Accepting New Rolfing® Clients

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Lu Mueller-Kaul, our founder, is also a Certified Advanced Rolfer™. At this time she is instructing at the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute® in Boulder, Colorado. Due to this amazing opportunity, her time seeing clients at Balance Orlando will be limited. Please call our office for her rates and availability.

Sondra Warner, the CEO of Balance Orlando and Empower Yoga, received her Rolfing certification in August of 2021. Sondra has hundreds of hours in trainings in massage therapy, holding several certifications in Myofascial release, Thai massage, and deep tissue work. 

She also has extensive training in different modalities of yoga.  As the CEO of Empower Yoga, she trained and taught yoga teachers to take a practical approach to yoga movement with an emphasis on correcting structural alignment to help clients reduce their risk of injury and improve their strength and mobility in a safe manner. 

After a series of car accidents and years of chronic tension from long hours at a desk, Sondra searched for a relief from pain.   She found a combination of intentional movement and advanced therapeutic bodywork to be the answer.  This fueled her mission to learn as much as she could and to help others find relief from their own tension and pain.

Sondra is currently taking appointments for both Rolfing and Bodywork. 

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What is Rolfing® Structural Integration?

“Rolfing is a system of manipulation and education designed to release chronic strain, restore adaptive capacity, and align the body in the gravity field.” —Jan Sultan, Certified Advanced Rolfer™

To understand Rolfing, you must understand the body. Rolfing® is a form of manual therapy and movement education in which we use touch, verbal cues and active participation of the client to map the body, to differentiate muscle groups and to bring awareness to different areas of the body. Because of all the above, we can reorganize old movement patterns and create new and more adaptive ones so that the client can reduce chronic pain, improve their physical performance in sports, find better posture, more ease in any movement activity, e.g. yoga, dance, surfing or cycling.

Rolfing® directed at the connective tissues rather than the joints or the muscles, so it can resolve problems that still occur after years of chiropractic care. The connective tissues we refer to here are called fascia, dense, fibrous tissue that surrounds and interpenetrates bones, nerves, blood vessels, individual muscles and also compartmentalizes groups of muscles. Essentially, it is the stuff that holds everything inside our bodies in their proper place.

Fascia is rich with sensory receptors that report pain to the brain, as well as changes in movement, pressure, vibration, temperature and more. Because of work and life’s routines, we put our bodies through repetitive motions on a daily basis that distort that proper alignment, which puts unaligned pressure on our fascia. Persistent undue pressure can cause fascia to thicken, shorten and tighten, thereby restricting movement.

That’s where Rolfing comes in. Biochemist Dr. Ida Rolf discovered through her research that while the fascia’s malleability (or mold-ability) causes it to adapt to bad posture and restrict movement, it can, through manual manipulation, also be restored to support good posture and flexibility. If the fascial web is properly supporting the body’s ideal alignment, many of the chronic pain and recurring issues related to muscle stress and tension can be eliminated.

Dr. Ida Rolf on Rolfing 

“Rolfing does not “cure” symptoms. The goal of Rolfing is a more resilient, higher-energy system. The organism is then better able to defend itself against illness and overcome stress, and the greater energy does its own beneficial work in healing and relaxing. Rolfing does not achieve perfection; it begins the process. Its goal is to establish balance in gravity. The ten-hour cycle is a first step in that direction. Rolfing is an ongoing process that continues long after the work has been completed. Bodies have natural liking for uprightness, comfort, and ease. Insofar as they can experience it, they try to live in a place of balance. In this place, the energy of gravity can flow with (not counter to) the energy of the individual” (from Rolfing and Physical Reality).

The Rolfing Ten Series

Rolfing Structural Integration is often applied as a series of ten sessions known as the Basic Ten Series. The idea behind the Ten series is to approach the body in a holistic manner and systematically work with the whole body in order to balance and organize both the structure and the function (movement). Spreading the work over the course of time helps the nervous system of the client to adapt to changes that client and practitioner achieve during sessions and integrate the work. 

We offer a consultation and try out for $75 with our Rolfers™ to determine whether this strategy will best reach your treatment goals.

Each session targets a particular region of the body and has specific structural and functional goals.

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Ten series are divided into three parts: 

1st-3rd sessions: Introductory, opening sessions, also called “sleeve” sessions, in which the main focus is to work with superficial layers of the body.

4th-7th sessions: Also called “core” sessions, in which practitioner and client mostly work with core structures of the body, like abdomen, spine, head and neck.

8th-10th sessions: The more integrative part of the series; we start bringing all the changes to a higher level of organization. If needed, we revisit the areas of the body that might need some additional work.


Session 1:

Find All 10 Sessions on the YouTube Channel

Begins with diagnostics, followed by work on the shoulders and rib cage, the back of the legs and around the hips. The structural goal is to enable the shoulders to fall back naturally so the subject can stand and sit with an open chest. The functional goal is to ease breathing and allow the subject to already feel their posture and mobility improving.


Session 2:

Work focuses on the feet and lower legs, in which the main focus is to establish balanced foundation and support for the whole structure of the body.


Session 3:

The whole outer sideline of the body gets some attention, with a special focus on the hips, ribcage and shoulder girdle, and how they are positioned in a relationship with each other.


Session 4:

Therapists will work on the inner legs and thighs and focus on the adductors group of muscles, bringing awareness to structures relating to the pelvis.


Session 5:

Work will begin at the hip flexors and the front side of the lumbar spine. Then, we will revisit diaphragm and ribcage if necessary, and work with the psoas muscle if needed.


Session 6:

The focus is on the back, the spine and spinal rotations, and the back of the legs.


Session 7:

The work will stay around the head, the deeper structures of the neck, the shoulders, and the upper part of the torso.


Sessions 8 and 9:

Work in these sessions is determined by the Rolfer, based on the individual’s progress in previous sessions. Any additional work needed in previous areas will be addressed in these sessions. We will also focus more on coordination and on integrating all the changes that have been achieved so far. 


Session 10 :

Session 10 will also be determined by the Rolfer, who, based on any additional work needed, brings closure to all the previous sessions. After this session the client is asked to take a little break 🙂 and let the system integrate the work fully.


By the end of the 10th session, the subject should be well-anchored to the best alignment in both their structure and their neuro-motoric systems that they can achieve at this stage. With their newly enhanced body awareness and flexibility, the subjects can now find better alignment themselves. They will know when they slip into old patterns of bad posture and can easily self-correct, thereby continuing to improve their own alignment without further treatment.

If you would like to see examples of what a Rolfing session is like, check out our Rolfing 10 series playlist on youtube

Articles about Rolfing :

Can Rolfing help you? 

Transform Your Body with Rolfing’ Structural Integration

Rolfing Structural Integration

Rolfing FAQ

About Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI

Clients who went through a Ten Series often describe that it changed their whole lives for the better, permanently, with results still improving without further treatments. Watch these women talk about their complicated body problems and how Rolfing® solved their pain.

Finding pain relief without medication can be done at Balance Orlando. Click the button below to schedule your first appointment.


The method and name go back to Dr. Ida Rolf, 1896-1979. Rights are owned by the Rolf Institute in Boulder, CO, which is the only institution that certifies Rolfers. For information about potential future (2020) Rolfing certification courses in Florida, taught by and certified through faculty of the Rolf Institute, email Lu@LuMuellerKaul.com. (put “I want to be a Rolfer” into the subject line, please.)