chemistry

Ida Rolf

Ida Rolf is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ida Rolf rather than just read about it. In short: Ida Pauline Rolf (May 19, 1896 – March 19, 1979) was a biochemist and the creator of the pseudoscientific practice of Structural Integration, later termed Rolfing, a type of manual therapy that claims to aligning the human body's so-called "energy field" and Earth's gravity. Early life Rolf was born in New York City in the Bronx on May 19, 1896.

Key takeaways

Ida Rolf belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ida Rolf to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ida Rolf from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ida Pauline Rolf (May 19, 1896 – March 19, 1979) was a biochemist and the creator of the pseudoscientific practice of Structural Integration, later termed Rolfing, a type of manual therapy that claims to aligning the human body's so-called "energy field" and Earth's gravity.

Early life Rolf was born in New York City in the Bronx on May 19, 1896. She was an only child. Her father, Bernard Rolf, was a civil engineer who built docks and piers on the east coast. Rolf graduated from Barnard College in 1916 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. She was in the Mathematics Club, German Club, Vice President of the class of 1916, a member of the Young Women's Christian Assn., was the alternate for the Graduate Fellowship while working at the Rockefeller Foundation, Business Manager of The Barnard Bulletin, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She received Departmental Honours in Chemistry at graduation. In 1917 she began her doctoral studies at Columbia University and, concurrently, Rolf also began work at the Rockefeller Institute as a chemical researcher. In 1920, Rolf earned her PhD in biological chemistry under the supervision of Phoebus Aaron Theodore Levene, of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Her dissertation was entitled "Three Contributions to the Chemistry of the Unsaturated Phosphatides", originally printed in three separate issues of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. It was printed in its entirety as a bound book called "Phosphatides" in late 1922. She studied yoga with Pierre Bernard which influenced her development of Rolfing.

Career After graduating, Rolf continued to work with Levene at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. In 1918, she was promoted to assistant in the chemistry lab. In 1922, two years after having received her PhD from Columbia, Rolf was raised to associate, then the highest non-tenured position for a scientist at Rockefeller. From 1919 to 1927, she published 16 scholarly journal papers, mostly in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Her research was primarily laboratory studies on biochemical compounds lecithin and cephalin. With the exception of her doctoral dissertation, all of her published work was co-authored with Levene. In 1926, Rolf left her academic work in New York to study mathematics and atomic physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and also biochemistry at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Rolf later developed Structural Integration. In addition to her 16 academic papers published from 1919 to 1927, she would later publish two papers in scholarly journals on Structural Integration. In the mid-1960s, she began teaching her Structural Integration method at Esalen Institute. Esalen was the epicenter of the Human Potential Movement. Rolf exchanged ideas with countercultural figures including Fritz Perls. In 1971, Rolf's teaching activities were consolidated under the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. As of 2010, it had graduated 1,536 practitioners, including some trained in Germany, Brazil, Japan, and Australia, in addition to the main program in Boulder, Colorado. In 1990, a group of senior faculty split off to found the Guild of Structural Integration, which had 628 graduates as of 2010. About two dozen schools were teaching Structural Integration in 2011. Standards for the field of Structural Integration are maintained by a professional membership organization, the International Association of Structural Integration.

Structural Integration

Structural Integration, later known as Rolfing, is a type of manual therapy that claims to improve human biomechanical functioning. Rolf began developing her system in the 1940s. Her main goal was to organize the human bodily structure in relation to gravity. Rolf called her method "Structural Integration", now also commonly known by the trademark "Rolfing". Structural integration is a pseudoscience and its claimed benefits are not substantiated by medical evidence. Her publications about the therapy include:

1978 VERTICAL - Experiential Side to Human Potential, Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1973 Structural Integration - Contribution to understanding of stress, Confinia Psychiatrica 1979 Rolfing: Reestablishing the Natural Alignment and Structural Integration of the Human Body for Vitality and Well-Being, Healing Arts Press

Notes

References Feitis, Rosemary. 1985. Rolfing and Physical Reality. Healing Arts Press

External links Biography and photo gallery from the Rolf Research Foundation Archived 2014-03-01 at the Wayback Machine

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ida Rolf

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ida Rolf claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ida Rolf before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ida Rolf ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ida Rolf

In research: Ida Rolf appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ida Rolf in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ida Rolf is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1896 births, 1979 deaths, 20th-century American biochemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ida Rolf outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ida Rolf in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ida Rolf means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ida Rolf out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ida Rolf in simple terms?

Why does Ida Rolf matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ida Rolf?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ida Rolf.