WHAT TO EXPECT:

“Each session is unique to each person.” —Darla Ketchum, LMT

This is NOT your average assembly line massage. Darla tailors each session—each treatment—to the individual.

Clients remark that Darla provides a degree of care and thoughtfulness that is rare in the industry. Communicating with her clients and putting them at ease, she ensures that every visit meets their needs for pain relief and/or relaxation. Darla pairs professionalism with comfort, getting to know her clients and personalizing treatments so as to put each person on the path to greater health, pain management, and contentment.

“STRESS

—whether it be physical, emotional, OR mental stress—

affects the body,

namely fascia.

When stress is not dealt with,

it gets stored in the body,

and imbalances become apparent.

—Darla Ketchum, LMT

Darla’s passion for bodywork helps her clients find the pain resolution needed find comfort in their bodies, and her training is of rare quality. Clients take great confidence in her work, knowing that her instructional lineage can be traced back directly to the greatest heroes in Structural Integration.

NEW TO STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION?

Based upon the work of Dr. Ida P. Rolf, Structural Integration is a type of bodywork that focuses on the connective tissue, or “fascia,” of the body. “Fascia” naturally surrounds muscles, blood vessels, organs, and nerves, and is designed to be elastic, moving freely with muscles and bones alike. However, injury, stress, repetitive movements, and aging can cause our fascia to lose its elasticity and become shorter, tighter, and denser. Hardening over time, fascia even pulls our muscles and skeleton out of alignment, which can cause pain, discomfort, and fatigue.

Structural Integration works to lengthen, and soften tissues to restore postural balance, ease of movement, and a feeling of being more “at home” in your own body. It is said that our emotions and behavior patterns are often related to the condition of our physical self . As impediments of balance are removed and the body comes into greater alignment, aspects of the self may also become more aligned. As such, Structural Integration also aims to affect the whole person—emotionally, physically and energetically—by way of altering the body’s physical structure. An experience with Structural Integration may help release an individual's potential, promoting positive change, lowering anxiety, improving sleep, increasing confidence, and maturing emotional expression. Structural Integration series can even provide increased body awareness and presence, allowing for a feeling of contentment within your own skin.

Given these complexities, it is paramount that a Structural Integrationist must understand anatomy, physiology, and—most importantly—the anatomy of fascia. In many ways, the body is a web of fascia. By tracing the lines of that web, one may get a greater understanding of how the body works, why pain travels, and how to visualize a path to healing.