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Ida Rolf Audio Tape Transcript AUDIO FILE Tape A6 Side 2 MP3 File (aprox. 10.8MB) TRANSCRIPT (0:05 student) Well, no. I was just wondering, actually, I could feel the [turn in] that it would stay there to a degree more than it had before I did the pull, after pulling down. I was wondering is there an exercise besides just doing this? (0:19) The thing will open. It will open of its own sweet will. You people as practitioners, and as all practitioners, all masseurs, all osteopaths, all people who use their arms vocationally, are always getting in a certain amount of trouble with the forearm as well as the upper arm. Now that forearm may try to keep the upper arm from coming to it’s position of rest in which somebody has fallen down on getting the forearm reasonably well organized. Now after you get the forearm well organized it takes very little on the part of one of your peers to reorganize it when it goes out, as it does regularly (1:12) I mean there’s no way that I know of that you can honestly and really and everlastingly, do the kind of work we do here and not come to a certain amount of grief. It’s a job with which you literally pay with your hide, and you’d better be aware of, this is what you are taking on. Now if you handle your body properly the skin that comes off the hide is thinner than if you don’t. that’s all I can promise you. (1:51) I know at this point, you’re still rotating and rotating that, and at this point I think that everybody in the room is aware of the fact that Owen is having more trouble catching up with the group than anyone else. There’s this flat chestedness of his; this failure of the yoke to be a true yoke up to this point and all this, makes it difficult for him to feel at home in a balanced position. But it will come, Owen. It will be there by the beginning-, 10 days from now when we start all over again. You’ll have a lot of it. The rest will come as freeing comes. (2:40) Be sure that nobody around here makes the mistake of thinking or of talking about it as though your arm were never to be in any other position. If the good God meant it that way he wouldn’t have put the whole complicated mess of arm muscles in there. (3:04) The point is that this is the home position, with which you go out to the position which you need to use in your work or your effort of any sort. And having gone out, you come back home when you are through. (3:43) Now as you leave home you leave it by way of your elbow, you leave it by way of your latissimus, you leave it by way of your pectoral. And then as this movement is initiated, you take over with what else you want to utilize in there. But you start with that elbow. And if you never had a degree in medicine or physiology or anatomy or what have you, you don’t think of the latissimus and you don’t think of the pectoral. You think of the line. You start by the line going away. And if the movement is going away from the midline you start at the outside of the elbow, and if the movement is coming toward the midline it is this point that takes [over/all]. (4:50) Now this means you throw a ball entirely differently from the average throw of the ball; you start by coming away, and you come up here, and as you throw the ball this happens. Now this is an entirely different picture from what we teach our children. (5:12) I was interested many years ago, some of you may remember that there was a picture of Kipling’s Jungle Boy, Jungle Tales, and there was a young Indian boy that took the role. His name was Sabu, if I remember. In your minds eye, can you see the picture of Sabu? He had an entirely different shoulder structure from any American, any Western European kid you’ve ever seen! It was perfectly rounded. There was no accentuation of the deltoid, no accentuation of the biceps. And I realized as I saw this, what it is we do with our cultural patterns. (6:07) If it ever happens that there is a-, and there may well be, a re-showing of this particular picture go and take a look at it. If you get a chance on see on the TV in some of these midnight shows, that Sabu, or if you get a chance to see any of the Fred Astair pictures, go and see the Astair pictures, because Astair knew how to use his legs, his knees, and he doesn‘t know how to use his arms. Sabu knew how to use his arms, and I don’t remember whether he did or if he did not-, I don’t think he knew how to use his legs because as I remember that picture, he was fairly chunky. And the use of the legs, the use of the knees as the initiator of movement as the line going forward in the leg tends to slenderize the leg. But Astair-. Hmm? (7:20 student) Sabu was in three movies. [ ], the elephant boy, and one other movie. (7:25) Yea. I was thinking of the Elephant Boy, but not remembering the title. They were all Kipling tales… (8:05) you’re more apt to be able to pick up an Astair movie. I used to go to Astair movies and sit though one and then sit through another, you know, twice in succession, once to see the movie and once to watch his knees. I’m sure he’d of been proud of it. (8:25) But you see, Astair knew that all leg movement, either consciously or unconsciously, he knew that leg movement has to start at the knee. Plus it doesn’t start. That’s the other end of the 1st lumbar 12th dorsal stuff. (8:54) But it doesn’t start with the rectus femoris, it starts with the knees, because that’s where it does start when you really get that psoas integrated into the picture. And Astair knew this, and this was the grace of his dancing. and if you look at it this way, you will look at Astair and you will look at the dancer that followed him in time, What is his name? he danced in An American In Paris, Gene Kelly, and you’ll see that the 2 aren’t comparable at all. That Kelly didn’t know how to dance as we would see the word dance; Completely failed it. (9:37) Along about the time that you meditate on that, you’ll get to recognize why it is I’ve always had a yin to get a hold of a small group of say 12 people -10 or 12 girls in a ballet – and train them so that when these girls moved every knee went forward. Or if they were going out, they first started by going forward, and going out. But there would be a uniformity of movement in that ballet that you do not see even in very well-trained ballet’s like the Rockette New York, where the training is very precise; the insistence of precision is very great. But these girls, all 10 of them, or all 12 of them, would move that way, and you’d be aware of the uniformity that would give you a very different sense of the art form from what you get in a ballet of even relatively random bodies. (10:50) And believe me, these dancers have random bodies. I know. I spent a whole winter doing nothing but the Russian Ballet. And boy, when I was through I knew Russians from inside and out. (11:04 student) You Rolfed the Bal Choy? (11:07) No. But I-. this was at the end of the war, about 1947, and the Bal Choy wasn’t owned yet, but I Rolfed a ballet that was performing in New York as a ballet of Russians, and they were Russian, believe me. And I tried to Rolf old Madam [Carriska]. “Oh Doctor, my neck is killing me!” “Well, We’ll fix it. Now, does this hurt good, or does this hurt bad?” “Oh, Dr., I’m sooo much better!” She only kept me waiting 40 minutes at this point. [it pays] believe you I know where [she hurts]. “Oh!” Anyhow. (12:19) I bid you have fun watching these various things. You will also get weary watching them, and upset… (12:34) Leigh, I put into the other room today some news papers that I was reading last night. There was the National Observer, and there was one-. I imagine it was in the National Observer. There was one Wall Street Journal, and one National Observer. I want to see a picture. Let me see, what was the picture? The picture was of a bunch of women heckling Wilson at the British Election, and there was one kid in that picture that I want to show you. It was a big picture. It was in the National Observer I know. In the back room, lying on top (13:20) Now then, we are going to come this morning to that other type of exercise which you have all seen, I think. And which you recognize as very much a doing exercise… (structure represented by the head and neck) (13:57) Now. Do you see this boy? This child? He’s got a neck hasn’t he? Not another person in the picture has, hasn’t had for years and years and years and years, but this kid has. And every once in a while you find them that way, and in general they don’t stay that way that long; not beyond age 7. (14:22) You’ll find many 3 year olds who will go along like tulips – that very heavy head is still held up, and they are walking under their head, and their head is going up. But you see, by the time they are 7 various things have happened to them. They have fallen down that many more times, they’ve learned how much they want to copy papa or mama, or in the old days the cook in the kitchen – no longer. (15:03) They have learned to throw a ball, and they have learned to throw it badly, and they’ve gotten themselves all involved with trapezius and latissimus and so forth, and everything has gone astray from a pattern, and so the head position changes. Because you don’t have to look at anything accept a head position to tell you what’s going on in the body – head and neck. (15:35) And I sometimes say, but I don’t’ remember saying it in this class; that it occasionally occurs to me that the fad which was prevalent a 100 a 150 years ago of Cameos, was started by somebody who was talking about what you understood what was below a head and a neck by looking at the head and the neck. See I think there have been a great many people down through the years who have understood this, and that this was the way that they conveyed information, because this was the way that earlier peoples conveyed information. (16:27) The Egyptians and the Greeks were talking through their sculpture, and through their pictorial representations. And they weren’t so much trying to represent what they saw as they were trying to convey through suggestion, principles that they recognized; principles of movement. (16:50) I think I discussed this with you at the time we were talking about feet and how feet came up on the outside when you wanted good feet to walk with. And how in all pictures of Hermes, or Mercury, the wings are on the outside of the feet. And what they’re saying was if you want transportation, you must walk as though you had wings on the outside of your feet. Because they had no pollution problem; they just walked. (17:27) And so the principle of walking was to walk as though you had wings on the outside of your feet and you got there. And I’ve-, many, many, many, many of these earlier people taught that way. And Catholics still do. All of this business of so-called idols – of saints- they are not idols at all. They are representing certain accepted way, certain basic principles of character. And they put them here, and here, and here, and here so that every time some of these relatively unconscious people see them it is calling to there mind certain principles of character. The Virgin, or St. Christopher, or what have you, in the mere way in which these statues were represented evoked in the mind of the hearer and at an unconscious level certain responses; Physiological responses, Emotional responses. (18:45) You see we’ve departed from all this and what happened to us you know. (18:50) Let us get to work briefly. We can only handle about ½ of you up here at a time…We’ll put Eddie in a class by himself, and thank God Eric is gone. He’d take the whole of the mat. So 6 of you go back over to the other wall, line yourself up. Take as many chairs with you as you can… (20:00) Of you all I think Al is having the hardest time getting his Ankles together. Now you see as you do this, how you bring your legs, your knees, into a new position. (20:25) Now those of you who are on the sidelines watching, look at the soles of these feet, and see to it that they are really in excellent shape to be put on the ground and to carry weight. Alright. (20:45) Now. Take your toes, and your feet, and extend them downward. Right. And when you get into a cramp, don’t go crying just work through it. Ankles together Fritz… Now from your hips, rotate them outwards, the whole way; the whole foot. Do you feel how you’ve lost it, Bill Williams.? Now from your ankles bring them in, and I want to feel your ankles start in your mind before they start in your leg. Now Fritz, whose legs look pretty good when he sat down there, is doing the worst of the lot. (21:53) You see, what I am trying to call your attention to is that it isn’t until you demand certain functions of these parts that you really see their limitations; Their individual limitations and deviations. (22:11) Now come back, your ankles coming together first. Bill Williams, you’re doing much better. Now, only your toes turn up. And again you rotate apart from the hips. Bill you feel how you’re loosing your foot. (22:41 student) yea, yea (22:43) Alrigth. (22:50) Those of you who have a tendency to go down on the outside, feel how it’s exaggerated at this point. Now come in feeling that you are starting at the ankles. There is no point to going out so far Fritz, because the only point in going out at all is to have a place to come in from. It is the abduction which is weak in every leg you will ever see. (23:23) Now bring the whole foot up, toes and foot, and Hector feel how in so doing – which this of coarse is almost the position of walking, feel how your feet have gone off. Alright. Now, bring them out (23:49) Now those of you who are struggling and having trouble with this, and I’m speaking particularly to Hector, but some of the rest of you also. Fritz, your heels have come together. Just be aware of it. Hector you cannot do what you just did, you did do it, but you can’t do it and maintain it, because from position to position you’re putting this and than this and than this, and then you throw it all away and it all goes askew again. (24:22) Now what I’m trying to say to you is those of you who are having trouble doing this, feel where you have the trouble and I’ve got a good dollar bill that says you’re feeling it in your back, or your pelvis, or your shoulders. (24:40 Student) How ‘bout all? (24:50) But you see if you will meditate on this experience, you begin to see how, as you let your feet and legs do what they want to do, they are throwing your whole body off. So part of the correction - if you want to call it that - consists in getting you, feet and legs, so positioned that you can walk on them without throwing your body off. You see this is what got Al in trouble the other day. You remember [I think you had him do it justice] (25:22) All right, now throw the whole thing away. This time we’re going through all 5 positions without my stopping to discuss the where, how’s, and why’s of it. (25:45) Doctor, would you be good enough to sit out. Why? (25:48 student) Why? Well, my leg [had anterior, like that.] and I’ll fall asleep. No! (25:55) It’s not that (25:56 student) I’ll [hit/sit] my pelvis (25:58) Yes you see, the whole leg structure is different. If you are sitting than if you are lying. Now as you get to the place where you have accepted a certain amount of correction in that leg, in those legs, than is the time to go down to do it lying. But these are 2 different situations. (26:20) alright, now sit and you can support yourself with your hands behind you, for a couple of rounds [ ]. (26:28) Get your great toes and your ankles together. Alright. Now reach down with the toes, and down with the foot, and rotate outward from the hips, and feel that you are maintaining relative positions of foot to ankle to knee and so forth, and you are rotating only from the hip. (26:56) Now come in starting at the ankle, and again be aware of everything that is going on in that body, in that leg. Hector you are doing a good job there. Go on. Keep on. Especially with your leg flexed. When you get it all the way in, just turn your toes up. Alright, now apart from the hip, and together from the ankle when you get apart. Now Bill, you should be doing this exercise at home. (27:48) Alright. Now everything up; Toes up, foot up. And there, you see, Hector, and you see, how you go astray. And you realize that with every step that you make on the ground, you are going astray in your back and so forth. Alright, now apart. And together. (28:18) Try to draw your toe up Hector. Al, do you see how your legs are straightening? (28:21 student) Mm hmm. Yea. It’s much- (28:24) Alright keep your toe up and bring your foot down. And apart. Yea, your feet and your head Hector, are the things that go astray. There’s quite a lot in-between. Some of the things in between are supposed to be important. (29:04) All the way down, and apart, and together. And I was thinking about excusing the best of you, but I don’t think I will. Let’s do it all over again, and get back into the first position; the fifth and the first position are similar. Not the same. Now just turn your toes up. Now apart. And come in-, feel in your ankles; being aware of your ankles. that’s it, come all the way up. Now, get up. Now go on (30:05 student) Get up? (30:08) Get up, get your feet moving… (30:10 student) Which way do you want them? (30:21 student) Aaagh! (30:25) Come on, hang up your toes together, now, turn your toes. You know [that your toes pulled up]. wide the second [they separate], and come together. Ok, now everything. Ok. Go ahead. Now together. (30:50 student) Saints preserve us (30:54) Yea, they are. Go on. One of [them’s actually got [ ]] for certainty. Come on! [apart] (31:04 student) Damn (31:06) Up! Now apart. (31:26) Darn it all, now get up. And down. (31:45) Now, do you realize intellectually that what you have done is to relate all the muscles in the legs to each other in different positions. Now you see, if you’re going to use this for yourself or someone else, you have to maintain this structured step wise [insert]. (32:09) The 4th position-, let me see if you can stay down there. Just [ ]. The 4th position for instance is a position which human feet have lost. It must have been known at some time. (32:27) That’s right, with the toes up, and the foot down. (32:31) It is not the same as the 2nd position. In the 2nd position you have related certain things together (32:42) Go through it and see; 1, 2, 3. Now, feel how different it feels as you hold those up, and go down into that 4th position. You see? And then, having gotten them into this position you are forcing them to move. Ok. (33:11) Now where do you think you felt the worst strain? (33:20 student) Well, just holding my control, my ability to pull my toes up is practically nil (33:26) Your, as I say, your most fundamental problem in your body is in your feet. (33:36 student) yes I agree with that. Especially the extensors. Probably the front of the leg. That’s been my problem (33:45) Now you can cure – I use the word advisedly – any [dose of what] that you will ever see, if you can get them into those exercises and keep them going (33:58 student) That’s why I have flat feet (34:00) That’s why you have flat feet. You look at ‘em and you see, and you see and you look at ‘em (34:08) Because, flat feet are not in the feet at all, as I’ve said before, they’re in the shins (34:14 student) They’re in the shins! That’s exactly where my problem is. (34:18) That’s right (34:20 student) That number 4 position is really where that comes in, isn’t it? I noticed the difference between-, this pulls the– (34:28) That’s right. And when you get so you can handle that number 4 position, you have gone a long way toward organizing your lower extremities. But you see, what you have done, if you’re going to use it simply as an exercise, what you have done is to just spread the strain around. Sometimes [spreading/shedding] strain around is a good thing, sometimes it isn’t at all (34:56) If you’re using it on patients, then you’ve got to use your head about how to help them out of their strain. Sometimes your head requires a lot of use. (35:05) Ok. Now the rest of you ought to take this on. And tell me how your legs feel. (35:12 student) Light. (53:14 student) Yea they do. (35:15) Now for heaven sakes look at Hal [Finks] legs, remember what they look like. They look just about half as thick. (35:20 student) They sure do (35:23 student) Yea (35:24) Now look at Hector’s legs they look much, much better. (35:25 student) Do they? (35:27) Heavens, go look at ‘em yourself (35:31 student) Mine feel more secure in here while I’m doing these (35:37) Well there’s no question that these exercises and this type of exercises have their uses. But you have to understand what those uses are, and how to evoke something further from your patients to make use of the exercise for yourself (36:07 student) Hmm (36:11 student) Usually when I do this, I have to jump all over the floor to feel the [grain of anything] (36:25) Hector get your head up. Listen to yourself as you walk. When you begin to hear yourself walking-, alright, it’s a dead sure and certain indication that something is not right (36:48) Whose that sitting over there in the corner. Alright, Leigh, I just want to see who []. Now reach down with your feet, and be aware of the restrictions. Be aware of the restrictions in the knees. Be aware of the restrictions in the back. Now, rotate outward from the hips. (37:14) Now, in this class you’re not getting typical response at all. If you start with unprocessed bodies and you tell them to do this, they completely loose control of their feet; they can’t find them. (37:32) Now come back, feeling your ankles starting. The difference in these exercises between feeling them in your head before you do them, and just doing them without feeling, is tremendous. (37:56) Now, straight out. Wait, just turn your toes up. Now straight out and get it from in your hips. Actually, one says in your hips and it isn’t in your hips at all. It’s really in the groin structure, and what you’re doing is relating the psoas into the picture. My golly that man is looking good. heavenly day. (38:25) now the straightening ankles [ ] (38:32 student) Oh that’s better (38:35) Now the whole foot comes up. Wait a minute. Those of you who have a tendency to bring your heels together, I speak specifically to you Owen, check it. apart. Don, you can’t do this and write at the same time. Get it in your head. That’s what you have a head for. Toes up and the foot up. And take it apart. You didn’t take it apart Don, you let it fall apart. This wasn’t the object. No! You’re not controlling it, and you’re not working from your hips; you’re letting it fall apart. (39:27) Now this is the reason why when people say to me, “Can I do exercises?” I say “No.” Because they take this kind of thing and they do it in their understanding of what it is; which isn’t corrective exercise at all. (39:41) Now, come together with your ankles coming together first. And you didn’t. you came together with your great toes coming together first. Now keep your toes up and bring your foot down. And you come apart rotating from the hips. No. Now go back and don’t move ‘til you feel you’re controlling your leg from the hips! That’s better, and it’s still not that good, but it’s the first time you’ve done it. Now come back leading with your ankle. (40:35) All right the rest of you, are you in the 4th position? Are you in the 4th position at this point, or in the 2nd? (40:44 students) 4th (40:46) I was so taken away with Don that I haven’t kept track of the rest of you. Owen get your knees closer together, if you can; don’t kill yourself. Alright, go into the rotating. (41:03 student) Do it twice in 4th? (41:07) No; Once. And then go down to the 5th when you’re ready. (41:22) Don, what do you think you are doing? Going through a 2nd series? (41:25 student) We’re supposed to stop at-? (41:26) Yea, you’re supposed to stop there in that position. The position Al is in right now (41:31 student) Oh, I thought 5 you ended up bringing in- (41:34) No, you don’t (41:39) Alright, now you’re in 5 most of you. Now go into 2-, using 5 as 1 go into 2 (41:48) Be aware Hector of what you’re doing to yourself. You’re not sitting on your [SPI]. Why are your legs so unhappy? And the answer is because you’ve done the perverting all the way through, you see. (42:08) Are you in the 2nd position Owen, is that right? Ok. From your hips. (42:24) Now you see how Don’s feet are falling apart now, that’s the way you will usual-, that’s the usual pattern. They can’t control them at the ankles. All right now, come up into the 3rd position, and bring the ankles together Don Schmidt. You see how your feet came off your ankles? Now keep your toes up. And come down into the 4th position. Be very careful as you do this; get into that very different position, which makes very different demands on your legs. (43:37) Now, some of you look at your legs and you will see a bloom on them. Hector’s for instance have a bloom on them. Ellen’s have a bloom on them. They get positively burnished at certain places in this, and you become aware of the fact that all the glands of the skin are behaving differently (44:07) Ok. Let’s throw this one away and let’s get Mr. James down there. You have enough to have sort of tired your body anyway. As you get up, look at the people getting up, and see the difference in their legs. (44:28) Bob needs to look at Evelyn’s [hurr], her legs are so-. Nobody has managed to get the rectus abdominis retired, and because of that there is all kinds of [stiffness] (44:45 student) Yea (44:49 student) There was a point in the series where Emmet said he had to make another choice whether to work or do a line in front (45:01) It should have been long lost [ ] (45:04 student) I felt a tremendous amount in my [here] (45:08) This exercise [hard to recall] (45:10 student) Yea (45:18 student) I feel that too is my…
(45:38) [I saw] Hector [] go up into that guy’s nose a while ago. Did you go up into that guy’s nose? (45:42 student) Not yet… (Tape Break) (End) |
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