Welcome back for the September edition of our newsletter where the goal is to catch you up on everything regarding the American Guild for Structural Integration and the people involved. Summer in Boise can be suprisingly hot, we had a string of 105 degree days. We are really far north and the elevation is 2500 feet but our days are long and we have a dry season that lasts form June through October. In the valley we only get 12 inches of precipitation a year which sets us up for high temperatures and tons of lizards and snakes. The thing we do get a bunch of in Idaho is wild fires, not every summer but when they come, they come. This is one of those years when Idaho is burning and so is everything else upwind to the west. Check out this sunrise picture I took the other day. It was a mountain sunrise so it had been light for a couple of hours already and the smoke (yes that is all smoke) had it this dark. It is crazy sometimes, but the smoke makes the most amazing sunrises and sunsets ever.
We just finished a busy summer with a Basic Training and then a Magic Moment workshop in Boulder, Co. It was really great to be back in Boulder where we trained a long time ago. It felt like we went home, seeing old friends and meeting new practitioners in the area. The whole community was really supportive and welcoming to us and our program. In our Basic Training we graduated our first two Practitioners, Aleta Gurney and TJ Sennestrom. We are soooo proud of them!! They both started their training in November with AGSI’s Foundations in Structural Integration class and perservered all of the way through to graduation. It was great to watch them grow into both amazing people and Structural Integration Practitioners. (they were amazing people when they started ) Their communities of Reno, NV and Winter Park, CO are lucky to have them!!
This summer’s Basic Training also graduated six Auditing Phase students on to their Practitioning Phase of the training. The AGSI BT is based on the traditional immersion model of an 8 week Auditing Phase followed by an 8 week Practitioning Phase. This is the format originally developed by Dr. Rolf and we believe that the immersion really gives the students a deep and meaningful experience. Our classroom is an intimate enviroment and we offer each student the opportunities that they need to succeed.
We are reviewing session 2 and the complexity of the relationships that create a base of support.
Our teaching is very creative and hands-on. Literally Here we are teaching quality of touch, what we call Informed Touch
Watching sessions performed by instructors is a powerful learning tool. We talk a lot about See/Feel in this process at AGSI. There is more to learn than meets the eye. It is important for the students to see and sense more of what is going on between the practitioner and the client on the table. Everyone wants to know what the technique is at first or what is being touched anatomically which are important but the how it is being touch and the intention of the touch is the more important thing for them to learn. These skills take time to grow and develop but the first step is in the Auditing Phase of Basic Training.
Teacher demo session with a community model
Keeping things fun and light
We immediately followed the Basic Training with a workshop on the ‘Magic Moment’ taught by Ritchie Mintz. The Magic Moment is all about doing more with less. Ritchie is able to touch into the facial matrix and have a tremendous impact on what he calls the “glue body” or the adhesions within the fascial web. This style of work is very easy on the client and yet brings about amazing change.
Day 1
These are pictures before and after the Post Ten 3 Series of Ritchie’s class model. These changes are really amazing and Ritchie’s work is really easy for the client to absorb. The model first recieved SI from Dr. Rolf as an infant and has been receiving sessions her whole life.
Ritchie is answering questions and visiting with practitioners at the Thai Kitchen in Longmont, CO
I love our people. The server at Thai Kitchen, who was super awesome, had a significant auto accident totalling her car earlier in the day. She was working that night with a concussion so local Longmont practitioner Robert McWilliams is helping her out.
We try to end our workshops and trainings with some sort of gathering. Here we are celebrating “The Magic Moment”. Lots of smiling faces!
For the last month or so we have been gearing up for our next Basic Training which begins on Monday September 16 in Tucson, AZ. David Davis is our lead instructor and he is going to be joined by Leesa Grey and Max Friedman as Assistant Intructors. Both Leesa and Max are long time practitioners with successful practices in their hometowns, Leesa in August, GA and Max in Jackson, WY. We have met numerous times on Zoom, organizing logistics, setting the tone for the teaching team and planning how to most effectively teach our curriculum. At AGSI we believe that relationships are at the core of everything. Peter Melchior said that our clients come back to see us for 80% of who we are and 20% of the work we do. To me that says the relationship is the large majority of why people come to see us. These relationships start in the teaching team and establish our ability to be successful in the classroom. At our teacher training we emphasized the power of communication and teamwork and that the desire to collaborate with each other is our most powerful educational tool. In the classroom we prioritize first establishing the container which within everything else becomes possible. An 8 week training is an intense experience for everyone involved, the teachers, the students and Erin and I as administrators. There are ups and downs as the group progresses through the 10 session series, which they will all receive during the training. Every Basic Training is different just like every 10 Series is different. We have the same recipe but the people are different with different needs so we adapt our teaching recipe to meet the needs of the class in the classroom just like we meet the needs of our clients on the table.
The last new, big news is that we are finally an approved NCBTMB Continuing Education Credit Unit (CEU) provider. This is a big and important step because it allows our students the ability to meet their states Continuing Education requirements in order to maintain their working licenses. Our future workshops beginning this August will mostly qualify for NCBTMB CEU’s. This will not be 100% because not all of our instructors will meet the requirements of NCBTMB, but it will be close. We will very clearly announce which classes, trainings and workshops do qualify for CEU’s. We are very proud of our progress in establishing the AGSI program. We keep clearing these hurdles one at a time. It has taken a lot of hard work and leaning on our community to succeed. It is one thing to have a vision and an entirely different one to do the actions required to carry the vision into fruitfull action.
We have been offering memberships to the American Guild for Structural Integration for a year now. We have done this as a way to help grow our community, help you market your practice with our practitioner search page and to give our community a way to support us financially. Our goal is to continue to offer value for your contributions and to really grow that value. Over the last year we have video recorded our workshops. This has been a real challenge and our learning curve has been steep. The video project has not been a huge success but we do have some great footage of some of our workshop lectures and demos. We made a ton of mistakes that include bad camera angles and having the wrong plug for the microphone so we don’t have sound. The plan for the future is to continue to record workshops and other content with our new skills and then place them in a library on our website for our members. We will have some posted soon. I’ll ask now, what would you like to see in the future? Ideas that we are working with are:
- a collection of videos of the Basic 10 series with senior practitioners
- a collection of videos about how to develop and run a successful practice
- a continuation of the series we have already started and call “Lobby Talks with Ritchie Mintz”
We have been posting our video content on our YouTube channel, AmeriGuild Training Program, over the past year. We have some great interviews with senior practitioners
What’s on the calendar?
We have exciting schedule of upcoming trainings and workshops. Check them out on our website and tell all of your friends.
‼️ Free Webinar ‼️
The Line: A Path of Mystical Awakening September 22 at 9:00am MST
Join Will Johnson for a free Zoom webinar where he will talk about Structural Integration as an evolutionary path. Will trained with Dr. Rolf in 1975-1976 and was captivated by her vision of the human potentail and the power of living on one’s Line. Pursuing these mysteries has been his lifes work both as a practitioner and as an author of books on meditation and sprituality. Will has been leading meditation workshops and retreats all over the world for decades and he is offering this webinar opportunity to our community because he is passionate about this more elusive side of our work. We have all watched our clients grow, becoming stronger and better versions of themselves, this is Will’s passion and he wants to help all of us embody a more evolved version of ourselves. Will is an elegant speaker and his view of Structural Integration and the Line is captivating so don’t miss this amazing opportunity.
Will Johnson received his Structural Integration training in 1975-76 from Ida Rolf, Jan Sultan, and Emmett Hutchins. He is the author of fifteen books about the role of the body in spiritual awakening, two of which have won awards as “Best Spiritual Book of the Year,” all of which address the importance of The Line as doorway into the awakening. His website is www.embodiment.net.
Here is the Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87939896182?pwd=AYnXBAhJ3Y5m9wyU2G4GxhDUnumbgs.1
‼️ ALERT ‼️
Evolutionary Transformation Through the Line December 5 – 8
Taught by David Davis and Will Johnson
Also back by popular demand! We did this workshop in Costa Rica last December and the practitioners that participated can’t stop talking about it. This December we are moving it to the White Eagle Lodge Retreat Center in Montgomery, TX which is just 45 minutes north of the Houston airport. Will leads the morning discussions and meditation and then David takes over in the afternoon leading the hands on Structural Integration work of the class. David and Will both trained in the 70’s and have been developing the model for this workshop for over 20 years. Will is the author of 13 books on meditation and has been leading retreats for decades. David brings 34 years of teaching experience to this class. Between these two master instructors they have been practicing Structural Integration for 97 years.
Here is a video we made last year of David and Will:
⭐️ AMAZING OPPORTUNITY ⭐️
Advanced Training October 7 -24 taught by Ritchie Mintz
We are offering an Advanced Training this October in Dallas, TX taught by Ritchie. We are teaching the original 5 series developed by Dr. Rolf, Emmet Hutchins, Peter Melchior, Jan Sultan and Michael Salveson in a 3 week format. The training not only teaches you the Advanced series but will expand your vision of Structural Integration. It will bring a new level of confidence, sensitivity and awareness to your practice.
Tell Your Friends ☎️
Structural Integration Basic Training with Ritchie Mintz and Rob Martin
From January 20, 2025 until March 13, 2025 in Austin, TX
Come join us in Austin, TX for our next Basic Training in the winter of 2025. Austin is a great place to be in the winter or any time of year. It is a vibrant and exciting city with a ton of fun culture. There is a great music scene, it’s the center of the Whole Foods universe, lots of outdoor activities and best of all, it’s the home town of our Lead Instructor Ritchie Mintz.
The Basic training will include both Auditing and Practitioning students. However, already graduated Structural Integrators who would like the opportunity to experience Dr Rolf’s original method of Basic Training as an Auditor or Practitioner, contact us for the reduced tuition.
This class is taught by legacy teacher and practitioner, Ritchie Mintz, and assisted by Rob Martin.
Auditing is where students begin to learn the foundational skills of sight, touch and a thorough understanding of the Basic 10 Series which are all key to the successful practicing of the Rolf Method of Structural Integration. A practitioner’s ability to see allows them to assess balance and imbalance, and function and dysfunction in a client.
Here is the link on our website: https://www.rolfguildusa.org/event/structural-integration-basic-training-with-ritchie-mintz/
A little something extra:
Erin and I spend a lot of time talking about our culture and what we think is important as we build the American Guild for Structural Integration community. As we began this journey we came up with a list of guiding values that we are trying to uphold and build upon. These pillars that support us are:
- Potential
- Community
- No pie
- Integrity
- Have fun
Potential: When we think of the word potential as Structural Integration Practicioners we probably think of human potential and our work of helping people transform and evolve. Well, that is exactly what we think of here. We want to create an environment where everyone is not only welcome but they are absolutely free and encouraged to be the very best version of themselves. We aim to support this growth process for everyone involved with us so they can reach their highest potential. As practitioners it often falls on us to hold this space and vision for our clients and as a training program we can hold this vision of potential for all of our students, members and teachers.
Community: Life is a team sport! When we think of community, we think of a group of people with a common caring that really tries to lift each other up and work together towards the goal of making something great. In this case we want to make The American Guild For Structural Integration the best program it can be and we want all of our instructors to be the best educators that they can be. This means that the sum of our parts is far greater than the individual pieces of our organization. This is very similar to the principal of the Basic 10 Series, the completition of the series is far greater than ten sessions that do not work together in unison towards the complete goal of integration.
No Pie: In life, we as human beings spend a large portion of our time trying to compete for a piece of the pie that we believe that we need for our survival. This means that I am always in competition with someone for what I believe I need. In business that can mean that if another practitioner gets a new client then there might not be enough for me or if someone leaves my practice I will live in fear that they won’t replaced. As a Program, fighting for a portion of a finite pie will put us in direct competition with other SI Programs, never allowing us to have real and honest working relationships with them because I keep hoping that they will lose something (students) so we can gain something (students). What if there was no Pie? What if we believed that there is an endless supply of students or clients just waiting for the opportunity to be with us? What if we let go of all of our negative, self defeating and poverty minded thoughts and just flipped the switch to a world of abundance. We work really hard to live with the belief that we live in a world where there is no pie, instead there is infinite abundence. Everybody’s needs will be met and it is my job to hope for and appreciate when others needs are met.
Integrity: To Erin and myself integrity means being transparent in our professional decisions and intentions, having hard conversations that we would much rather avoid, admitting when we have made mistakes and following through on our commitments even when it is hard on us financially, mentally or emotionally. In the last 21 months we have faced many challenges that have included all of the above and we have tried to walk the high road in each case. This has cost us money, sleep and peace of mind at times but the rewards are greater. We can say honestly that we did our best and that we acted with the intention of being of service to our community and that we have been thoughtful and loving in all of our actions. Integrity is the foundation of trusting relationships in any community.
Have Fun: Structural Integration is the best profession ever! I have been in a full time busy practice for 23 years and have not once wished I was doing something else. I learn something super cool every day and get to watch people have amazing transformations in their lives. At AGSI we get to share this lifestyle of growth and service with others who are equally passionate about their journey. This is FUN! It is REALLY important that we take the time and effort to appreciate how lucky we are. Teaching is a privelage, how lucky are we to have people ask us to lead them to a new career and on the start of their SI journey. We want our classrooms to be fun, the relationships with teachers to be fun and our relationships with students to be fun. Fun includes laughter but it also includes hard work, curiosity and wonder.
Thank you for making it to the END! We will update you on our festivities soon.