The use of smartphones and tablets is contributing to a significant rise in 
postural complaints in children and teenagers, and our members report increasing demand from parents for Rolfing® Structural Integration. In support of this, the European Rolfing® Association has launched a dedicated ‘Heads Up!’ campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of Rolfing, and to promote the better use of modern technology amongst children – and their parents too.
Rolfers® are highly trained and uniquely equipped to help with a wide range of physical complaints that can arise from technology usage: from back pain, muscle soreness and sleep loss, to adverse postural changes, tiredness and digestive disorders.
Specifically, complications can occur when our connective tissue, or body’s internal flexible ‘wiring’, becomes over-extended, compressed or out of place. This causes tension and short-term ‘compensatory’ shifts away from the natural body structure can develop into habitual, restrictive movement and postural patterns.
Rolfing can greatly improve a person’s posture and balance. It can also help release tension, trauma, alleviate chronic pain and increase energy levels.
“It isn’t just children and adolescents who are presenting with tech neck and iHunch. We are treating the parents too!” says Marina Blandini, Certified Advanced Rolfer® and Rolf Movement™ practitioner. “With postural complaints, there are so many other associated respiratory, digestive and behavioural problems too… So much interrelates and that’s why Rolfing can be especially helpful for treating children. Rolfers have a holistic, integrated approach to health and wellbeing.”
Rolfing is educational. In fact, as Rolfers we don’t instruct clients, we accompany them. We enable our clients to experience and develop alternative ways to express through movement. There is no single ‘right way’ to move, but working with fascia and in gravity, we help clients discover new and more efficient ways to move, from breathing through to very refined, specialized actions. Rolfing is different for every individual. - Explains Faculty member of the Dr Ida Rolf Institute® Europe, Rita Geirola.
“Mainly parents bring their child into clinic because they have concerns about their poor posture, the way they sit or walk. Although the parents bring them, it is just so important that we, as Rolfers, also establish a direct rapport with the teenager. We work ‘with’ the client and not ‘on’ them, and it is their motivation that enables change to take place, and vice-versa.” Rita continues.
Leading yoga Instructor and health coach, Sharon Feanny, sought the expertise of Keith Graham, a Certified Advanced Rolfer practising in the UK. “In just two Rolfing sessions, I felt that my 13 year old son gained a greater awareness of himself and how to correct his posture and reset himself after spending time on his screens. Keith was able to help him feel more ‘open’ and to understand what it means to be present in his own body. It was a revelation!” Feanny says.
Certified Rolfers are the only professionals who can provide Rolfing Structural Integration to the public, and the European Rolfing® Association is responsible for the qualification of new practitioners and their continuing education.
