What is Hellerwork Structural Integration?

Hellerwork Structural Integration is a method of reorganising and balancing the body through movement and touch. Over the course of our lives habits, stress, and injuries contribute to patterns of posture and movement that limit our freedom and grace in moving and may lead to chronic pain and dysfunction. 
Hellerwork Structural Integration works to systematically unwind chronic strain and create easier and more natural ways of moving, sitting, standing and being. Gravity, body structure, and individual habits (such as work, sport and other physical activities) are considered. Each session is designed to release areas of the body under strain and re-educate the body to stand and move freely. Through this process changes occur structurally, functionally and energetically that lead to a new sense of freedom and grace. Chronic pain and discomfort are alleviated and replaced with feelings of fluidity, lightness and wellbeing.

Fascia - Structural Connective Tissue

Fascia is a collagenous connective tissue which shapes our bodies, transmits muscular forces, affects our flexibility, and supplies us with information about our position in space. The first layer of fascia lies just under the surface of the skin. Deeper layers wrap muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, nerves and organs. If we were to remove all other tissues from the body, the remaining fascia would be seen as a fantastic three dimensional web, mapping out the positions of all the other parts. 
The continual pull of gravity, habits of posture and movement, the stress of daily activities, and physical injuries can pull the body out of alignment. The fascia gradually shortens, tightens and adjusts to accommodate the misalignment. When the body is out of alignment it becomes inefficient and imbalanced resulting in stiffness, pain and loss of energy.
Hellerwork Structural Integration uses specialised techniques of touch to free, lengthen and direct the fascia to a more optimal position. Movement education supports and amplifies these changes by offering new ways of moving that are more efficient and aligned with the bodies natural design.
Freed from fascial restriction, the body is aligned and balanced and moves with greater ease. It requires less energy to function. Good posture is effortless and breathing is easier. The body becomes more flexible, more coordinated and athletic performance improves.

Gravity’s influence on our posture and movement

Gravity draws us toward the center of the earth and is matched by an opposing ground-reaction-force rising up through our body. The more aligned our structure is in the field of gravity, the more evenly these forces are conducted through our whole body and the less energy we expend on holding ourselves up. The result is more upright posture, greater energy and ease of movement.
Chronic muscle tension is the body’s response to long term misalignment with gravity. For example; sitting for long periods every day at the computer with the head thrust forward, gravity pulls down on the head and, with nothing directly below the head to support it, the body responds by tensioning head, neck, and back muscles. This effort comes at great energetic expense and often pain to the body. The misalignment will likely continue in standing, walking and other activities. Repositioning the head over the shoulders, the shoulders over the hips, the hips, over the knees, the knees over the ankles, and the ankles over the feet creates an easy alignment, freeing the body of strain and pain. Each segment of the body is supported by the one below, and the whole is supported by the ground in the field of gravity. 
One of the primary goals of Hellerwork Structural Integration is to return the body to this easy, supportive relationship with gravity.

Body-mind connection

Patterns of thought are expressed through the body. Mental tension produces physical tension and vice versa. Hellerwork Structural Integration supports clients in recognising the interplay between the way they hold their thoughts and the way they hold their body and how freedom in one aspect of ourselves brings freedom in the other.