Dear Reda and SI group,

I am immediately wary of plans which require a jump - shift - leap in
our thinking in order to work. In my experience, these are the very
hardest of premises to realize. 'Reform the environment, don't try to
reform people' said Bucky Fuller.

But anyway, I think IASI is a good and realistic way to tackle the
challenges you list below, noting the following:

1) IASI will provide good liability insurance, through the ABMP, at
competitive rates. This allows us to take advantage of the buying and
lobbying power of the ABMP, while maintaining our own integrity and
focus on the issues of interest to SI practitioners.

2) Neither the AMTA nor the ABMP have time or interest in running
separate programs for (the relatively small number of) SI
practitioners. The GSI, Heller and others have no interest or
expertise in this area. The Rolf Inst is still a possibility, but some
folks from other smaller schools will find anything Rolf-run as
suspect. That can be overcome, but is the RI ready to accept members
from 'lesser' schools? I also query whether the RI has 'the know-how,
and infrastructure to evaluate and control academic institutions'. My
own experience is that the RI has sufficient trouble running its own
academics, let alone other people's.

3) IASI is not intending to constitute a 'Council of SI Schools'. We
contemplate only a practitioner organization. My preliminary work -
getting mailing lists and inquiring around IASI issues - with the
potential schools of such a council - Zen, IPSB, ISI, Soma, etc - leads
me to conclude that the schools are not yet organized enough to benefit
from or support such a council for a few years yet.

4) The procedures for protecting the public from bad practitioners and
practitioners from a vindictive client are well-established, and will
shortly be in place for IASI. Our scope of practice is sufficiently
different from massage therapy to make having our own complaints and
discipline / ethical procedures / CE requirements a benefit, not a
liability.

5) Once again, IASI is a membership organization, not a school. It
will support schools, not replace them. It will offer a wider market
for CE teachers, and of course, will insure that all CE courses offered
under its auspices will be NCB Category A approved, and perhaps lobby
later to have some of these credits accepted by the individual schools
toward advanced training or continued membership.

6) IASI is not trying to re-invent the wheel: there simply has never
been an inclusive membership for SI practitioners. We will, of course,
benefit from the work done by the AMTA, ABMP, AOBTA, APTA, etc, so our
climb will be easier and quicker. But the climb will be worth the
benefit, I am sure, as opposed to trying to make ourselves heard and
felt within another organization.

7) I cannot agree wholly with your analysis of the threat from Massage
schools. If I remember correctly, the reluctance to be classified with
massage in the early days had more to do with our perceived differences
from massage, and not wanting to be lumped in with a pretty low level
of work. A few things have happened since then:
a) Massage has pulled itself together, upped the level of its
education, scope, and political clout far better and faster than we
have,
b) SI has done nothing to highlight the 'differences that make a
difference' between SI and massage. This would have required linking
SI to a university degree program, establishing a licensing program of
our own, or linking to PT's or chiros or something. The first of these
could have happened but never did, the last two were beyond our scope.
The result is that most SI practitioners practice under a massage
license. In the eyes of the law they are LMT's. Legislators looking
at SI are unlikely to categorize it differently from massage: "Someone
comes into your office, takes off most of their clothes, you don't
diagnose, you rub them with your hands, they feel better - what's the
difference?" - what, Reda, do you say in response to that?
c) SI, as you note, has crept piecemeal and sometimes whole hog into
massage school curricula. This has made the edges of our field very
hard to define. The principal advantage of IASI, in my opinion, will
be to sharpen up those edges again, making some useful boundaries. We
can then define a unique field of inquiry and endeavor which will
survive the retirement of the second level of original teachers -
Emmett, Peter, Michael, Jeff, Jan, Jim, Joe, Louis, Rosemary, Ed, etc -
which is no more than a decade or so away. IASI or something like it
must be in place by then, or we face almost certain dissolution and
inability to survive as a distinct entity.

8) Is that so bad, if we are absorbed?* Maybe not, but certainly my
own mandate from the old lady was that this is a unique field of
inquiry, working around gravity, supporting health not fixing disease,
encouraging a full expression and a completed maturity. I am not yet
ready to give this up. While I support all the schools, I feel
strongly that IASI (or equivalent) is the best and only route for
keeping the tradition I received from Ida Rolf alive. Not without
possible and probable problems, but the alternatives - including your
bid to be under massage's wing - do not seem viable to me.

Respectfully submitted
Tom Myers

*As I watch our profession go through these dangerous waters, and
wonder whether it will survive, in some form, or just as a memory, I
remind myself of this story:
In 1981 or so, I was in the Feldenkrais professional training in
Amherst. A bunch of us threw a birthday party for Moshe, and he came.
I got him in the corner for a few minutes - we were already acquainted
previously - and said, "Moshe, there are many people in your training
who, from their movements and their talk, haven't the vaguest idea what
you are on about."
"Yes, but which ones?" he said "I don't know which ones will be good,
so I train them all."
"But they will be out there practicing in your name!" I protested
"My name," he spat, "Listen - 40 years ago Else Gindler was more famous
than me and your Ida put together, and now who remembers Else Gindler
and Gymnastik? What do I care about my name?"

The next year he was dead, and, although Feldenkrais survives, the
quality of practitioners is anything but assured. Of course the same
is true for us these days. IASI could help with competency assurance
and public reassurance, with weeding out and keeping practitioners
informed of the scope of good education and the range of new
developments.

And if there's no IASI and no distinct SI schools in 20-30 years?
Well, probably most of the principles will be absorbed partially into
massage, and the ideas will re-emerge in another generation, in another
form, under another name. I am not fanatic about this, but we must
think realistically about how ideas get taken up by cultures, and act
in the real world.

I suggest to you that IASI would be the outward and material form that
could get the inward and spiritual jump in thinking you propose to
happen.

Apologies for my usual long-winded post.


On Wednesday, Oct 9, 2002, at 05:04 America/New_York, redaelandaloussi
wrote:

> Actually, lobbying these associations may be the thing to do, versus
> trying to establish SI outside of them. But it would probably require
> a shift, a leap, or perhaps just an evolution of our thinking;
> perhaps such a shift can be encouraged by the hard competitive
> reality, as I will explain further down.
>
> The IASI could consider musch more realistic objectives than
> substitute itself to the existing Bodywork associations, as some seem
> to suggest.
>
>
> * * *
>
> Reasons why lobbying these associations may be the thing to do:
>
> - They are the institutions that made it possible for bodywork to be
> recognized. They are the established lobbyists for many modalities of
> bodywork with many official instances, and the health insurances
> system.
> - They have the know-how, and infrastructure to evaluate and control
> academic institutions.
> - They provide insurance, which is made afordable because of the
> sheer number of practitioners enlisted.
> - They have an established way of defending practitioners when they
> are under attack.
> - They impose a code of ethics to various disciplines of bodywork;
> such a code of ethics is better armed to inspire trust among the
> public and health professionals.
> - They provide a dual level of membership: one for the schools, and
> one for practitioners.
> ...
> In brief, they do a lot of what our profession is not equipped to do,
> and that seem a natural scope for an association like the IASI, if it
> wants to make a difference.
>
> * * *
>
> The cost: a change, a leap, or perhaps just an evolution of our
> mentalities.
>
> We are starting this process on the late. 20 years ago, it would have
> been made very easy, as most regulations in place then where barely
> based on a 500 hours curriculum. Today, states like NY imposes 1000
> hours if my information is up to date. The tendency is to upgrade
> towards 1000 hours accross the US. The national Certification itself
> is based on a preparation of 1000 hrs.
>
> Let's examine how our basic classical SI curriculum articulates:
> - 218 hrs of Prerequisites (RI, official number) (Guild maybe around
> 180 hrs)
> - 480 hrs of SI specific training (Guild - real number, RI: 513 hrs
> official number)
>
> In other wors, our most classical schools provide around between 660
> hours to 700.
>
> Most of our schools can already apply, and have obtained a secondary
> status with the established Massage Therapy community. I am talking
> about the status:
>> approved by the National Certification Board for
>> Therapeutic Massage And Bodywork (NCBTMB) as a
>> Continuing Education Provider under Category A.
> Meaning that Massage Therapists can apply training at such schools as
> continuing education credits for renewal of their licences.
>
> Even the Guild got it in the late 90's, despite its resistence to the
> Massage Therapy establishment. What I do not understand is why it
> never seemed to have appeared on their web site, but that is another
> story.
>
> Anyway thew point is that it would be fairly straight forward for our
> schools to convert, even as an option for students, to a fully
> qualified Certified School of Massage Therapy. The process is a known
> one, there is an application process, constraints that are clear, and
> established instances to grant such a status and control the schools
> in the future.
>
> The IASI, if it wanted to become such a certifying institution for
> our community, would have to re-invent everything, and would have to
> compose with hard liners that do not want to upgrade their curriculum
> to a national Massage Therapy level of requirements.
>
>
> * * *
>
> In depth look
>
> If the underlying assumption is that only the schools that conform to
> existing standards (from the ABMP, AMTA, etc.) can benefit from the
> input of the IASI, then it may be a lot easier for the IASI to draw
> the line between who is in and who is not in; it may become all of a
> sudden a lot easier to tackle our community's putrid political
> tensions.
>
> I would add that as competition becomes more intense within our
> community, schools that would have such a status will definitely have
> a competitive advantage over the schools that do not, just like in
> the rest of the Bodywork community.
>
> I will also bluntly add that in the long run, if our schools do not
> perform such conversions, their future is in danger of getting most
> of their market redirected towards schools that are Schools of
> Massage Therapy, for the same reasons.
>
> I keep hearing that historically, our elders are reluctant to yield
> to the Massage Therapy world, because back in the time of our
> founder, there was a genuine threat of an absorbtion of SI into
> something different. That is why Ida reportidly left the Esalen
> Institute to come to Boulder and create the Guild of SI, which became
> soon the Rolf Institute...
>
> It may be hard to hear for some, but the threat is still present.
> Today, the threat exists because we are NOT within the field of
> Massage Therapy. The threat is already materialized by the fact that
> somje Schools of Massage have SI curriculums. However, they can only
> provide up to 200 hours in some case (even Ed Maupin's curriculum is
> relatively light!, yet nobody would dare doubting Ed's contribution
> to classical SI).
>
> Why is that so? Why can't we have our full 500 hours in Massage
> Schools(450 if we remove the clinical hands on, which would be
> counted as clinic experience in a Massage Curriculum).
>
> Because what has been 'hot' in the Massage Schools, is to add about
> that number of hours in NeuroMuscular Therapy. Around 1990 the Paul
> St. John Neuromuscular Therapy seminars were the fashionable
> workshops to take for bodyworkers who wanted to extend their basic
> curriculum from around 500 hours to about 1000. Massage schools have
> since integrated Neuromuscular Therapy within their curriculum, for
> pretty much the same reason: increase their academic program to 1000
> hours, and also to qualify to integrated more readily with the
> established Medical world.
>
> An interesting remark: today I do not hear nearly as much of the Paul
> St. Johns NMT seminars, compared to the global offer of Bodywork
> trainings. Today, if one wants such an intense NMT training, one can
> get it at the local school of Massage directly, if one doesn't
> already have such a training from their school.
>
> Today, the danger of being swallowed is not that we only have one
> main figure to teach, like in the 60's. Back then I can see how there
> was a danger that the very name Structural Integration would be
> erased, shadowed by Chiropractics, or who knows what. The same danger
> still exists, but the reason is opposite: it is because our leading
> do not play the Massage establishment card that the danger is here
> today.
>
> Today, there are enough legitimate and experienced practitioners out
> there, and the work has gained a stable reputation among
> professionals, that the danger is not the same. The danger is that
> the Massage therapy establishement integrates GENUINE Structural
> Integration. The danger is that the practitioners from the classical
> schools will be under-qualified, not licensed, and not recognized,
> while graduates of Massage schools will more and more specialize in
> something far more interesting for the medical establishment:
> something like Neuro-Muscular Structural Integration (and we see more
> and more names like Myofascial realease, which is close to what I am
> talking about): with something closer and closer to a genuine SI
> curriculum at their school of Massage.
>
>
> * * *
>
> The kinds of realistic objectives the IASI could tackle.
>
> Both as practitioners and as schools, we can only prepare to what is
> innevitable. Failure to prepare may have a heavy toll on the whole
> community: the part that is not prepared at least, and unfortunately,
> all its associated practitioners.
>
> The schools would be of much help to themselves and their graduates
> if they upgraded their status towards being full providers of Massage
> Therapy credits. Part of the deal should be that 'backward
> compatibility' is possible fro existing practitioners: if old
> graduates can convert their existing credits towards a fully fledged
> Massage Therapy Certification, completed in any Massage School,
> counting the 500 hours of SI specific training as fully qualified
> Massage credits, and also the prerequisites.
>
> The existing status that some of our schools have obtained (see
> further up) doesn't quite do that: it is only a continuing education
> status, and it mostly attracts existing Massage Therapists into our
> schools. It does very little to the graduate who is not a Massage
> Therapist. However, it sure looks like a promissing begining.
>
> Perhaps the IASI could consider tackling that problem, with practical
> solutions, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel.
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Reda El Andaloussi
> http://www.idaprolf.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> ---------------------~-->
> Home Selling? Try Us!
> http://us.click.yahoo.com/QrPZMC/iTmEAA/MVfIAA/bnSolB/TM
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> ~->
>
> Community email addresses:
> Post message: Structure_Integrator@onelist.com
> Subscribe: Structure_Integrator-subscribe@onelist.com
> Unsubscribe: Structure_Integrator-unsubscribe@onelist.com
> List owner: Structure_Integrator-owner@onelist.com
>
> Shortcut URL to this page:
> http://www.onelist.com/community/Structure_Integrator
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>