IPR: The other night. Ah. Oh, I know who I'm going to stick with that question. Dale [IPR laughing]. Dale and I have an old family joke about that one. Dale: Right. Cause I wasn't there I'll take a guess, ok? IPR: Weren't you there? Dale: Well, maybe I was. IPR: Well you take a guess. This will be a perfect example, I mean, always the introduction is approximately the same. Now you give the introduction this morning, particularly since Dr. Page wasn't there either and he needs to know what YOU THINK I said. Dale: Okay. Um, you probably told 'em what Structural Integration was. IPR: Uh, make it a little louder over the noises. Dale: Ok. Probably wanted to know what Structural Integration is, or what it was, or is. Uh, what Structural Integration is is a system approach to changing the body, and we, based on certain assumptions, and those assumptions are, one, is that the BODY IS SEGMENTED and second the BODY IS PLASTIC, and the third assumption is that THE BODY ALWAYS IN RELATION TO GRAVITY, or is in gravity. So once we have those three assumptions we can start then the approach to the body. IPR: Well, WHY do you want to to get three assumptions... Dale: Because... IPR: ... PEOPLE HAVE BEEN IN THIS WORLD FOR AN AWFUL LONG TIME... Dale: Well, for instance... IPR: .. AND THEY HAVE SURVIVED, oddly enough ... Dale: Because, our system is ... IPR: ...WITHOUT ROLFING. Dale: ...for instance uses gravity, as a base through to work from. Uh, other than Tai Chi, I don't know, but there is no system approach that uses gravity. The other assumption is about... um ... IPR: WHY should we want to use gravity? Dale: Because we are in gravity. We are in opposition... IPR: PEOPLE HAVE BEEN IN GRAVITY FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS... Dale: And they are collapsing too. IPR: Huh? Dale: And THEY ARE COLLAPSING too. IPR: THEY'VE BEEN COLLAPSING. Now this is the point that I am trying to bring out. You are trying to deal with a situation which hasn't been dealt with before. Men are MISERABLE. Men have always been somewhat miserable. They are more miserable today cause they don't have enough to do, but they can think about how miserable they are. And what you are trying to do is to find some DIFFERENT set of assumptions which in accordance with your, uh, with the flag you are waving will HELP THEM OUT OF THEIR MISERY. This is the point. That you cannot stay with the old assumptions and get any further than has been gotten. Kozipsky had a way of saying it. He says if you start with grandpa's premises you come to grandpa's conclusions. Now grandpa wasn't very happy but he managed because he was so damn busy pushing the hoe and the plow that he couldn't remember how his back ached. But grandson sits at a desk all day, and he isn't that busy, and his back is killing him, quote. Now you've got to go out an look for a DIFFERENT SET OF PREMISES in order to try and get to a DIFFERENT CONCLUSION. And you remember MY GOOD OLD STORY which I'm sure many of have heard before you ever struck me. The story of a guy thats called, thats flying down a street in a small town. And he shouts out at a native walking along the sidewalk, "Hey, how did I get to Pittsburg?" And the native doesn't say anything. And he shouts a little louder, "Hey I asked you how I got to Pittsburg?" And there's no answer. And finally he says, "Hey you, are you deaf? I asked you how I got to Pittsburg." And the guy turns around, and he says, "Well, neighbor, if I wanted to go to Pittsburg I WOULDN' START FROM HERE." [muffled laughter] Now, you see, you can talk about that story in terms of the Pittsburg story, or you can talk about it in terms of Kozipsky's story. If you are going to start with grandpa's premises you are going to get to grandpa's, conclusions because grandpa was a pretty bright boy, the only problem was he didn't have the right PREMISES. So, you're are on a hunt for different premises which will help you on a hunt to some Pittsburg or other. Now what you remember, what you ... enumerated, but what you summarized, is THAT set of premises which you are now, or I am now, or we are now coming up with, as THE DIFFERENT SET of premises. But you see, YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHY YOU WANT DIFFERENT PREMISES. You have to make this clear to a guy who are trying to convince that he is interested in structural integration. He doesn't care. All he wants is the pain out of his back. He has had that pain for ten years and he is so sick of it, can you get it out? BUT PART OF YOUR JOB IS A TEACHING JOB OF TEACHING THIS GUY why what you are going to do might get it out. Do I make myself really clear, Dale? Dale: Yes. IPR: Because you see THIS IS A PROBLEM THAT EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM FACES. There isn't one of you thats going home on Tuesday who isn't going to be asked, "Well, what is this nonsense that you have been spending your time on?" And YOU BETTER HAVE A [laughing] DECENT ANSWER. Otherwise they won't let you out again. But this is the story, now from there, you go along and say, specifically, "WE CAN GET A DIFFERENT SET OF ANSWERS IF WE START WITH DIFFERENT PREMISES." And then you enumerate, "Premise number one, THE BODY IS NOT A SINGLE THING, it is a summation of segments. Those SEGMENTS ARE UNITED BY A MATERIAL THAT HAS A PECULIAR PROPERTY, which is a kind of private little gift of God to man, and that peculiar property is that IT CAN BE HANDLED AND CHANGED BY HANDLING. This is the property of the collagen which is the chemical matrix of the connective tissue, of the stuff that holds the units, the segments together. And IT IS NECESSARY TO DO THIS IN ORDER TO CREATE A SUMMATION OF SEGMENTS THAT CAN FIT INTO THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD IN SUCH A WAY THAT GRAVITY CAN REINFORCE IT INTEAD OR TEARING IT DOWN. And if you are trying to convince somebody, you go on and expand on that. That has always been the premise, and any of you who has taken elementary medical or premedical courses have heard it handed to you. There has always been the premise, that that which is wrong with bodies is that, uh, they are always having to fight gravity. And in the days of my youth and Dr. Page's here we heard over and over again that this is the basic thing that was wrong with human beings, that they were created as four footed animals, that they were developed as four footed animal to two footed animals and that the gravity kept tearing them down. Now within limits this is so. If the body is a random body, gravity is always tearing it down. What you are trying to do is to take it out of being a random body and make it into an ordered, structured body so structured that gravity, the energy force of the field of the earth, can flow through that man and support it, and hold it up, not tear it down. And then the other guy says to you, "Well this is nonsense, because gravity always tears things down." And you say, "Oh yeah, remember the time when you were out camping? What held your tent up?" If you balance that plastic structure, and a tent is also a plastic structure, so that the pull on one side balances the pull on the other, gravity doesn't pull it down. Now he thinks, that guy you are talking to thinks its supported by a tent pole. But it isn't supported by a tent pole. The plastic structure is held apart, is balanced, you are seeing to it with your tent pole that you have as much material on the right side as you have on the left side. If you have more material on the right side than you have on the left side, you'll have the kind of night we had last night, you're going to be in a puddle, and not only that but the tents going to be on top of you. So that that that whole mechanism of balance, feeds into the idea and the mechanism of the gravitational force that is tending to pull it to the earth. And if it feeds into it properly the gravitational force does THIS to it instead of doing THAT to it. Now, does this add to your notion, Dale, to the place where you can handle it. Dale: Yes. IPR: Where you can feed it out? Dale: Yes. IPR: Because the more time and thought and digestion you put on this idea, the more you can feed this out to the other guy, and he looks at you, and his eyes open and he says, "Gee that makes sense," and then you got 'em hooked. Then you start your first hour on him. But you see, you need, everyone of you who is going to be a practitioner in this room, needs to have this sort of a thing at his tongue's end. So when this question is fired at you the answer that you give makes sense to them. This is half the battle, as you all know, by the time you have won the man mentally, the problem of dealing with his muscles is a good deal easier. Hey Carl, would you get your head out between me and Dale. This is a little something that has been going on between us for eight months, don't get between us. [laughing] Some people have two good memories, Dale. Dale: Right. IPR: Anyway, uh, does this whole thing make sense to you? Dale: Oh, you were right, what you said about that... First demonstration I gave the first question was this one... IPR: Yes, I know. And I heard Dale had given a demonstration and I said, "This is the day that Dale has forgiven me." [laughing] Uh, anyway, I can't really overstress this. You think that what I am saying is something casual. But it isn't casual. Every time someone asks you that question, the quicker the answers the more better formulated the answers that trickles off that tongue of yours, the more you are convincing the other guy to really look at this premise. Where as if you are fumbling all over the mat you haven't convinced them at all. Now would somebody like to add to these, these notions, in terms of what I talked about the other night? So this is the basic key of the situation, what you have just heard. Yes? Person 1: I was going to say, it seems to be important to add the other aspect too, about conceiving the body as an energy system and the ... IPR: This is true... Person 1: ... behavior of the body in terms of the organization of the segments. IPR: This is very true, BUT its really a secondary on top of this very simple minded presentation. What it is we have just talked about is a very simplistic thing, but its very simplicity recommends it. Uh, to the person who is hearing about it and he accepts it, and then you can go on with it. You know the idea of the body as an energy system is still not something that too many people are familiar with to be accepting. We are still having to sell the idea of an energy system.