Your first Hellerwork Structural Integration session begins with time spent discussing your history, interests, goals and any problems you are experiencing. We will assess your posture, body structure and movement patterns. What you are feeling in your body and what the practitioner sees helps to determine what changes you will work towards to help improve alignment and balance. 

Hellerwork Structural Integration sessions are generally 90 minutes long, but it is best to allow more time for your first session to allow for going over your health history. As Hellerwork is a system of myofascial bodywork that uses touch, somewhat like massage, for much of the session clients are in their underwear (sports type underwear or a two piece swimsuit work well for women, briefs for men are preferable to boxer shorts).

Bodywork is done on a comfortable table as well as seated, standing, or even walking. Clients are actively engaged in the sessions and, unlike most forms of massage, you will be asked to participate by moving in specific ways that increase the effectiveness of the practitioner’s touch. A common experience is of satisfying pressure leading to a sense of ease or release. While the work may sometimes be direct and deep, the practitioner will always work in a way that recognises and respects your level of comfort. The practitioner will apply pressure to the fascia, working the entire body in a systematic way while you participate in the process by moving, breathing and releasing your body’s patterns of holding. As restricted fascia is lengthened it allows the muscles to move more efficiently, joints to align better, nerves to glide freely and the body to move towards its optimal structure, leaving you feeling lighter and freer.

Communication between practitioner and client supports the work by creating clarity about your experience and the practitioner’s method for achieving your goals; guiding you to move in new, more efficient ways, supplying new information about how your body works, and by encouraging a mindfulness that helps you to be more sensitive to your body’s messages and to the link between your body and mind.

According to the goals of the session and your specific needs, the practitioner will guide you through exercises that help you to explore and develop movement patterns that support the structural changes you are experiencing. You can take these exercises away to further empower your growth in physical freedom, alignment and performance. Ultimately, the Hellerwork learning experience is that of you learning about yourself from yourself.

At the end of the session there will be an assessment of any changes in posture and movement that have taken place. Changes will occur during, after, and in between sessions as time helps the work to integrate into your structure and personal experience. 

It has taken time to create the structural and movement patterns that you have today, your whole life in fact. Hellerwork Structural Integration is a powerful way to facilitate positive changes in these patterns. The Hellerwork Structural Integration series consists of eleven sessions that work systematically and cumulatively to unwind chronic strain and bring you into easier and more natural ways of moving, sitting, standing and being. It is a unique investment in yourself and your future enjoyment of life in your body.