Rolf Movement Certification
Rolf Movement® Certification
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To receive Rolf Movement® Certification, a student is required to take a minimum of 30 days of Rolf Movement training (225 total hours), of which three days (22.5 hours) can be an independent study project or mentorship with a DIRI Rolf Movement faculty member.
The recommended time for completion is six years.
Why become Rolf Movement Certified?
Rolf Movement Certification Training is a distinct and complementary program to the Rolfing SI and Advanced Rolfing® SI training and IASI programs. Expanding movement education reflects the increased role that an understanding of gravity orientation, perception, coordination, expressivity, and nervous system regulation plays in determining lasting shifts in posture and function. Further, teaching Rolfers™ and IASI practitioners to understand, embody, and articulate these perspectives serves the greater DIRI mission to educate the world about Rolfing Structural Integration. Rolf Movement Integration distinguishes Rolfing from other brands of structural integration. Rolf Movement Integration links ongoing discoveries in the study of neuroscience and motor patterns to the legacy of Dr. Rolf.
Train at your own pace.
The Rolf Movement Certification Program is offered in a variety of formats to meet the needs of students and practitioners with established clinical practices. Students, Certified Rolfers™, and practitioners of structural integration who have completed an IASI Recognized SI Program can be trained in Rolf Movement. For Rolfing SI students in Boulder, CO, Rolf Movement Certification training can begin during the interval between Phases II & III.
Rolf Movement Certification Prerequisites & Policies
Prerequisites
- Open to all Certified Rolfers (in good standing).
- Open to practitioners of Structural Integration who have completed an IASI Recognized SI Program.
- Rolfing SI Training students must have completed Phase II before beginning their Rolf Movement Certification.
* Additional prerequisites may apply.
Objectives
Expanding movement education reflects the increased role that an understanding of gravity orientation, perception, coordination, expressivity, and nervous system regulation plays in determining lasting shifts in posture and function. Further, teaching Rolfers to understand, embody, and articulate these perspectives serves the greater DIRI mission to educate the world about Rolfing Structural Integration.
Format & Methods
The Rolf Movement Certification program is offered through a variety of modules. These classes work sequentially or as stand-alone classes. They focus on the ten-session framework through embodiment and practitioner training by working with coordinative, perceptual, and expressive patterns. Classes are offered in Boulder, CO, and throughout the United States. Students must take a total of 30 days (225 hours) of credit – to be a Certifed Rolf Movement Practitioner™.
Past Rolf Movement workshops taken from a Certified Rolf Movement Instructor may be credited towards certification as long as these workshops were taken after January 1, 2009, over a period of up to six years.
Through a lens, based on the Rolfing Ten-Series™ and experienced through embodied movement, students will learn theory, skills, and processes to work with the client’s coordinative, perceptual, and expressive structures. These are synergistic to and essential for, highly successful and integrative fascial work. As Dr. Rolf so keenly understood, and current research supports, these structures must be addressed to evoke and maintain optimal functioning and general health.
Skills explored within these somatic movement education modules include:
- Understanding the Ten Session logic and framework through coordination, perception, and expression. Embodied explorations will be a platform for the practitioner to deepen their understanding and effective delivery of the Rolfing process as a whole, as well as session by session.
- Theoretical knowledge and practical applications of RMI
- Rolf Movement exercises that coincide with each goal of the ten series.
- The ability to see and understand the body in motion
- Cultivating qualities of touch and language
- Deepening presence and resonance in clinical relationships.
- Strategizing and building a series of three Rolf Movement Sessions. This will support Rolfers in creating a richer tool-set for meeting the varied needs of clients.
- Learn to apply Rolf Movement theory, principles, and embodied explorations to lead group classes. This will create additional support for clients, the opportunity to work with specific populations, and provide a vehicle to reach out to interested groups as a potential way of meeting new clients and introducing them to the Rolfing process. (Last week of Module “3”)
Students who are already Certified Rolf Movement Practitioners™ may find these classes valuable for review, refinement, and acquisition of new insights and skills.
Some examples of classes offered for Rolf Movement CE & Certification Credit:
- “Tonic Function Model of Rolf Movement”: a six-day workshop that explores the body as a movement system founded on gravity response. Tonic Function is Hubert Godard’s term for how gravity response is central to the physiological basis of structural integration; and, in fact, all matters of posture and coordination. Tonic function explains how and why structural integration exceeds the limits of conventional manual therapy
- “Spinal Therapeutics: A Systems Approach to Vitality and Personal Agency”: a four-day workshop that explores axial and appendicular approaches to address spinal challenges blending anatomical understanding and manual approaches with perception and coordination.
- “Deepening the Rolfing Ten Series through Movement and Manipulation”: a five-day workshop that deepens and clarifies movement and manipulation for each ten-series session goal, so that practitioners are able to refine and tailor interventions to support each client’s individualized needs.
Highlights of Rolf Movement Certification:
- expands training opportunities
- self-designed, flexible, student-centered program
- allows individual timing for personal embodiment
- allows integration of curriculum to occur within one’s practice
- encourages more exposure to different faculty & perspectives
- allows for immediately updated curriculum
- allows for more regional training opportunities
- develops effective & sophisticated practitioners
Costs
Please see Tuition and Costs
Training in Brazil, Japan, and Europe
The Associacao Brasileira de Rolfing® (ABR), the Japanese Rolfing® Association (JRA), and the European Rolfing® Association (ERA) offer a wide variety of workshops, movement training opportunities, and tutorials. Please contact the ABR, JRA, and ERA directly for further information.
Rolf Movement Faculty
 | Rebecca Carli-Mills became interested in somatic movement studies while pursuing B.A. and M.F.A. degrees in dance performance and choreography. She earned certification in Rolf Movement® Integration in 1987 with Janie French and Annie Duggan. She became a Certified Rolfer™ in 1989 and a Certified Advanced Rolfer in 1992. In 1994, Rebecca graduated from the Pennsylvania Gestalt Center for Psychotherapy and Training and joined the Rolf Movement® faculty of The Rolf Institute®. Rebecca’s understanding of gravity and human movement potential has been enriched by her long-time studies with Hubert Godard. Godard’s work provides the chief theoretical and practical foundation that inspires her teaching. Additionally, she draws from her interest in the work of Laban/Bartineff, Charlotte Selver, Julio Horvath, and through various forms of yoga. Rebecca believes that embodiment is a life-long process, essential for somatic practitioners. Rebecca is a past Chairperson of the Rolf Movement® faculty and ISMETA board member. She has taught somatic movement courses at several universities. Currently, Rebecca lives in Chevy Chase MD, where she maintains an active practice in Rolfing® SI and Rolf Movement Integration. | |
 | Lisa Fairman i s a Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and a Certifed Rolf Movement Practitioner™ in practice in Helena since 1998. Known for her gentle hands and clear touch she approaches her work from a perspective of evoking change and eliciting curiosity and ease. She has specialized training in trauma work and in visceral work and manipulation. | |
 | Kevin Frank is a Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Certified Rolf Movement Practitioner™, and a Rolf Movement® Instructor at DIRI. He has worked with the Godard-derived Tonic Function Model since 1991 and has written on this topic from 1995 to the present. Kevin views structural integration as a form of somatic education, and advocates for an “information system” view for doing and teaching this work so as to bring the field of SI into congruence with modern understanding of motor control and perceptive/coordinative processes. Kevin is the co-author (with Caryn McHose) of the book, How Life Moves, Explorations in Meaning and Body Awareness (North Atlantic 2006). | |
 | Per Haaland Per Haaland is a Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Certified Rolf Movement Practitioner™, and DIRI Faculty member teaching both Rolfing® SI Training and Rolf Movement®. He received his Rolfing® training in 1989 and completed his advanced training with Jan Sultan and Jeff Maitland in 1994. Per has also trained in visceral and neural manipulation and is a certified biodynamic craniosacral therapist. Studies with Hubert Godard and Kevin Frank shaped his understanding of structural integration as interactive somatic education, highlighting perceptual and coordinative processes. In his approach to Structural Integration and Movement Education, Per also draws extensively from his background as a professional dancer and choreographer. | |
 | Aline Newton has been a Rolfer™ since 1984. In 1990 she began studying with Hubert Godard and continues to be inspired by his perspective on Rolfing® and movement to this day. She served as Chair of the Rolf Institute® Board for many years. In addition to her private practice in Cambridge, MA, Aline teaches Embodied Anatomy at Berklee Conservatory’s Alexander Institute. She has written extensively and lectures on embodiment, perception, breathing, core stabilization, and other concepts that underlie Tonic Function. | |
 | Suzanne Picard has been faculty at the Rolf Institute for 21 years. Her studies include Visceral, Neural Manipulation, and Cranial Work. She is inspired by anatomy and physiology and devoted to cultivating presence and our ability to connect with clients on a variety of levels. Her passion is to blend these aspects and support wholistic vitality in ourselves and our clients. | |
 | Bethany Ward, MBA, is dual faculty serving in both the Rolfing® and Rolf Movement® Integration departments. She is past president of the Ida P. Rolf Research Foundation and was involved in the early stages of the International Fascia Research Congress and Fascia Research Society. Bethany currently serves on DIRI’s Regional Faculty Oversight Committee and Faculty Development and Review Board. Combining degrees in psychology and business with over two decades of Rolfing experience, Bethany brings a fresh perspective to somatic education. Adept at making complex ideas understandable, relevant, and accessible to a wide variety of learning styles, Bethany’s articles have been published in the Structural Integration Journal, the International Association of Structural Integration Yearbook, Massage Magazine, Endurance Magazine, among others. Bethany has a full-time private practice in Durham, NC. | |