Talking with Nathia about Rolfing and Osteopathy

Welcome to Where Science Meets Self -Care with Ida Fanelli. With over 30 years in beauty and wellness and a background in medical science, Ida blends clinical knowledge with holistic care. Each week, she and her guests share insights to help you achieve healthier skin, balanced energy, and empowered self -care. Now, here's your host, Ida Fanelli. I'm joined by Nadia Gonzalez.

a certified rolfing practitioner, a member of the Canadian Rolfing Association, and Nathia will be graduating with a master's in osteopathic practice. Nathia, welcome. Can you briefly share what led you to study rolfing and osteopathy? Hi, Ida. Thanks for having me. Osteopathy and structural integration were rolfing. I'd like to start with a quote of both professions. Osteopathy is a science that analyzes man and finds that he partakes of divine intelligence. And this

is a quote from Rolfing. This is the gospel of Rolfing. When the body gets working appropriately, the forces of gravity can flow through, then spontaneously the body heals itself. So both osteopathy and Rolfing. It came into my life at a time when I was having some health issues where I couldn't find answers to what was going on. I had a lot of digestive issues, a lot of issues with my nervous system where I couldn't

really rest well at night. And I would seek out the contemporary or the more traditional ways of getting therapy, such as physiotherapy or going to chiropractors and massage therapies. But it seemed the resolution was very short -term and short -lived. And I would go back to the same cycle or to the same loop of pain and discomfort. And there was a sense of feeling like I was in that home in my body. I had an encounter with a friend where I was describing some of my discomforts

and my issues. He expressed, have you heard of this thing called the brawl thing where they work through the entire body and they... they reorganize the tissues and all of a sudden you get really healthy and you get well and you start to feel better and to me it sounded like something was completely crazy and off but something was

resonating about what he had said. I ended up doing my research for six months about brawling and I decided to give it a try because there's only so much I could read on the internet until I actually had to undergo the experience and I went through the structural integration experience or the rolfing experience and it changed my life i was able to regain health back i'm very physically active doing sports and and all kinds of physical activities through rolfing i was able to regain

my strength and be at my highest level of performance as i was before some of this other health difficulties it led me to actually study rolfing where i ended up going to to Salt Lake City where there's a school called the Guild for Structural Integration where where they teach a whole thing and I am now a practitioner myself and I've been in practice for over 10 years and now that I've been in practice for 10 years I've been seeking more depth in in my understanding of the body not only just

for myself but also for my clients and I'm always left with questions about why does the body do this? Why does it happen this way? Why is there

existence? In that process, I somehow found osteopathy, and I ended up seeking a school where I could learn it, and currently I'm in school in Canada, learning to become a... osteopathic manual practitioner i'm halfway through my studies and it's really beautiful how both of them are really coming together in the sense where we're looking to restore the body's capacity to self -heal and self -regulate and its innate mechanisms of being healthy because i think at some point we are

all born healthy generally and it is through the passing of life our experiences that we fall into dis -ease, able to regain health. And in order to do that, we have to have help from different professionals or from plants or from the natural world to get our health back. How does Rolfing work with the fascia to improve posture and muscle movement? So Rolfing essentially works on the biggest network or connective tissue that's found in the body, which is called the fascia. Right

now, fascia is a term that's really in. We hear the myofascia and myofasciitis. But it's really been around for a really long time. I think we find the connective tissue in all sorts of animals. And we find it in the animal kingdom. We find it in the plants. Even the cell wall of a plant

is a form of connective tissue. So essentially, the fascia is a tissue that... serves for protection and serves as passageways for the nerves the arteries the veins and all kinds of fluids in the body it also is a protective mechanism and it just helps the body stay contained so like a wrapper that comes involved in all all different layers of the body so we have superficial intermediate and deep layers of fascia that encapsulate our nervous system our muscles our organs and everything

that we are that's kind of keeping us together so it is a tissue of support and it is made up of collagen fibers which are deeply interwoven in different ways eventually we talk about them as being dense irregular connective tissue or dense regular connective tissue. And the difference between dense irregular and dense regular is

essentially how the fibers are oriented. So, for example, we look at our Achilles tendon or the tendon that leads into from our calves into our foot that is considered a dense regular connective tissue because the fiber orientation is all organized in a way that allows force to try to be transferred from the foot up the leg and from the leg down into the foot into the ground and so the fibers are all kind of in a specific order and there's also a specific texture and quality to the dense

regular connective tissue but if you think about all the dense irregular connective tissue which we find in other areas of the body maybe in and around the knee where there's got to be movements that need to happen in different directions and there might be a different fiber orientation where it's not so clear but then at the end of the day it is there to protect us and allow us to move in different ways and different planes and different different motions and to allow

movement to happen and in simultaneous ways where we're not even able to to conceptualize how the body is organizing or orchestrating everything that it allows what can someone expect from a typical rolfing session so a typical rolfing session generally we work with like i said we work with the fascia so in a session we can expect organization to happen in different areas of the body so for example if somebody comes in with difficulties breathing we can work through

the rib cage freeing up the tissue depending on the health of the tissue of the health of the connective tissue then some areas might be painful but generally it feels a sense of relief a sense of opening a sense of creating more room for the body to be able to inhabitants itself but also in a session you can expect movement re -education you can expect the nervous system to be able to create new pathways in such a way where this new information that is laid down

is available to the person to be able to use out in the world so bringing in movement and awareness to the body so it is very interesting it's hard to explain it is almost like a internal stretch that's happening to the tissues where more space is created to allow for a better movement. You're also studying another form of manual therapy, osteopathy. Can you explain what it is and how it compares with rolfing? That's a really tough

question to answer. I'm still in the process of understanding how they're both an extension

of each other. What I can say about osteopathy is that it is is the father or it is the root of the many professions that we see now so for example we see chiropractics is an extension or was initially was a component of osteopathy but then it was taken out and converted into or to whatever it is now we see rolfing now specialized ways of moving the fascia but even when doctors still talked about osteopathy in the mid to late 1800s he was the first to talk about the fascia

and then from there there's just been a branching of things that have come out of osteopathy so it's hard to really say that which one's best, which one's better. They're similar, but they're different at the same time. But the goal of both of them is to accomplish the body's innate capacity to just self -heal, self -regulate, to just create that interrelationship between the structure and the function of the body because one is not without the other. And now we'll take time for

a commercial break. Welcome back. How does osteopathy help with postural alignment and chronic pain? So, osteopathy helps with postural alignment and chronic pain because we are working with the anatomy, the physiology, and we are working through the body's innate mechanical ability. So, for example, we have Joints that have a very specific way of moving, but then when they get stuck or when they're injured, then the flow of energy, the flow of movement is obstructed.

And so through osteopathy, we are seeking to restore the movement through mechanical lines of forces. So there's also a methodology to being

able to bring the body back into health. through how it best moves, which is through its intelligent geometry, its intelligence of muscles, its intelligence of fascia, its intelligence of the four rivers of life, which would be the nervous system, the arteries, the veins, and the lymphatics, and being able to bring movement and the quality of health back into the areas that are not moving. What are the key differences between osteopathy, chiropractic care, and rolfing? That's also a

tough question to answer. I don't know that I've studied chiropractics enough to be able to answer the question, but I do know that in both osteopathy and rolfing, we use low amplitude force to be able to change the tissue because you need some sort of force to be able to have a tissue that's not moving to a tissue that is really moving. We don't crack the back. We don't do cracking.

In its early beginnings, there was some of that, and maybe that's where part of chiropractics took force, because it came out of osteopathy. But essentially, I think we're all looking to restore the body in some shape or form. I mean, osteopathy deals with bones, and it deals with

the musculoskeletal system. and the structure and the function of of everything and bringing it through and back to its original form which is a body that is working appropriately and then in rolfing we're looking to do the same but we're also seeking to align body and the force of gravity because when forces are acting on the body in ways that it's not supported to its structure then it then we start to go through deformation right so You're studying both of these techniques

because you'd like to do them together. It's hard to say that they're separate from each other. I think that there's... I obviously study rolfing first and constantly studying and constantly reading. I'm trying to make my understanding greater each time. But also I'm studying osteopathy. I'm finding that... Sometimes the line is not so black and white between them. It's quite beautiful. But I don't know how long or whether that's going

to look like in the future. But it's exciting because I think that there is a true capacity for the body to get healthy. And this is just these two together are a form of doing that. Years ago, I was in an event where a chiropractor

was allowing people to weigh one. leg on one scale and one leg on another scale and from that experience i found that my left leg carried 11 pounds more than my right and this makes sense to me because of my hip displacement can this be causing more strain on my muscles joints and spine nathia yeah for sure um the body is always going to find ways of compensating or is going to find ways to move where there's the least

resistance. So if you had an injury or if you've had a congenital condition or you even acquire something later in time, then the body will shift its normal, what we would consider as normal orientation, very specific joints to be able

to accommodate any change. that will try to bring the body into symmetry so for example if you have the hip displays one leg begins to to feel and be longer than the other then somewhere in the shoulder or somewhere in the hip or somewhere else the body has to counter those forces to be able to kind of bring you back to a horizontal plane or to be able to stabilize you is it mean when one leg carries more weight than another I would just say it's just a form of compensation.

And I think that through osteopathy and rolfing and therapies that are seeking to bring the parts into the whole and then integrate the whole into

the parts, then we are thinking. In terms of relationships, we're not thinking of just a single hip or a single foot, because at the end of the day, we're not a walking foot, we're not a walking hip, we're a walking being, or we're a moving being, or we're a whole person that comes integrated with different things and different functions, and all of us have to be able to work in concert well so that we are in good health. Are there any long -term effects on this imbalance in the

body? As I was saying earlier, compensations would wreak havoc on the body where you might feel your foot at first falling apart or it's not really working well and then it'll travel to your hip or travel to your shoulder and then it'll start creating issues not only at the level of the joints but also at the level of the organs because everything is so interconnected. So right around the crease of the hip we have, let's say

for example, our bladder. right and then all of a sudden you start to limp on that side and then imagine the forces and the pressures that that organ and everything around it has to deal with in order to be able to keep you somewhat symmetrical and what and then something else is going to give you know and then so you start to feel your bladder but then next thing you know a few years later You start to feel your lung and you have this cough and you're like,

I don't know where this cough came from. And then there's just this loop of things where we're trying to solve one thing or diagnose one thing. But what is the full body diagnosis? What is going on? I said like the body equally integrated. Right. So we think about it in that way. How does fascia contribute to chronic pain and movement restrictions? So the fascia, from the words of Dr. A .T. Still, he wrote a quote here somewhere, if I can pull it up. Read this quote. Solve us

to the part it takes in life and death. It belts each muscle, vein, nerve, and all organs of the body. It is almost a network of nerves, cells, and tubes running to and from it. It is crossed and filled with, no doubt, millions of nerve centers and fibers to carry. on the work of the secreting and excreting fluids of the vital and destructive things in life. By its action, we live, and by its failure, we shrink or swell and die. Each muscle plays its part in an active

life. Each fiber of all muscles owes its pliability to that yielding septum washer. He's just talking about the fascia here. That gives all muscles help to glide over and around all adjacent ligaments without friction or jar. It not only lubricates the fibers that gives nourishment to all parts of the body. Its nerves are so abundant that no atom or flesh fails to get nerve and fluid

supply therefrom. So here he's talking about the fascia and how it's so important to allow the freedom of movement to occur in the body. And through science, we're being able to find that it is the fascia all throughout the body. It is the organ that has the most... nervous innervations or connections in the body. So for example, you might be thinking you're moving your one finger, but all of that is probably even connected to your foot and you're not even

moving your foot, right? So from a very distal structure, the entire system is being affected or influenced by one thing that you do. So and then unhealthy fascia really is the beginning of any kind of disease or unease in the body.

fascia is the organ that carries the highest level of nerve innervation so essentially the mastermind of the nervous system is the brain right so the brain controls everything and if the brain controls everything controls the nervous system and the fascia is fully embedded with nerve fibers then we can say that if the nerves are not working well then obviously the blood supply and the blood drainage to and from an area the quality of movement is going to change

and so therefore it's a chain of events that changes the way the body functions and now we'll take time for a commercial break welcome back yes i had a hand surgery in september and you were very concerned about scarring from my hand surgery and you had noticed that certain things that were happening in my body as a result of the hand surgery, which you were trying to correct. So I do appreciate that. What other forms of

scarring should people be concerned about? As I was saying earlier, it's also a form of connective tissue, but it's a different type of connective tissue. It's a connective tissue that is a response to the body trying to heal itself, but then the way the fibers are laid down, It's done in such a way where it's almost like putting a whole bunch of duct tape around a hole to keep the air from coming in or from keeping something from coming out. And it's tough and it's resilient,

but it's not properly oriented. So through scars, of course, the body is creating a shield. It's

a way of protecting. It's also a tissue that no longer has the same qualities of the tissue that's healthy and so that's why it's so important to whenever you get a surgery or whenever you have some sort of procedure you have an injury where you get a deep cut and you get a scar specifically the deep scars to have it worked on because that in itself can also create obstructions not only in that particular area in the body but then the fascia everywhere and all around will have

to accommodate for that because there's almost like a integrity model where you shift one thing in one one direction something else will have to give in order to be able to bring that system into homeostasis again It's unfortunate that the medical profession doesn't educate the public on this fact because when they do operate on people, they know contractures are a definite issue, which is why they suggest that the patients

go to physiotherapists. But I find that physiotherapists don't really get to the root of the problem all the time. I do certainly think that they help and that they have the role in helping people.

gain some sort of movement back which is so important you know what medical professions they're all so concerned about what they're do what they're best at you know so they're diagnostics but they're they're also really good at surgical procedures but they don't think about the repercussions that these procedures leave for people post -surgery so you could be needing a surgery to get a cyst or something removed but what happens after that like how is the system Having an opportunity

to adjust. What is the rehabilitation process after that? And how is that done in such a way that the body can come back almost to its normal state, right? You've mentioned before that fascia plays a big role in body alignment. Can you explain how it does that? So role playing plays a really big role in body alignment because we are seeking

to integrate the body. in the force of gravity so you think about astronauts that go out in space a lot of them they start to deteriorate like when they go out in space the lack of gravity actually destroys their body so they probably went to school for so many years to learn to be out in space and become an astronaut and do so many things for for our understanding of what's out there here in planet earth for for people who are just doing their everyday life and activities

we are influenced constantly by gravity but it's how gravity is acting through the body and how we are loading our our body so this is where we say structure and function are so interrelated because if you have a well -functioning skeletal system your muscles your tissues your fascia is in good health you know how to move well you have awareness of your body then the likelihood that you're going to go through deformation is very low in that sense You need gravity, but

also the body has to know how to use it, right? So that you're not working against it. So in Rothenberg, we'll be saying like gravity is the doctor, but it is a doctor to a body that is completely organized or that it's in good health or a good function through its fascial networks, through its joint alignments, through its musculoskeletal

function. And that is kind of how it works. I've tried many therapies over the years, chiropractics, physiotherapists, orthotics, pedorthists have altered my shoes, but none of these things really seem to help the issue. What are some effective ways that people can correct uneven weight distribution? Well, I think anything we should always start

with. physical activity if we don't have good awareness of our body we should always try to get help from professionals that understand how joints move or to even within ourselves do an exploration of what movement feels like and always having the ability of comparing contrasting so for example if you're a senior you haven't really paid attention to your body for a long time and you're you're now walking around with back pain or something Even thinking about how are you

loading your weight from one leg to the other? What is the orientation of one shoulder in comparison to the other, right? And even the use of a mirror is really important in that sense because you might not be able to connect it through your nervous system, but you're able to see yourself in the mirror. You see yourself and you're like, oh, wow, I didn't notice my shoulder was hanging really low. Oh, I did notice that I could see my shoulder or my hip are rotated or twisted

in one direction. I think anything and everything starts with awareness. Are there some simple tests people can do at home to check for imbalances? I would say even going to the beach or having some sort of place where you can imprint your foot and you can see, oh, okay, well, I can see the imprint on the right foot and the imprint on the left foot and you see how your feet might be turned out. Or one foot might be loading more on the outside of the arch, and then one might

be more on the inside of the arch. Again, like I said, the mirror serves as a really good way of being able to see yourself. I didn't find out that I had an imbalance until a tailor was altering a sleeve on my shirt, and he made one shorter than the other. Yeah, or even something as simple as, okay, you put your clothes on and then every single time you put your pants on, you notice that they're kind of rotating more

to the right or more to the left. Or when you're doing some sort of activity and your shirt is always turning one direction or it feels kind of lower on one side, then that should be an indication of where your body is. I saw one of the legs of my nylons that was twisted inward and I didn't really understand why that was happening. So that gives you information about how your body is oriented or compensating and, yeah, what it's doing. How do movement therapies like rolfing

and osteopathy help correct these issues? So, again, the body is a unit of function. And when we're able to bring that into relationship of structure and function back together in good health, The body can start to move better. And so through both, we are restoring the body's capacity to self -heal and self -regulate and to move unobstructedly. And so I think they both accomplish this. Rolfing does it through movement for education. Osteopathy does it through freeing

up the body, as well as both do that. Are there any daily habits or exercises people can do to help with uneven weight distribution? I think one of the basic things people have tried to do is just breathe better. That is a really important thing. Yeah. I mean, most people are walking around the world breathing poorly, and I think if we can even bring our attention or awareness to our breath, then we're able to even notice

even the most obvious things in the body. And then from there, building... on more depth into the more subtle things yeah i recently read a research article that suggested that people that have achilles tendon injuries have problems with their hearts later on can you explain the connection with that yeah so the calf muscles or the lower leg which connect to the achilles tendon is considered kind of like the second heart of the the body obviously we have our main heart inner chest

but the same way the the blood has to go out into the system or into the body to reach different tissues whether it's your muscles your organs or or even who knows like uh like a ligament of some sort the blessing blood has to come back right and so the way the lower leg or the the calf and the achilles work they work as a pump right so the heart is a pump the lower leg is pumped that brings the blood back to the heart and so that pumping action is so important so

that blood can be cycled through the body in and out all the time so that is kind of the function of the lower leg and that's how or why it's kind of considered even if the leg isn't moving it's a pump it is wow so it is it is through the venous system which is the passive system so it will even breathing that's why breathing is important that is the first thing we do when we come into the world we take a breath and that is that's what activates the entire system and so breathing

But more than anything, physical activity. People think that they need to go and do all these hero journeys and things like that. But even walking is a really good way of getting blood back to the heart. And for example, for people who have venous insufficiencies or issues with their venous system, obviously that is an issue with the pumping system of the lower leg where the blood, the venous blood is not able to come back as well.

And obviously they need to use other. types of methods like compressive salts and massage to get the blood back to the heart circulating. And now we'll take time for a commercial break. Welcome back. Yeah. The medical profession seems to think that the only way to resolve scoliosis occurring in the spine is to operate. This can sometimes be a hazardous operation if an error is made. Please tell us your thoughts based on

your current level of education. What is the difference between structural and fundamental scoliosis? Functional is something that can just come about from daily living, and then structural is something that somebody is born with. The more common scoliosis that we hear about is... It's actually structural scoliosis, which people

are born with. And then functional, sometimes they're even idiopathic in the sense that they just come about because of puberty or patterns in the body where people learn to move in certain ways and then the body or the spine starts to accommodate to allow for that curvature. Essentially, in the scoliosis, it's a three -dimensional change

in curves where they could be happening. in a side to side or they could be happening in a front to back or in a combination of a three -dimensional shape so essentially the the more the easier ladder of correction happens through the functional scoliosis and structural scoliosis are much more difficult to correct but there it is possible we don't know if sometimes correcting somebody's scoliosis to its full extent is the thing to do because the body has also learned

to accommodate around those curves. The organs only have so much space in there, right? They only have so much space, but the body just learns to find a ground from where it can move well. And so, for example, if you're born with structural scoliosis, then... Everything within you is going to organize around those curves. But then if it's something that you've acquired around time, then the likelihood of being corrected and then everything will go to where it's supposed to

be is a lot easier. Many people feel frustrated when conventional medicine doesn't provide clear answers for their pain or imbalances. What advice would you give those searching for alternative healing options? The body is really complex. It's got its innate intelligence. And I would say that my advice would be don't give up on yourself. I think that the body with the right tools and the right orientation is able to heal. Sometimes our way to finding the help is not

so easy. But I think the biggest thing that we can hope for or the thing that we should seek out is to find better ways of being and feeling. What are some key things people should look for when choosing a practitioner? I think one of the very important things when seeking a practitioner is to feel comfortable with them. You're opening up to somebody who wants to help you in your healing journey and part of that relationship has to be one where the... both can have an open

relationship and that there's trust. That's a big part of it. I think another big element of it is having a practitioner who is knowledgeable of the body, right? In a way that they're not going to create more injuries. So it would suck to have somebody sweet talk you or talk you in such a way where you are convinced by what they're saying, but there's no way of proving how good they really are. And so I think it's important

to... When you're seeking out a professional, take your time to hopefully find the best fit available for you where you are. If not, I've done this many times where I don't find who I'm looking for where I'm at, and I feel in a capacity to go elsewhere to get the health care that I need and can afford. Do you know where people can learn more about your work? Yeah, so I have a website where people can... Help me up. This is not necessarily about me. This is about the

two professions I'm looking to highlight. And if you want to learn more about rolfing, you can go and look up the Rolfing Institute, which they do plenty of research on the fascia. There's even a congress that happens every two or three years, I believe, from parts of the world. I think about three years ago, there was actually a congress in Montreal, and they're bringing scientists of all kinds, even medical doctors who are interested in learning about the fascia

and everything it does. So I would say that's an avenue. But then also to learn about osteopathy, I think it's really worth looking up the story of how osteopathy came through at a time when there was desperation. Getting people out of adjuncts, like drinking alcohol to get rid of a liver pain, right, when people needed proper care through a challenging time in the late 1800s.

So I think that doing research on both, on the story or the history of both of them, and even for osteopathy, I would seek some of the bigger colleges that already have a reputation, even the Andrew Taylor still. that is out in Kirksville, Missouri, in the U .S. It's so often the case when someone has a problem and they're trying to find a solution, which is what happened to

you. You had trouble when you were younger. So this is how you came into Rolfing, because you found that it helped you and it impacted you so much. You wanted to learn it to help others, and that makes your story stronger, because you know it works. Yeah, I think that many things in life come through belief. But you have to have facts and evidence that something works and you know it worked for you. Yeah, it definitely worked for me in my process of being a practitioner

and doing this for work. I've also seen some really important advances in people's health. I had a woman at some point who had a cleft palate and she, in the course of her life, over 40, 45 years, she's had 25 surgeries. So that would affect her? Yeah, those really big operations. She was getting an operation almost every two or three years. Her biggest thing was that she

was unable to move as a dance teacher. her feet hurt and her face always felt so tight so but she her biggest concern was her feet because she was a dance teacher and being a dance teacher not being able to demonstrate movement was a really big issue for her and so at one point she came to me and we worked through her entire body and and not only did she gain movement back through her feet but she said she'd never felt like that in her life Because you've had so many

procedures that it's almost like you're adding a barrier. Yeah, every time. Every single time you're adding a scar, you're adding like a patch. And it's like, where do the patches end? Yeah, that's a very insightful story on the work that you're doing. How many years have you been rolfing? I've been in practice for nine years. Yeah. And you're in your second or third year of osteopathy? Yeah, I'm in my second year of osteopathy. And

it's a four -year program. And I really do think that four years doesn't do justice for the amount of studying that you have to do. It's an endless, lifelong study because you never really arrive. So I think I'll keep studying. After I'm done. Oh, well, you never stop learning, especially when you're interested in what you're doing. Those interested in learning about NACI can go to www .dynamicposturesi .com. And I'll share the link in the comment section in the description

section. Dynamic Postures is a member of the Canadian Rolfing Association. And currently it's February 2025. I've enjoyed sharing this information with you. It's a matter that's been close to my heart. I wanted to help prevent something like this from happening. Thank you for joining. We're dying to be self-care. And join us next time for more inspiration and practical tools to help you live beautifully inside and out. To connect with Ida, visit linktr.ee/idafanelli. Until

then, take good care of yourself. And remember, Self-care is where science and soul meet.