My name is Szaja Gottlieb and I practice in
San Luis Obispo and Ventura, California. I was certified at the Rolf Institute
in November, 2001. After taking additional
workshops concerning the 10 session series, scoliosis, movement, and
cranial sacral work from the Rolf Institute®, and further course work, I became a Certified Advanced Rolfer® in 2008. I
practice in both Ventura and San Luis Obispo. In the 10 years since I became a
Rolfer®, I have done close to 8,000 sessions and the experience of doing and
learning from those sessions has been equal or more important than my original
schooling.
A
bit of history...I became involved with Rolfing in the later 70’s after continually
experiencing back problems for many years. Rolfing not only eliminated those
problems but set me off on a course of personal transformation. For the next 20
years I was an artist/sculptor doing mostly sculpture involving stone. Previously, I had received a Masters degree in
European intellectual history in 1960 and was destined for a career in
academia.
After receiving my certification as a massage
therapist in 1990, I knew instinctively that I wanted to become a Rolfer® but
did not make application to the Rolf Institute until 2001. Rolfing®, it seemed, shifted all the lessons
I had learned as a sculptor about mass, shape, and form in gravity from objects
to human bodies. Sometimes, clients ask me during a session if I still do any
sculpture. “Yes,” I reply, “I am doing it right now!”
As
I enter my 64th year, I am personally convinced that the body is an
entity we take for granted. We often feel betrayed when it fails us, whether
simply aches or pain or in a major way with disease and metabolic breakdowns. We expect a lot from our bodies but put little
into it. The body, not the wooden structure we sleep and eat in, is our house
and home, our primordial structure.
On
a personal note, I am now also a husband to my wife Ko and father to my daughter
Judith Dabin. We live in Los Osos just a few minutes away from beautiful
Montana de Oro.
