About David
A Brief Biography
I welcome you to my web site. I hope it will be informative and give you an idea about the work I do and how I approach it.
More than that, I hope it will inspire you to experience both Rolfing and Zero Balancing for yourself
and thus receive the health-giving benefits of enhanced energetic and structural balance.
I received my BFA from New York University in 1972 in Theatre and Dramatic Arts. I spent the next 10 years performing and teaching acting in New York and Europe. During that time I became a participant in many new training programs for performing artists, programs designed to help people free themselves both physically and emotionally. I experienced how the releasing of chronic tension in the body released energy, creative power and the ability to connect deeply with others.
This “opening to the flow of life energy” became my basic interest and it still is. In 1980 I became a serious student of meditation and Eastern spiritual philosophy. In 1981 I experienced my first series of Rolfing sessions. The process was so powerful that I decided to train as a Certified Rolfer. I graduated from the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration in 1983 and moved that year to Madison, WI where I have been in practice ever since, founding The Center for Integral Healing Arts with my wife, Gabrielle.
In 1989 I took the Advanced Rolfing Training Program, an intensive program of further training in working with more complex structural patterns. In 1994 I was fortunate enough to begin my studies with Fritz Smith, MD who as an osteopath had been one of the original people trained personally by Dr. Ida Rolf. Dr. Smith had gone on to train as an acupuncturist and understood the relationship between energy and structure in the body. From this understanding and through his many years as a practicing physician, he developed a healing system called Zero Balancing(ZB).
From “day one” I loved both giving and receiving ZB sessions. ZB integrates beautifully with Dr. Rolf’s ideas and brings the awareness of body energy into her techniques of Structural Integration. I went on to become a Certified Zero Balancer in 1996 and joined the ZB Faculty in 2004. I teach both Core ZB programs as well as Advanced classes.
I have great love for my work and am dedicated to all my clients' health and well-being.
My Personal Approach : Energy • Balance • Transformation
All skillful bodywork is an art. Artistry in my field is the ability to understand and communicate with another person on the level of what can be known and felt through the sense of touch. This involves being in relationship with clear, healthy boundaries. Trust and trustworthiness are of paramount importance if our work together is to be enjoyable and accomplish its goals.
I don’t think of my work as a medical procedure or therapy. Everyone walks in my door because they are in pain or distress of some sort. I see these symptoms as an indication that the physical, mental and emotional bodies are out of harmony and out of alignment with what might be termed the Greater Field of Health. This Field of Health is the innate nature of every person without exception. It is not a mere idea or philosophy, it is real. Re-alignment with this innate Greater Field is the way to gradually release symptoms and holds the potential for re-gaining a greater experience of pleasure and well-being.
Healing systems like Rolfing® and Zero Balancing® are designed to connect people with the energy potential within themselves. An artful practitioner knows how to use skilled touch to communicate with the body’s sensations of pain which are simply feedback to the person that there is contraction away from their Field of Health. When these contractions are released and a greater alignment, both structural and energetic, is established – a transformation occurs towards greater ease, freedom and health.
My role is to skillfully guide someone toward a more felt experience of their innate Greater Field of Health so that the intelligent healing power of this force can override more chaotic fields caused by illness, injury, stress and negative emotional conditioning. This principle of healing is spiritual and simple – we see everyone as containing and able to connect with the source of their own spirit. Everyone is held in the highest personal regard and their healing process honored. The practitioner is in a conscious relationship with this process and honors his or her own process of growth and letting go.