Tuesday, April 23, 2013

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Their body of work

Bartonsville woman eschews pills for hands-on therapy
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The hypnosis room at Healing Arts Center in Tannersville on Wednesday, April 17, 2013.Keith R. Stevenson/Pocono Record
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When Vickie Kovar of Bartonsville got news that she had an inoperable malignant brain tumor in 1990, she sought all types of healing methods.
About a year after treatments and switching to a macrobiotic diet, the tumor was gone. When Kovar began the healing process, she was told about an alternative therapy that could help her continue to heal called Rolfing. It was that therapy that led Kovar to her career.
"After I started to heal and felt strong enough, my brother who is a neurologist told me about Rolfing. He's very holistic," she said. "I went to school for Rolfing for two years in Boulder, Colo., and stayed there 15 years. I moved back here in 2007 and worked in Wellsprings in East Stroudsburg, and then opened my own place in 2012."
Healing Arts Center in Tannersville has built up a regular clientele since opening less than a year ago. The center offers Rolfing, Reiki, quantum healing, angel touch therapy, acupuncture, hypnotherapy and chiropractic services. Kovar hopes to add on a few additional holistic services in the future.
For many people, Rolfing is a totally new concept.
"Rolfing is hard to explain," said Kovar. "It's great for people in any kind of muscular skeletal pain."
Rolfing works with the fasciae system in the body. Fasciae wraps around each muscle in the body, and its function is to help the muscles move over other muscles. Rolfing works on the fasciae to help free movement in the body.
Diane Pryor of Effort has been a client of Kovar's since November. A problem she noticed worsening brought her to the center to try Rolfing.
"I noticed that my scoliosis was getting worse, so I decided to see Vickie. We had 10 sessions and it's amazing the different she made," Pryor said. "My shoulders are level and my rib cages are almost completely symmetrical. It's nothing short of miraculous."
Pryor is a massage therapist, and said while massage can help many issues, Rolfing can help as well in others.
"I think there are so many people who don't know what Rolfing is," she said. "Anybody who has an ongoing problem will probably see results."
"What we do is energy healing with an angelic touch," said Jude Goode, who works at the center doing energy healing alongside two or three other energy healers. "Energy healing is a universal energy, a healing living energy. The sessions are gentle and noninvasive with light touch hands on. It reduces stress, promotes deep relaxation, lowers blood pressure, increases vitality, balances the harmony system and accelerates healing abilities. We are a nondenominational group who honors everyone's journey."
The center is open seven days a week, and is located at 2937 Route 611 Suite 10 in Merchants Plaza in Tannersville. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 570-332-4365.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

rolfing athletes



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Sewickley native helps athletes recover from injuries


By Joanne Barron 

Published: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 9:01 p.m.Updated 21 hours ago 

If it wasn't for Michael Waller and “rolfing,” former Major League Baseball player Sean Casey never might have been able to play in the World Series.
Now a broadcaster and commentator for the MLB Network, Casey said rolfing, a form of bodywork that reorganizes the connective tissues, helped him recover after several injuries.
While playing first base for the Pittsburgh Pirates during the second week of the season in 2006, Casey fractured his spine after a Chicago Cubs base runner collided with him.
Casey was in the hospital for 11 days, and Pirates team doctors said he would be out for at least four months. A friend suggested he contact Waller and try rolfing.
“I had to be helped up onto the table by my wife. He worked on me for three hours the first time, and after that, I didn't have any pain,” he said.
Waller, who was born and raised in Sewickley, treated Casey eight times in four weeks, and six weeks after his injury, he was back in the game.
That same year, while Casey was playing with the Detroit Tigers, he injured his leg. Doctors told him he wouldn't be able to play for at least three weeks. Until that point, Casey had been playing well and his team was headed to the playoffs.
After Waller “rolfed” him again, Casey played in the World Series and earned a .432 batting average and hit two home runs, although Detroit didn't win, Waller said.
Although Casey retired at the end of the 2008 season, he said when Waller is in town, he always makes an appointment for a rolfing session for himself; his wife, Mandy; and their children to keep their bodies in alignment.
He said he has referred many friends and family members to Waller, and they avoided surgery, physical therapy, doctors and drugs.
“I tell them to let Michael work on them one time and it will change their lives,” Casey said.
Named after its founder, the late Dr. Ida P. Rolf, Rolfing Structural Integration is practiced in 38 countries.
Rolf theorized that “bound-up” fasciae ­­— connective tissues that Waller compares to the white coating on raw chicken ­— often restrict opposing muscles from functioning in concert. She aimed to separate the fibers of bound-up fasciae manually to loosen them and allow effective movement.
Manipulation is believed to yield therapeutic benefits, including helping clients to stand straighter, gain height and move better through the correction of soft-tissue fixations.
Waller, a 1977 Sewickley Academy graduate, said the technique helps to break up holding patterns where the muscles get stuck or bunched up.
He said it can release traumas that people have held in their bodies for years after an injury.
His only equipment is a portable table. There are no electric stimulators.
Waller, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, frequently travels to provide rolfing treatments in 17 different cities, including areas of New York, Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio.
He often comes to the Sewickley area, where he previously had an office in the former Open Mind bookstore to treat clients throughout the Pittsburgh area, such as Cat Capuli, 51, of Moon Township.
Capuli said Waller has helped her after skiing injuries and she now can hike, do yoga and exercise on the elliptical machine.
Waller, son of the late Carole Taylor and Edward Waller of Sewickley, said he knows what it's like “to live in a body that doesn't work.”
He said he got relief from rolfing from his own injuries playing hockey and lacrosse in high school and college.
Over 24 years, he said, he has treated about 40,000 patients and has put in about 50,000 hours of practice.
He charges from $125 to $150 per session depending on the amount of travel, and sessions last from 90 minutes to two hours.
Rolfers often prescribe to a sequence of 10 to 12 sessions.
Waller said in addition to Casey, he has worked on several other MLB baseball players, including Gary Sheffield, Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew, and other professional athletes.
Waller said he had never heard of rolfing until he met Carol Walsh, who owns a practice in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood and treated him for his injuries.
He then became her apprentice and became a certified rolfer in 1999 and a certified advanced rolfer in 2009 from the Rolf Institute in Colorado.
For more information, visit www.prorolfing.com.
Joanne Barron is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-324-1406 orjbarron@tribweb.com.


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