What is Rolfing?

It's not what you think, I promise. Although its name sounds unfortunately like what can happen during a bout of nausea, rolfing is actually a form of deep-tissue work (practitioners don't call it massage) named after its creator, Dr. Ida P. Rolf. Rolf's light-bulb moment came when she realized that, while traditional massage treats the body as made up of separate parts, those parts are actually all held together by connective tissue, so adjusting any one muscle indirectly adjusts them all. In order to relieve stress and pain and relax muscles, she worked with connective tissue to realign the entire body. Although rolfing itself has never quite made it onto most spa menus, a lot of its techniques have, and Rolf's ideas about connective tissue have contributed to our modern, more holistic view of massage and body care.