About Us
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched… but instead they are felt in the heart.”
— Helen Keller
The two of us met in 2001 in Kauai, Hawaii as we both attended the Advanced Practitioners Training with the Guild for Structural Integration. Needless to say it was love at first sight which led us to being married in June, 2002. Since 2001 we have collaboratively practiced Structural Integration together while sharing the many gifts of our union with each other including having our son Alexander. Since the summer of 2001 we have lived and practiced Structural Integration in Amarillo, Texas. From 2003 through 2006 we also had a traveling practice in Austin, Texas.
Our particular portal to the body of work of Structural Integration is we focus on offering ‘Four-Handed’ sessions which means both of us work together with our clients in order to optimize the changes our clients are seeking with Structural Integration. To learn more about the ‘Four-Handed’ work, please refer to the section in this website entitled ‘The Power of Four-Hands.’
Dr. Ida P. Rolf and Structural Integration
“Gravity is the teacher.”
— Ida P. Rolf
Our work is called Structural Integration which was created and developed by Dr. Ida. P. Rolf. In 1920 Dr. Rolf received her Ph.D. in biochemistry and physiology from Columbia University. After receiving her Ph.D, she worked in both the chemotherapy and organic chemistry departments at the Rockefeller Institute. She also studied mathematics and atomic physics at the Swiss Technical University in 1927. Her education and work experience served as the foundation for her understanding of the body’s biochemistry, anatomy, and structure relative to the changing states of fasciae, but she hadn’t yet discovered a method for implementing change in the body’s fascial system.
In the 1930’s she explored different alternative disciplines including Osteopathy, Chiropractic Medicine, Yoga, Homeopathy, the Alexander Technique, and Alfred Korzybski’s work on states of consciousness. Her intention was to find a method that applied to implementing changes to the body based on the scientific understandings she had learned about the body’s makeup in the previous decade.
By the 1940’s she had a full schedule working with people seeking her help. This included many disabled people who were unable to find help elsewhere. And, this is where her work first became known as Structural Integration while she continued to develop and refine her ideas and techniques.
In the 1950’s her work and reputation continued to expand both in the United States and Europe. In the 1960’s she was invited to the Esalen Institute in California where she begin training practitioners and instructors in Structural Integration. Then in 1967 the first Guild for Structural Integration was loosely formed at her home in Boulder, Colorado. From that period of time on, Dr. Rolf’s work has had a global presence, and it continues to thrive today with at least 20 schools and training programs dedicated to preserving and creatively building on her principles of Structural Integration. Dr. Rolf passed away in 1979 leaving a legacy that has fueled practitioners, researchers, and teachers with a passion to serve, investigate, educate, and facilitate the holistic integration and healing of those seeking help with the suffering and alienation they are experiencing with their bodies.
Emmett Hutchins and Peter Mechior and the Guild for Structural Integration
Our school where we both received our Basic and Advanced Structural Integration trainings is known as The Guild for Structural Integration which bases it’s teachings on the Rolf Method of Structural Integration. As mentioned above, Dr. Rolf loosely founded the first Guild for Structural Integration in the mid-nineteen sixties. This is also when she trained two of her students, Emmett Hutchins and Peter Melchior to be two of the earliest teachers to carry out her vision in teaching and training the work for practitioners and teachers. Peter and Emmett were also instrumental in helping Dr. Rolf establish an institute in Boulder, Colorado in 1972 to teach her work.
However, in 1989 Emmett and Peter broke away from that institute and started the second Guild for Structural Integration which is dedicated to preserving the intentional, spiritual and heartfelt qualities of Dr. Rolf’s work as seen in her original teachings. This is the primary reason why the two of us chose to study at the Guild. We both wanted to get as close as possible to Dr. Rolf’s teachings, so we chose to study with two of her original teachers being Emmett and Peter. Both Emmett and Peter were exquisite instructors and mentors communicating a deep respect for Dr. Rolf and her teachings, but each also brought his own set of perspectives based on respect, humility, sensitivity, and a compassionate vision. This vision was grounded on how Structural Integration is a form that can facilitate an individual’s spiritual, emotional, philosophical, and somatic growth as that person is fed by an expanded awareness of oneself within one’s environment. We both are grateful to our core to have studied and apprenticed with the two of them along with other wonderful faculty members including Neal Powers, Nilce Silveira, David Davis, and Marekah Stewart.
If you are curious about the Guild, they are now located in Salt Lake City, Utah and their website is (www.rolfguild.org). Several of our own teachers from our Guild are also associated with the European Guild for Structural Integration (www.rolfguild.eu).
“Structural Integration is about the whole person, the sensation of moving from weakness to strength, the exhilaration of owning a new part of oneself, the immediate and simultaneous re-education of one’s being and action with the joy of self-empowerment and waking up. These are the experiences of Structural Integration”
“I believe it is the creative use of imagination that separates the ‘cook from the chef’ to use Ida P. Rolf’s old metaphor. The ability to send one’s shaped intention moving ahead of the ends of the fingers, fist, elbow, etc, to make contact with the living breathing presence at the core of the person, and to ride the wave of breath through the body, is a major ingredient in any artistic presentation of Structural Integration”
Ken Solberg
Certified Advanced Rolfer
“Hold open the space for the metamorphosis of fluidity and flexibility to transform.”
- Ken Solberg
There is a good chance that Leslie might not have become a Structural Integration Practitioner had it not been for the gentle push Ken gave her back in 1991. Leslie had known Ken since the late 1970’s as he had Rolfed her parents during that period of time. Leslie then worked with Ken extensively in Dallas, Texas to help her through a healing crisis when he suggested she might want to take up this profession. He then served as her personal mentor helping to usher her through her Basic and Advanced trainings, and then he also continued to support her and act as her mentor as she practiced on her own. Since Ken was a student in Dr. Rolf’s final year of teaching, he brought a wealth of knowledge and wisdom as a mentor to Leslie.
After Leslie and Christo came together in 2001, Ken expanded his role as a supporter and mentor to include both Leslie and Christo as they built their practice together. All in all, Ken was always there to help with the challenges and questions relative to the practice of Structural Integration, but perhaps his greatest gift was the example of integrity, commitment, and a spiritual and energetic inquisitiveness he modeled originally for Leslie and then for both Leslie and Christo until his passing in 2017.
Dr. Jack Fong
Holistic Dentist and Cranial Sacral Practitioner
“We don’t just grow old. We become old when we stop growing.”
- Sue Ziang
For a period of time stretching over three years, we both were fortunate to fall under tutelage of Dr. Jack Fong who was a Holistic Dentist and Cranial Sacral Practitioner. Many Saturday afternoons were spent with Dr. Fong teaching us about energetic and structural assessment techniques, Cranial Sacral skills, kinesiology, and nutritional guidance with models who had volunteered from our clientele. Through his patience and wisdom, Dr. Fong gave us many glimpses at how a holistic practitioner can work with his or her clients focusing on the whole body, the whole person, and their energy field as it interacts with its environment.
Our time with Dr. Fong was inspiring as he broadened the band of our sensitivity and understanding of the subtle qualities of assessment, intention, interaction, and evaluation of the actions taken with a client, plus he was a profound leader who modeled for us how to be comfortable with holding open the space of ‘not knowing’ in order to let synchronistic healings take place.
Jeffrey Maitland Ph.D
Certified Advanced Rolfer
“A body that feels at home, whose feeling-nature is free of conflict and fixation, and is at ease in an ever-changing world is a body integrated in gravity.”
For years we have been enthralled with Dr. Maitland’s books, and in the Spring and Summer of 2020 we had the honor of him working with us and a few of our clients. Through Dr. Maitland’s guidance, both of us experienced a new more encompassing holistic perspective which recognizes the potential of working with the whole person as an expression of embodiment. Embodiment takes place when one experiences his or her’s own holistic awareness and growth in terms of sensation, awareness, energy, and creativity, not only with oneself and one’s own body, but also with one’s relationships, and with the environments he or she may dwell within.
We both have a deep sense of humility and appreciation for the opportunity to be in the presence of Dr. Maitland’s wisdom, and for his willingness to spend his time and energy to see us through to new discoveries about ourselves and our relationships to the world we dwell within. He truly has been a remarkable teacher and a life changing inspiration for us.
Leslie Carson and Christo Carson
Certified Advanced Practitioners of Structural Integration
“And still, after all this time,
The Sun never says to the Earth, ‘You owe Me.’
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights up the Whole Sky”
As a couple we have been practicing Structural Integration together since 2001. The two of us are Certified Advanced Practitioners of Structural Integration through our trainings with the Guild for Structural Integration. As a matter of fact we met each other at our Advanced Training in Hawaii in 2001. Leslie has been practicing Structural Integration since 1992 in both Amarillo and Dallas, Texas. As mentioned above, she participated in a mentorship relationship with Ken Solberg, both as she attended her trainings and subsequently when she established her own practice.
Along with practicing Structural Integration in Amarillo, Leslie has taken several trips to Lima, Peru where she joined other Structural Integration practitioners in order to work with homeless children, who were desperately poor and sick living on the streets and in a Lima hospital.
Prior to beginning her career as a Structural Integration practitioner, Leslie worked as a paralegal in Austin,Texas for six years. She graduated from the University of Texas in Austin in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Psychology.
Christo started his Structural Integration practice in Port Townsend, Washington in 1997 along with maintaining his Architectural practice in Washington which he established in 1990. Christo practiced architecture for 24 years in Tucson, Arizona, and in both Seattle and Port Townsend, Washington. In 2001 he stopped practicing Architecture in order to focus his full time energies on a Structural Integration practice with Leslie in Amarillo,Texas. He received his Architectural degree from the University of Arizona in 1977.
In the early 1970’s Christo started to practice both Meditation and Hatha Yoga while he was a student at the University of Arizona. Later, in the mid 1980’s, he also became engaged in practicing the Internal Martial Arts of Tai Chi Chuan and Xing Yi Quan. In Seattle during the 1990’s, he continued to study Yoga and Tai Chi with teachers from around the world. Christo became a Certified Yoga Teacher through the Forrest Yoga Studio in 1998, and he taught Yoga in Port Townsend until his relocation to Amarillo in 2001.
Besides working together as Structural Integration practitioners, Leslie and Christo enjoy sharing their family life together and with their son Alexander.