About Hellerwork Structural Integration
Hellerwork Structural Integration is a unique and transformative work based on the inseparability of body, mind, and spirit and the assumption that every person is innately healthy. It is a powerful system of somatic education and structural bodywork designed to realign our bodies and movement in gravity. This increases the availability of health, energy, flexibility, and self-expression. The 11-session series changes your relationship with your body and your experience of being alive. Completing the series is optimal; single sessions are also an option.
Combining Bodywork, Movement Education, and Dialogue, Hellerwork helps the client develop a deeper awareness of their body and their expression in the world.
BODYWORK is the systematic release of muscle and fascia. The reorganization of the fascial planes restores the body's optimal natural balance and posture. This work …
- IMPROVES posture, balance, alignment, flexibility, performance, and range of motion
- RELIEVES injuries, discomfort, stress, trauma, constriction, pain, and tension.
MOVEMENT EDUCATION guides you to move in ways that minimize effort and tension while maintaining and improving the bodywork results. This process …
- REVEALS physical and emotional habits
- TEACHES self-care techniques
DIALOGUE allows you to explore how thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings impact your body and empower you to take this awareness into your life. This communication:
- ENRICHES relationships
- TRANSFORMS life experience
THE SERIES is a brilliantly organized sequence of sessions that work through the multiple layers of your body to enable you to experience more comfort and ease in everyday living. Each session builds on the next as we explore in detail how you are, who you are and how you would like to be. Each session has a specific body territory we work on, founded in a theme for that session to facilitate our conversation and useful movement skills where you learn to enhance your daily function. The work is accomplished both on and off the massage table. You may be lying, sitting, standing, or moving.
This process releases the old posture of your body, giving rise to new possibilities for body flexibility, movement, and being.
Deep Tissue, Dialogue, Awareness, and Movement re-education facilitate profound body-mind transformation in-breath and fascial experience of gravity to release patterns of stagnation in the movement of body-mind, and spirit.
What's Hellerwork got to do with it? "Stand up straight! Suck in your stomach! Sit up!" Sound familiar? No matter how hard we try, the slouch returns with a squirm of discomfort.
How about after a few hours at the computer? Your hands are turning to lead, your back stiffens, or after a few months, numbness in the hands, neck, and back pain or the diagnosis of the dreaded "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." These are just some of the things that can shape our bodies, over time, as we wrestle with the forces of gravity and stress. Can our bodies change?
Is it possible to work, play and perform our best with comfort and ease? Before I had a series of Hellerwork sessions, I had no idea how much my body could change. I thought I had to "grin and bear it" or go out for a run to work it off. I had no idea that it would help me surf better, play saxophone better, or speak in front of groups with more confidence So what is Hellerwork and how can it help us look better, feel better and perform our best?
Hellerwork is recognized as one of the most gentle and effective forms of structural bodywork and movement re-education for correcting posture and releasing chronic tension, stress, and pain. It can be broken down into three major categories: Releasing tension, stress, and pain in the soft tissues of the body. Realigning the body to reduce the stress of gravity. Re-educating the body and our awareness to reduce tension and stress for more efficient performance
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When we are experiencing tension, stress, and pain we are usually holding or tightening muscles in our bodies. Quite often our breathing, posture, and movement are restricted. Over time, these patterns of tension, stress, and pain get stuck in our bodies, primarily in the fascia. Fascia is a white fibrous connective tissue that is ideally very fluid, flexible, and elastic, which allows a full range of motion. It can become stiff and rigid leading to restricted movement patterns of tension, stress, and repetitive motion. Fascia also becomes rigid to support areas where muscles are in spasm over long periods of time and in areas that have been injured or traumatized. The great thing about fascia is that no matter how tight or restricted it gets it is a plastic medium. It can be stretched and manipulated back to its resilient and flexible condition. A Hellerworker releases tension and stress in the fascia with a gentle and skilled touch. This release of tension, stress, and pain often results in increased energy with a new freedom of movement.
Posture and alignment are defined by how we move in, and adapt to living in, the field of gravity. A Hellerworker analyzes posture and alignment in standing, sitting, and in motion with all of the clients' activities. He or she then works to release tension and stress in a way that realigns the posture and restores balanced, comfortable movement in our field of gravity. Through releasing tension, stress, and pain and realigning their posture, the client is already becoming aware of how they move. A skilled Hellerworker guides the client in discovering how their emotions and attitudes can play a role in shaping their bodies and movement patterns. Clients become aware of how they can change stressful posture, movement patterns, emotions, and attitudes to more relaxed, productive, and efficient habits. Stress, emotions, and attitudes can then become energies that can be dealt with more positively and productively.
As their posture improves and decompresses, Hellerwork clients often hear from family and friends that they look better, taller, and even like they have lost weight. When flexibility is restored, clients report that they feel better and have more energy. We perform better when we learn how to deal with stress in more efficient and productive ways.