Larry Koliha
Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® Practitioner,
NCBMBT License #7135,
Certified Advanced Myofascial Release,
Certified Visceral Manipulation
Larry teaching on Youtube
Larry working with Advanced-Trainings videos
Larry's Photo website
Check out my website for photos from my travels.
Who is Larry Koliha?
THE BEGINNING:
I was introduced to the world of Rolfing after a 15-minute session at a local health fair. At the time, my life consisted of living in a cubical as a mechanical manufacturing engineer designing new products. Though my work was fun and challenging, it required long, stressful hours, which eventually began to wear on my health. I started running to ease my mind and help my body with the aches and pains of sitting all day, but this only seemed to lead to more tension and pain. Looking back, I realize that instead of helping my body, I was using it like a tool and ignoring the messages it was trying to send to me, all while becoming increasingly less optimistic about options for relieving my pain. That was when I discovered Rolfing. After this brief introduction, I immediately felt a profound release of pressure in my shoulders, a relaxing of my traps, and even a release in tension in my back that had plagued me for years. Afterwards all I could think was, "I've got to get more of this stuff!"
MAKING A CHANGE
After some research, I not only learned what Rolfing is, but also discovered that an international Rolfing school was just down the road. I started changing my plans for the future.
Within a year, I was taking classes in anatomy and physiology while attending workshops on bodywork in preparation for being self-employed and working with human anatomy. I also began using vacation days from engineering to attend the Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colorado and start down the path to becoming a Certified Rolfing Practitioner.
At the Rolf Institute, I learned that Rolfing was mechanically oriented and much more complicated and challenging than the mechanical components I worked with as an engineer. I started to see my new profession as a shift from mechanical engineering to anatomical engineering. Instead of working with links, levers, blocks, and computers, I was now working with the human body's movements and lack of movements to understand how alignment within the body can create fluidity when working with gravity or discomfort, pain or sedentary when not working in a unified way.
ACHIEVING A DREAM
Today I have worked for over a decade with Rolfing clients while continuing to take classes in how the body works and how to work the body. I am a certified Advanced Rolfing Practitioner, a Rolf Movement Practitioner, and I teach specialized classes on advanced myofascial therapy to other practitioners in 10 states and 3 countries. Also, in order to help give back to something that has given me so much, I work as an Instructor at the Rolfing Institute with new students entering the world of Rolfing.