[Interview] Noah Karrasch

Noah Karrasch is a certified Rolfer and licensed massage therapist.

He teaches core bodywork skills and has recently published a book, entitled Meet Your Body: CORE Bodywork and Rolfing Tools to Release Bodymindcore Trauma (Singing Dragon, 2009).

How did you first become interested in Bodywork and Rolfing?

25 years ago I picked up Ida Rolf's book, Ida Rolf Talks about Rolfing and Physical Reality (Rosemary Feitis & Ida Rolf) for $1. At the time I was a music teacher, but the cover and the concept captured me.

As I read the book, and her quote: "This is the gospel according to Rolf: When gravity gets flowing appropriately through the body, then spontaneously the body heals itself," I was hooked.

Though I had no training or inclination in this area, I immediately resonated and knew I wanted to learn her work. Within a year, circumstances allowed me to pursue the training in Boulder, Colorado. I've been employed as a bodyworker, and more recently as a teacher of bodywork since that time.

What are the main benefits that bodymindcore work can offer people?

Years back one client sent me a beautiful card after her work that said, "Thank you for giving me my body back."

Though many clients come for symptom relief from back, neck, or foot pain; fibromyalgia; as an adjunct to other therapies; or many other reasons -- my belief is that all of us are wound too tightly and holding on to old traumas down to our core layer. If I can touch someone's core experience and convince them to breathe and release old trauma, everything in their life becomes freer and better.

Ida Rolf suggested -- and I agree -- that it's less important to change symptoms and more important to allow people to find balance in their lives so the symptoms can disappear. So CORE work intends to give people a greater sense of who they are and how they go into the larger world.

What do you hope people will take from your book?

First, I hope they will learn to believe they're in charge of their own body and process, and start to treat their bodymindcore appropriately.

Second, I hope they will find practical and useful information that will allow them to learn to operate more efficiently and joyfully in their own body.

Without beating people over the head with my ideas, I hope everyone can find within the pages, specific ideas that can allow them to make profound changes in their world with simple awarenesses and exercises.

I want us all to move more freely and joyfully through our lives.

What or who most inspires you?

The new president of the United States inspires me for his ability to listen to alternate viewpoints without getting defensive. The American people inspire me for their choice of him to assume the office.

My father-in-law, an 85-year-old who is still out making friends and saying 'yes' to new experiences, inspires me to remember to stay open and enthused about all aspects of life; even those that at first appear negative.

The challenges of the times -- financial, environmental and personal -- inspire me to remember to stay grateful for everything that comes my way.

What are you reading at the moment?

I've just finished several light reads of British mysteries ... those are always fun for me since I visit England so often these days, and recognize many locales.

I just finished a Ken Follett book about medieval England, and enjoy historical fictions from nearly any era or location. I'm planning to revisit the Colleen McCullough series on Rome soon -- she's perhaps my favorite author for her extensive research and her ability to create such vivid characters.

(c) Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2010

This interview was first published in the Singing Dragon Newsletter in January 2009

Possibly related books:

,,

Related article:

Dr Susan Shumsky [Interview], Conversations with Writers, May 14, 2007

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