Sharon Wheeler’s BoneWork Course

Timings: 9am – 5.30pm each day

Venue: The Miller’s Way Project The Tabernacle Memorial Hall, Miller’s Way, London W6 7NH

Tutor: Sharon Wheeler (link includes a description by Sharon of how BoneWork started)

Please note that this course is not hosted by Body in Harmony Training. For any questions please contact James Palmer with an email titled BoneWork Course at james@bodykineticstherapy.com 

We are pleased to announce that Sharon Wheeler will be in the UK teaching her BoneWork course this September. With more than half a century of bodywork experience, Sharon is the originator of BoneWork; it is a modality she is continually evolving and expanding. She trained with Dr. Ida Rolf starting in 1970 and took the final advanced training that Dr. Rolf gave in 1978. Sharon has developed her innovative ways of working with scars and bones within the fascial web from this foundation.

Course Description

Bone is highly specialized connective tissue with an innate ability to remodel itself. Bones come in a variety of shapes and sizes with complex internal and external structures. They grow and change all the time like other parts of your body.

There are two lines of approach to working with bones: “Bone Change” and “Bone Rolling”. Both techniques respect the fact that Bones are not rigid and fixed, but rather flexible and movable. These techniques are not bone manipulations (such as chiropractic adjustments), but techniques to unwind and unhook bones and joints from their network of fascial patterns. In class you will be exploring the continuum between connective soft tissue and bone. The nature of this continuity allows us to work IN and THROUGH the bone’s plasticity to help resolve poorly healed fractures (as is often found in broken collar bones) and distorted bony relationships (eg broken hands).

The work is rarely painful – even for recently broken bones, and the amount of change in one intervention is extensive. The cosmetic effect is delightful and the functional changes can be profound. Practitioners will learn these techniques well enough to take them home and use them the next day in their practices. BoneWork can be used with ScarWork, fits seamlessly into an Structural Integration series, or works as a stand-alone session. Beyond relief with local restrictions, clients have also reported results that include whole-body shifts and trauma resolution.

Bone Change

Since the initial spontaneous discovery in 1973, Sharon has been exploring the curious phenomenon of Bone Change. These techniques are designed to address shape and contour. Bone Change employs precisely placed manual pressure into the fascial elements of the bone. The chronic distortions left over from badly healed breaks in the bone, or “scars” in the bone, transform towards normal in moments. Results appear to be permanent.

Bone Rolling

Accidents and injuries can disorganize the functional relationships between bones. Bones can get stuck together out of place causing chronic dysfunction. These bone-to-bone adhesions are at the level of the fascia of the periosteum. In Bone Rolling, deep manual pressure is precisely directed through the periosteal adhesion to release the stuck bones. The bones are now free to move, or “roll” into a better relationship within structure of the fascial web. There are Bone Rolling techniques for most of the bone-to-bone relationships of the body. The techniques in this course are primarily for the appendicular skeleton, and some for the axial skeleton. Bone Rolling results in profound, lasting structural shifts.

The Science of BoneWork

This course will include presentations from neurophysiologist Dr Heike Jäger from the Fascia Research Center at the University of Ulm, Germany. She has been studying Sharon Wheeler’s work deeply over the last few years and will explain the physiological mechanisms which enable BoneWork and discuss how BoneWork relates to particular pathologies. Heike is passionate about translating and articulating what we do in clinic in a scientific way. BoneWork may seem like magic, but don’t say that too near Heike!

Prerequisites

Five years of professional practice, and preferably study of Sharon Wheeler’s ScarWork (or Structural Integration).

Insurance: Please check with your insurers that they will cover you – this is not a manipulative skill, but vectored static touch working with the fascia using medium pressure. It is not related to the velocity adjustment that chiropractors and osteopaths use.

Cancellation policy: Your deposit is your commitment to the course and is non-refundable. Sharon visits the UK from the USA and the course organisation entailed is considerable. If you have paid in full but are unable to attend the course due to exceptional circumstances, you are welcome to transfer your place to someone else, as long as they are suitably qualified, at a fee of £50. If this is not possible the organiser will look to resolve the situation in a way that is fair to the student and to the school and will if possible transfer you to another course but charge a one-off £40 administration fee. This can only be done up to four weeks before the start of the course. Please note that a minimum number of students are required for this course to run and if your late withdrawal means the course cannot run, you will be unable to do so out of fairness to the other students. On our side, if for any reason we are forced to cancel, we will offer you a place on another course or refund 100% of all monies paid.

Covid policy: Please note – if required by government or common-sense guidelines, we will instigate precautions as needed to deal with any current virus situations. These may include masks, extra sanitising, and changes in how we run the class to reduce the number of people you are in personal contact with. If you have concerns about any of these precautions, please contact the tutor immediately so that we can discuss how best to accommodate you. Thank you for your cooperation.