It is a foundational course in Cranial Sacral Therapy and is based on a Biodynamic Orientation to Perception, Touch and Whole-body Treatment. Course content will include: cranial anatomy, embryology, tidal phenomena, and dynamic stillness out of which the tides and rhythms of the body arise. Treatment protocols will be explored through demonstration and session exchanges. In order to engage these subtle phenomena, we will develop and practice relating to our selves and our clients from a deeper and slower pace than we are usually accustomed.  By this conscious slowing down, we will be able to perceive and interact with the forces that create order and health and sustain form and function. 

This program consists of in-class instruction and home study. Between each of the modules, participants are expected to complete outside readings, review class material and protocols and to do a limited number of practice sessions in Biodynamic Cranial Sacral Therapy.

This training will emphasize:
• A body-centered experience of biodynamic principles.
• An understanding of embryonic development and the original ‘blue print’.
• Contacting the health (potency of wholeness) within an individual.
• Engaging cranial anatomy: bones, membranes and neurology.
• Broadening perceptual receptivity and a listening touch.

An emphasis will be placed on the exploration and understanding of embryological development, not as a regressed state, but as an experiential understanding of the embryo as an archetype of wholeness. Realizing your ‘vibrational’ embryo within creates the potential to reunite with the genesis of the life force which is you.  This exploration delves into the nature of formation and reveals the interface between form and the therapeutic forces (tides) which shape all development.

Module 1: Cultivating Touch and Perception: The Art of Healing

This introductory module delves into the basic principles of a biodynamic orientation to Cranial Sacral therapy. In this training an emphasis is placed on:

• Cultivating a full body experience of the zones of perception and dynamic stillness.
• An understanding of the embodied state of ‘neutral’, the holistic shift, and practitioner presence in a therapeutic relationship.
• Techniques that engage the fluid body, reciprocal tension membrane, meninges, and cranial sutures.
• Exploring the mid-line expressions: the primitive streak, notochord and core-link.

This first module is offered for credit toward the Advanced Training and may be taken as a stand-alone course, but is required if a participant wishes to continue through the modules. Central to this training is the cultivation of practitioner presence from which a perception of cranio-sacral dynamics and tidal phenomena arise. This information can be immediately incorporated into your Rolfing practice.

Module 2: Facial Development: the emerging social nervous system

• The Midline of Orientation
  -- The primitive streak and notochord 'rising'
  -- Fulcrums of relationship
• Anatomy of visceral and neural cranium.
• Movement/circulation of the cranial sacral fluid
  -- Ventricles, aqueducts, canals.
• Embryology of facial development (pharyngeal folds)
• Engaging the Social Nervous System: vagus nerve (ventral – dorsal)

Module 3: Pulsation, Ignition and the Developmental Lemniscate Function

• Embryological formation of heart, blood and bones
  -- Resonance of connective tissues
• The embryological formation of diaphragms
  -- Ascending and descending motility
  -- Horizontal membranes
• Urogenital formation: overview - kidneys
• Longitudinal fluctuation: potency and amplitude
  -- Augmentation of practitioner presence and tidal response

Module 4: Midline Manifestations

• Fluid fields of the Spine
  -- Engaging the notochord
  -- The organiziing fulcrum of spinal segments
• Midlines of visceral development
• Tissue, Fluids and electromagnetic fields.
• Integration and Closure
  -- Review – refine – reinforce..
  -- Application of cranio-sacral skills to health and healing

Participants will do five practice sessions between each module. From those five sessions, participants will write three case reports. Each report will be a maximum of one page and will be submitted two weeks prior to the next module.

"Techniques never healed anyone but the dialogue of the forces of the patient through the techniques will. Use them with love, not as a technician." (A.T. Still)

Ray McCall, MA. has 36 years experience as a Rolfer. As a RISI Advanced faculty member he teaches basic, Advanced and Continuing Education classes both in the states and abroad. His particular interest is the energetic taxonomy and how change occurs: how we more fully become and express who we are. Ray trained to instructor level in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.

Carol A Agneessens, MS. has been practicing Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement Integration for over 33 years. As a Rolfing Trainer, Rolf Movement Instructor and as a certified instructor with the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association, her focus includes cultivating a receptive and listening touch, expanding perceptual dimensions, and engaging the movement of formation through the study of embryology. She has come to appreciate these as key factors for sustained transformation within oneself and in working with others.

The content of this workshop is outside the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration’s Standards of Practice and therefore cannot be considered as Rolfing® Structural Integration.