More about Liesl

People often ask me how I got into Rolfing and I say "I had been searching for some time." This is not to create some sort of mystique or coolness; that really is the way it was. 

I was travelling and living in South America and feeling quite at home in what I now call "the heart land" but I knew there was something else, another feeling I wanted in my life. I had a craving for more meaning. 

There are threads that I can trace back to when I was a kid, that if followed I see led me to Rolfing. I had a fondness for the game 'spot the difference' as a child, which makes me smile when I remember that and think how it was my Rolfing kindergarten! I think it's probably like this for us all; that within our childhood experiences the foundations are being laid for adulthood – guiding lights of meaning are being lit.

Rolfing is like throwing a puzzle up in the air: as the pieces land we see how some pieces have landed face up and you can see their picture and understand where they might fit in, while other pieces land face down. The way I see it a Rolfer's role is about creating an environment for their client to make their own jigsaw puzzle and uncover some of the guiding lights. 

My travels soon took me to Africa and by the time I arrived in Cape Town I was already fascinated with helping people make their puzzles. It was 2000 and the city was buzzing with millennium preparations. I had been working in a healing centre on Long Street and felt like I was beginning to get a bit closer to working out what I was supposed to be doing with my life. One afternoon a friend of the owner came in for a visit and we sat down and had a cup of tea. He asked me if I had heard of Rolfing. There was one Rolfer in South Africa and he was in Cape Town.  After my friend's enthusiasm I decided to check out this unheard-of form of connective tissue bodywork. Marius Strydom lived on a hill at that time and I will never forget the immense feeling of freedom I felt after that first Rolfing session. I skipped down the hill, with an effortless and ease of a child! Perhaps that feeling of lightness was in part due to the fact that I knew the search was over. I knew this was what I had been waiting for and longing for – a feeling that I was really in the right place in my life, a feeling that I had arrived.

After returning to England to save money and work as a nanny for my training, by 2001 I was back on a plane to Boulder, Colorado, where my life was very soon to become challenged, changed and transformed. 

I signed up for the Intensive Rolfing training which was three modules stretched over four years.  An expansive, eye opening, heart soaring, awe inspiring training if ever there was one. I was able to encompass my love of travel into my training schedule and went to Isla de Santa Catarina in Brazil for my second module and Munich in Germany for my third.

I feel so very grateful that I was able to arrive at my training to become a Rolfer. It keeps me continually inspired by people and the way they move, breath, live and thrive. As you will often hear me say "your body holds the answer".

I find my work a constant source of inspiration: sensing my clients' potential is a dynamic driving force. I am passionate about the future of Rolfing and Somatic Experiencing and their place in the British Complementary Health arena.