goes. You’re also going to have to talk to endless fussing mothers about, “Well I don’t see anything wrong with little Tim. He goes up and down the steps he always goes up on his right leg, or something like this.

(52:16)But other than that, he’s perfectly normal. But you see, normal, a word which she is misusing here and thinking she’s saying average. Average he is, but the average is random. The average is not ordered. The average is not orderly. The average is not organized.

(52:40) And you see you always have-, one of my struggles that I have in the 3 or 4 weeks that I have available is to get you to see people being aware of the fact that you and life are always sliding back and forth on a gradient scale; More this way and less this way, and tomorrow we shift so that we’re more down here, but perhaps we’re less up here, you see. And this you have to evaluate. And you’re going to come to me and you’re going to say, and the models are going to say, “well I thought you fixed that leg yesterday, how is it that it hurts this week? I thought you fixed it last week.” And you see they cannot get a reality on the fact that they are working on a gradient scale and that all kinds of factors are changing at the same time. And at any given moment in space you are having to deal with the algebraic sum of these factors. And you are going to have to get a verbal line with which to deal with this or people are going to be very unhappy. And you’re line can’t be the same as my line. You’ve got to make it yours; get the conviction on this, and then translate it into something that reaches that model. And this is just as much a part of your assignment as it is to find out that you go up on the outside and down on the inside.

(54:23) Ok. The ball’s back to you

(54:24 student) Alright. One of the things that you’re trying to do is to get the hinge in the ankle to be as horizontal as possible.

(54:34) Right. Not only horizontal, but freely moving as though somebody had put some oil in it quite recently

(54:44 student) and one of the indications of how that joint is moving is by how the folds of the skin are moving when they flex the foot, or when they are walking on it. If the folds are horizontal than the joint itself tends to be acting as a horizontal hinge, and-

(55:04 student) wow. Where’d you get that one?

(55:06 student) Yea. I never heard

(55:10) Well it’s true

(55:12 student) Yea. I never heard of that, but it’s beautiful.

(55:19 student) It’s not mine, it’s hers of coarse

(55:25 student) Often times you have to go underneath the malleolus to work on the two ligaments that lay underneath. They may just be misplaced, and this sort of thing. And-

(55:35)They’re more apt to-, they are often misplaced, but the ordinary aberration is a gluing together of the two peroneals, and what you want to do is to separate them so that they can each operate independently

(55:59 student) then after you clean off the malleoli....the ankle bones, you may go to the bottom of the foot, being very conscious that the thing you want to work on first of all is the outer arch. That it must come up-

(56:30) Well it may not be the first thing you want to work on, but it is a key situation. The outer arch must come up, but in addition the outer arch must be long enough. You’re looking for what Hector?

(56:45 student) the [Molier] book

(56:50) The outer arch must be long enough. And by the time you’re talking here, you must be to the place where you have looked at the sole of that foot and made up your mind whether that foot belongs to that parson. And it often doesn’t; it may be too small, it may be too skinny, it may be too short on the outside, and it may be flat on the inside. Lots of things may be. But you will have looked at it by this time. In fact you should have looked at it quite early on and made up your mind, “what is wrong with this foot as a foot?” Not only, “what is wrong with this foot as a part of the leg?” Now realize, again – a gut realization- that when you are working on those peroneals you are working on toes, on feet; not on legs. Realize that when you have flat feet, you don’t have flat feet, you have disorganization of the muscles of the shin, muscles crossing the shin.

(58:25) Does this add to your concepts about legs? So that you don’t look at a foot and say, “Oh, this is a flat foot. I’ve got to get down on this foot and poke around in it.” What you have to do is get the muscles of the leg so organized that they can change the foot to the bones of which they are attached.

(58:55 student) That makes sense

(58:58) Hector tell them where the peroneals are attached and tell them where the balancing muscles attach. And if you can show them in the book, pause only so [it come up and down]

(59:10 student) The peroneals basically only 1 of 3, but 2 that we’re interested in; the brevis and the longus. And the brevis and the longus come close together right behind the medial melleolus, and they cross like that. Ok. I think that’s it. And the longus goes down this way and under, and attaches I think to the head of the 5^th metatarsal. I’m not sure. I think the head of the 5^th metatarsal. I don’t remember. No, No this is the longus goes under the foot, crosses under the foot, crosses under the-

(1:00:00) It’s the lateral view. Look at the medial view…

(1:00:02 student) Right. and attaches I think on the head of the-. I don’t remember exactly

(1:00:13) The peroneals come on the outside, the [ ] come the other way; the inside

(1:00:06 student) the other way around. Right. But it attaches on the head of the first metatarsal. I think. The head of the 1^st metatarsal. Right.

(1:00:25) You see there are all kinds of weavings under that foot

(1:00:33 student) Is it the head of the [tarsal]? I don’t remember…

91:00:36) Somebody get that [Pesky]. Would it show in there more clearly and more-[ ]?

(1:00:47 student) and the brevis is on the cuneiform, isn’t it?

(1:00:47 student) It’s on the tubical of the 5^th metatarsal. The brevis.

(1:00:52 student) and the longus should be probably the first metatarsal

(1:01:02 student) The first metatarsal. So it goes clear into the foot

(1:01:09) Now, look to the other, look to what goes around in to the medial

(1:01:14 student) on the medial side, we have the tibialis the posterior, and the flexor of the first toe, and we have the common flexor of all the toes. So we have the three tendons. We have the tibialis posterior which comes and inserts probably at the base, or approximately at the base of the first metatarsal. We have the flexor of the first toe, which comes this way. And then we have the common extensor of all the toes, the flexor of all the toes, which comes here, approximately; So the three tendons medially, the two tendons laterally. Then on the dorsum of the foot we have the extensor of the-, we have the tibialis anterior, and we have the extensor of the first toe, and then we have the common extensor. So there are three tendons.

(1:02:24 student)So all told, we have to deal with three tendons on the dorsum of the foot, three on the medial side, and two on the lateral side. But there is this crossing, as Dr. Rolf says. The peroneus longus coming across the foot this way, and the extensor coming this way, so you see you have a pulley action between the two

(1:02:48) and you see that forms-, the [peronius] forms the arch

(1:02:53 student) Where’s the origin of the dorsal tendon?

(1:02:57 student) on the front of the foot, on the front of the leg

(1:02:59 student) Right here?

(1:03:00 student) Yea. Between the tibia and the fibula. The tibialis anterior, the extensor of the great toe, and the common extensor of the toes

(1:03:13) and then you see, on the bottom of all this you have the plantar fascia holding this, binding it in. Now, if your binding is too short or your binding is too short on the outer arch and so forth, the proper balance and movement of these tendons will be interfered with. This is clear. But the think I want to get so vivid in your mind is the way in which the foot is a webbing; an interwoven webbing. And that in order to change what you see as a foot, you have to have clarity about this webbing and how it should relate within itself and to the bones that are keeping it stretched. Because see here you have a magnificent-

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