I have practised Structural Integration for over thirty years and taught it for fifteen, having begun my foundational training in 1993 with Peter Melchior and Emmett Hutchins – the first two instructors Ida Rolf herself trained. Yet for most of those years very little explained how she came to her ideas, even as fascia became a serious scientific subject and the woman who had recognised its significance half a century earlier remained largely unmentioned. This film aims to help set that straight.
A biography without footage
No footage of Rolf survives from before her seventieth year – but hours of interviews do. After two years in archives we made the decision that shaped the whole film: rather than let others describe her, we gave her the floor. Every line attributed here to Ida Rolf comes from her own mouth, drawn from original interview and course transcripts.
She came across as witty, uncompromising, and often difficult, and she worked on a question that mattered long before anyone stood ready to listen.
What I hope comes across, beyond her intelligence, involves the idea she kept returning to and called ‘the Line’: that a body organised around a vertical axis and aligned with gravity helps a person become more fully the person they have it in them to become.
This film pays homage to a pioneer and attempts to secure her a place in the history of fascia research.
– Aleš Urbanczik
Director’s biography
Aleš Urbanczik trained in Structural Integration from 1993 with Ida Rolf’s earliest instructors. He has taught Hatha Yoga for thirty years and developed a teaching approach based on Rolf’s principles, which he calls RolfYoga. He comes from a Zen Buddhist background and received Bodhisattva ordination at the French temple La Gendronnière. Finding the Line – An Exploration of Structural Integration and Ida Rolf – Mother of Fascia count as his first films.
Disclosure
Aleš Urbanczik co-founded the European Guild for Structural Integration and teaches its foundational trainings in Switzerland. The film came about as an independent production, in collaboration with the EGSI.
Watch the film
A 98-minute documentary told entirely in Ida Rolf’s own words, drawn from her recorded interviews and class transcripts. Subtitles in nine languages on Vimeo.