The two big misconceptions surrounding structural integration.

Words often fall short or become too broad to be felt on a personal level when describing what structural integration does. The only real way to understand is to go through a 12 series and experience it yourself. It is similar to that feeling of awe or that phrase “you had to be there.” However, what can be said is that your life will change afterwards, it is not a temporary project, it continues to evolve within yourself as long as you continue to move within gravtiy.

The second misconception stems largely from a lack of public awareness about structural integration as a broader field of bodywork.

The lack of awareness is largerly becasue structural integration is ahead of its time in terms of full body pattern recognition and therapeutic application. Connecting the dots of pain in one area being driven by a distant relationship elsehwere.

The rest of the western world of bodywork and health has been too focused on old models that rely on how the scapel cut through the body and the deductions made from it instead of looking at how people develop from embryo (and altering scapel angles). These deductions and conclusions can not even explain the complex interplays of walking.

Everyone else not elightened to the approach of structural integration are finally coming around thanks to the efforts of many people within different fields connecting the dots of fascial function.

For clarity, the rest of this blog compares the Rolfing approach and the Anatomy Trains Structural Integration approach to the series, highlighting where they diverge and why those differences matter.

The first major difference between Rolfing and the Anatomy Trains series is length.

The original recipe drawn from Ida Rolf’s teachings did not address two major components that prove effective for unraveling postural patterns:

Thomas Meyers evolved Ida’s recipe and knowledge into a coherent sequence of longitudinal myofascial meridians, ultimately arriving at the 12 session series that incorporates both of those missing elements.

In general, the Rolfing and ATSI sessions cover similar territory within their respective series. However, two sessions present in the ATSI 12 series do not appear in the Rolfing 10 series:

For more detail about each line there is an overview of the series, for the dedicated reader, there is a book written by Thomas Meyers, and for everyone, book the first session of the 12 series to develop an intimate personal relationship with these lines across the sessions.

The fourth session, spiral line session, of the ATSI 12 series addresses the superficial sleeve rotation before delving into the deeper myofascial core rotation. The Rolfing 10 series skips this step entirely.

Without first unraveling the superficial sleeve rotation, resolving the deeper core rotation becomes significantly more difficult.

Becasue the superficial sleeve, the myofascia you see, the abs, the thigh, and chest, directly counters the deeper core. If you have ever tried to unwind a cord without knowing where the end is, it would be a similar feeling if you did not address the counter rotation. Therefore, the addition of the spiral line session in the ATSI series creates more opportunity for meaningful change.

The other session absent from the Rolfing 10 series is the 11th session of the ATSI 12 series. This session addresses the myofascial roots of the arms, think in the armpit, and works all the way down to the hands.

While both the Rolfing and ATSI series touch on the roots of the arms throughout the series, Rolfing does not allocate a dedicated session to the full arm the way ATSI does.

 The purpose of this session is to drape the shoulder girdle and arms over the newly supported core, the deep front line. Because patterns held within the arms affect the axial body and vice versa, addressing the full arm provides substantially more space for whole body change.

The 12 series is designed specifically to catalyze change throughout your entire system. That means unraveling the maladaptive patterns and deviations from neutral that have been set into your body since you first learned to move as a child.

This idea is not entirely new. Movement modalities developed long ago, such as the asanas within Yoga, offer a similar path.

However, what sets structural integration apart is the speed at which change occurs, the relatively small investment of time required, the series’s ability to activate the body’s own natural drive toward health, and the bodywide pattern based approach. In terms of physical alignment, that means guiding the body to move within gravity toward neutral, while also honoring the emotional and mental change that naturally follows.