PHILIP M HURRING
Certified Hellerwork Structural Integration
Hellerwork International 2001
Advanced Structural Integration
Mana Integrative Therapies U.K. 2002
Fascial Fitness Trainer
Dr Robert Schleip & Fascial Fitness Association GmbH
International Association of Structural Integrators member
I never imagined that soon after this photo was taken that I would experience 3 emergency hospital admissions over 18 months. After a failed and vicious chemical treatment to try to stop my lung from collapsing yet again, I had major surgery. After a month in the cardio-thoracic ward amongst the heart bypass patients and life-long chain-smokers, I was discharged and sent home. No physiotherapy, no helpful information, no backup.
This happened in my first year of work, while I was also playing and recording music. After surgery I was a shadow of my former self, with a lot of pain and very restricted movement. Eventually I hit my own “rock bottom”, and from that darker zone I somehow managed to make a pact with myself to get my life and health back, whatever it took. Western Medicine had certainly saved my life for which I am eternally grateful, but it did nothing to help me recover my true health and wellbeing.
I spent the next decade researching and trying all the usual mainstream treatments and adjustments, with very little results. Bodywork, nutrition and Yoga helped a little – but out of everything I tried, it was my discovery of Hellerwork Structural Integration that finally enabled me to reduce and eliminate my pain and get my full flexibility and movement back. Finally I had profound and true long-lasting improvement. After 10 years I stood fully back in my power once again, and the difference just felt amazing.
And then came an interesting twist …
A few years later I was still deeply inspired by my results and outcomes that I applied to train to become a Hellerwork Structural Integration Practitioner myself. My only option was to apply to join a European based training in 1998, and I was accepted. Very shortly after I arrived in the Costa Brava of Spain to begin Phase 1. I completed my full training in New Zealand, Devon in England, and Haute Provence in France over a 3-year period.
This was no desk-bound academic training. It was an incredible, hands-on, challenging, and rewarding experience that still enriches my practice and how I can provide for my clients every single day.
My first practice was in the City of Bath, then in London at the well known Life Centre in Notting Hill, The Ability Centre in Marylebone, Holistic Health in Hackney, and the Kailash Centre in St Johns Wood.
I travelled extensively for further training with gifted teachers of Structural Integration – including Sol Petersen, Mark Gray, Hubert Godard, and Stuart Bell. I also completed my Advanced Structural Integration training in Exmoore UK.
For my ongoing Continuing Education I have attended many courses and classes including with the late Leon Chaitow, with Tom Myers and Anatomy Trains, Dr Robert Schleip and others who are key in further developing our understanding of the body’s Fascial network and how to apply this knowledge and experience to the service I can provide for my clients …
More recently I had the great pleasure to attend specialist workshops with the European Guild for Structural Integration in Bath UK and in Turin, Italy.
I have a creative background in media production and music performance, and I have served extensively on the Hellerwork International board of directors. I regularly network with dedicated health and medical practitioners in a variety of modalities.
Certified Hellerwork Practitioners are required to be members in good standing with their Regional Practitioner Association (USA, Canada, Europe, or New Zealand and Australia) and to complete their Annual Continuing Education Quota, in order to be annually re-certified.
International Association of Structural Integrators Members adhere to the IASI’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice.
Evolution Of Hellerwork Structural Integration
Dr Ida P. Rolf
Structural Integration originally began with Dr Ida P. Rolf (1896-1979) a New Yorker armed with a Ph.D in biological chemistry. At a young age she became an Associate at the Rockefeller Institute, studied mathematics and atomic physics in Zurich, and homeopathic medicine in Geneva.
In 1930’s USA Dr Rolf was seeking answers to family health problems. Treatments available seemed inadequate to her. As a result she explored osteopathy, chiropractic, yoga, the Alexander technique and Korzybski’s work on consciousness. With her now substantial knowledge Dr Rolf created a new system of soft tissue bodywork, known originally as Rolfing, but now more widely known as Structural Integration.
With this potent work, she was able to make significant changes to deep structures of the body, offering many breakthroughs for people previously unable to find help. In the 60’s she was invited to teach at the Esalen Institute. The more she taught, the more students sought admission to her training …
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was one of those students. Born in Poland in 1940 he received his early education in Europe, and immigrated to the USA at the age of 16. He graduated from CalTech and began working as an aerospace engineer in the NASA space programme, developing extensive knowledge of structural stress. In 1972, in the midst of an intense involvement with humanistic psychology, Joseph experienced Rolfing. He was so impressed that he gave up aerospace engineering and trained as a Rolfing practitioner with the founder Dr Rolf.
Joseph Heller went on to become a Structural Patterner with Judith Aston and while maintaining a very successful practice, he received advanced training from Dr Rolf, and from Dr Brugh Joy, a noted physician, author, and innovator in the fields of preventative medicine and energy healing.
He became the first president of the Rolf Institute in 1976. A few years later and being ready to teach Rolfing, Dr Rolf passed away. Armed with his unique combination of expertise and training in Structural Integration, movement, body energy awareness, and the conceptualization of the human body as an integrated system, Joseph Heller moved to the San Francisco Bay area and founded Hellerwork.
“The body stores the trauma of our lives in muscular rigidity, thereby keeping us stuck in the past. When we release the tension in the body and align ourselves with gravity, we take a new stand in life. This allows us to be at ease with ourselves and in harmony in our relationship to others and to our planet.”
– Joseph Heller founder of Hellerwork