Biography

Amanda Kreiss

Amanda graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with a B.A. in Community Development Studies, and an M.A. in Environmental Studies. While there, her research focused on environmental planning and community change. As our bodies are our first and most immediate environment, becoming a Rolfer was an easy transition for her.

Amanda first came as a client to Rolfing® when, at twenty years old, she felt like she had lost a basic sense of grace. Although physically fit at the time, she no longer experienced the ease she had in her body prior to a spinal fusion surgery in her teens. Again and again, people told her to "get used to it" or "it's only down hill from here".

But years of dedication to dance, gymnastics, diving, and cycling had instilled in her a basic belief in the body's resilience - its capacity for both agility and strength. Her Rolfing® ten series served to deepen this belief; she not only recovered what she felt she'd lost through it, but felt that it helped her to develop new somatic awareness and subtlety. The experience inspired her to learn Rolfing® so that she might catalyze the recovery of such possibility with others. She enjoys doing so daily for people of all ages, body types and walks of life.

Amanda enrolled at The Rolf Institute® of Structural Integration in Boulder, Colorado and finalized her clinical studies in Munich, Germany through the Institute's continental counterpart - the European Rolfing Association® - in early 2002. She achieved her advanced certification in 2005. Amanda regularly pursues continuing education - amongst other topics, in visceral manipulation, pediatric Rolfing®, spinal and pelvic mechanics, and functional integration.

Currently, in addition to her full-time Rolfing® practice, she is enrolled in the four-year Chinese medical program at Chicago's Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. She looks forward, someday, to integrating her manual practice with acupuncture and herbal medicine.