(excerpt from Rolfing® Structural Integration by Jason Mixter, Certified Advanced Rolfer™)
Six months to a year after completing an initial series, many clients feel a need for a refresher session, or “tune-up.” Many Rolfers also recommend one or two sessions per year after the first sessions to maintain the benefits of the original ten. But it is possible to have too much Rolfing, and most practitioners recommend that clients use what they’ve already learned rather than seek more and more material. Although there are people who get Rolfed every month and find it beneficial because of their active life styles; whether because of the nature of their work, exercise, or sports.
Somewhere between one and five years after an initial series, most clients return for the shorter (four to six sessions) Advanced series. This sequence concentrates on ways of deepening the work completed in the Ten-session series by using additional approaches such as movement and joint articular mechanics. Often areas that were painful and frozen even during the first sessions are found to be pliable and free during the advanced work. As one client described her advanced sessions:
On going back there was so little pain in my body, I accused my Rolfer of getting soft. The intense emotional experiences weren’t there after the later sessions either, but what joy I felt walking on the beach afterward. The pure and simple joy of being ecstatic in my body!
Rolfing® and Rolfer™ are service marks of the Rolf Institute® of Structural Integration