Sharon Wheeler’s Fascial Work
Sharon Wheeler and The Legacy of Dr Ida Rolf
Sharon Wheeler was trained by the American bodywork pioneer Dr. Ida Rolf who developed a system called Structural Integration or “Rolfing”. This balances the body by lengthening and repositioning the fascia (connective tissue) so that the person relates differently to gravity. The fascia surrounds the muscles, bones, organs, and nerves in the body, meaning that, from one perspective, a strict distinction between hard tissue (bones) and soft tissue (muscle, tendons, skin) is arbitrary as everything is collagen and is everything connected. The fascia gives muscles their shape and the body its structure: we are an endless flow of collagen, a web of fascia.
Sharon's original contribution of ScarWork and BoneWork is an evolution of the principles of Dr Rolf’s work to how scars and bones sit in the fascial web.
Sharon Wheeler was trained by the American bodywork pioneer Dr. Ida Rolf who developed a system called Structural Integration or “Rolfing”. This balances the body by lengthening and repositioning the fascia (connective tissue) so that the person relates differently to gravity. The fascia surrounds the muscles, bones, organs, and nerves in the body, meaning that, from one perspective, a strict distinction between hard tissue (bones) and soft tissue (muscle, tendons, skin) is arbitrary as everything is collagen and is everything connected. The fascia gives muscles their shape and the body its structure: we are an endless flow of collagen, a web of fascia.
Sharon's original contribution of ScarWork and BoneWork is an evolution of the principles of Dr Rolf’s work to how scars and bones sit in the fascial web.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending pottery with lacquer and gold. The repair is seen as an essential part of the item's beauty. Impermanence and imperfection are a natural part of life. Repair by Japanese artisan Natsuyo Watanabe. © www.Tsugi.de
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ScarWork
ScarWork looks into how to integrate different qualities of scar tissue into the fascial web. It is a very gentle approach and there is no attempt to “get rid of” or “break down” scars – they are necessary. They can just need a bit of help to soften, settle and integrate. Scar Tissue creates adhesions (connections between parts of the body which are not normally connected) and this can restrict the natural movement patterns of organs, muscles and bones in significant ways. It is often possible to remove tension, fill in dips in and around the scar, soften raised sections, change how the edges match up, move tissue which has been shifted during an operation or accident, and detach scar adhesions from deeper layers of the body. As a result, hypersensitive and numb areas can both become more normal. |
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BoneWork
BoneWork is an inquiry into the fascial plasticity of bone. Accidents and injuries can disorganize the relative position of bones, creating movement restrictions, or they can stick together (“fuse”) out of place causing chronic dysfunction. These bone-to-bone adhesions are at the level of the fascia of the outside of the bone (the periosteum). In Bone Rolling, deep, painless manual pressure is precisely directed through the periosteal adhesion to release the stuck bones. The bones are now free to move, or “roll” into a better relationship within the structure of the fascial web. Both ScarWork and BoneWork rely on the body’s own ability to organise itself efficiently in gravity, and the results of both are normally progressive and long lasting. |
We imagine that bone is rigid and brittle like pottery, but in the living body, bone is flexible and in a constant state of adaptation.
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