Michael Murphy – Rolfer

My first visit to Michael, my neck was frozen from spasms. After the session, movement was restored, and pain relieved. Several follow up visits have prevented the problem from occurring again.
I’ve worked with three different rolfers over the last 15 years. Each has their own style and approach — some using the standard 10 session boiler-​plate approach, some don’t. I feel Michael’s work is stronger because he intuits what’s needed to address the specific needs of each client. His decades of experience as an anatomy and rolfing instructor are also evident!
Michael is excellent. His masterful technique blends the standard approach and his decades of experience to provide clients with a healing, restorative restructuring (for lack of a better word!) His demeanor is ideally suited for rolfing; he listens when talking about root causes for ailments, then expertly addresses those concerns, and others, with his hands.
If you see a chiropractor or get regular massages, consider rolfing. It’s a more intense experience than massage, more gentle than a chiro, and the effects are much longer lasting. Michael is a wonderful rolfer for first timers.

Since this was my first experience with Rolfing, I didn’t know what exactly to expect. I chose Michael Murphy because he was highly recommended by another massage therapist who has never steered me wrong. Michael has a stellar reputation as a massage and anatomy teacher.
Michael talked with me, asked me some questions, looked at my alignment (which meant looking at me standing there in my skivvies, which I didn’t mind much because it was done in a clinical and professional way, and gave me a massage (with my bra and panties on, which is apparently how Rolfers work — fine by me!).
Michael is among the best massage therapists I’ve been to. He charges more than most massage therapists I’ve seen, and clients pay because he’s excellent.
Michael has 30+ years of experience. He sees what he needs to work with, and instead of just rubbing muscles, I felt different (better). I had several Structural Integration sessions, and I recommend him highly.
You won’t find crystals, music, waterfalls, or fancy lighting that you see in some massage studios — just a massage table and a Rolfer who studied with Ida Rolf and knows what he’s doing.

When I first relocated to the Bay Area and recognized a need for follow-​up sessions of Rolfing, I contacted Stacey Mills, a brilliant Rolfer with whom I’d worked in Hawaii. Stacey was one of the early Rolfers and highly regarded as one of the «stars» in the field. Stacey recommended Michael Murphy because she knew him from their lecturing work together throughout the U.S.
I don’t recall being impressed when I went to him at that time, but more recently when I again felt the need for Rolfing, I could not find any other Rolfer within a reasonable commute distance so I returned to Michael for additional treatments.
Sadly, Michael’s greatest strength seems to be in the academic arena and lecture circuit.
That’s not to say that he is not capable in the hands-​on arena, however where Ida Rolf developed a technique with a set pattern of 10 treatments of deep tissue massage to realign the body from its many life set-​backs, Michael relies on intuition to guide him to where work is needed.
In some techniques I think that works well, however after 8 treatments, which mostly seemed to lead him to the same area of the body, my alignment was not improved from the compensations that had set in nor did that area of my body seem to be.
I think that Rolfing is one body technique that best benefits from the patterning set out originally by Ida Rolf.