Alexander Rosan is a bodyworker, yoga instructor and healer based in Portland. 

Wellness is a journey.  Journey's are often done alone, and sometimes we're fortunate enough to come across people who can help us continue on our path with a new sense of strength, and courage. As we embark on our path to wellness, bodywork is the kind fellow traveler to lend a hand, and aid in our ability to move through the thick fog of challenge. It's not always easy, but the moments of clarity that are gained in travel are worth a hundred times the struggle to find it. Wherever you find yourself in the process of health, and well being allow yourself the opportunity to experience something unlike a typical massage where you can gain deeper insight into your body, mind, and spirit.

Massage is but a tree in the forest that is bodywork. The two are different in that bodywork addresses the physical, as well as how/why these ailments are effecting the other aspects of your self. This can be a range from postural, or structural disfunction, to emotional, psychological, and spiritual barriers keeping you from your continuous path to honest health.

We all store trauma of various forms, and in various ways. My job is to teach presence where we have learned resistance, and while I can give an easy, relaxing massage, I usually request you to work with me, and meet me as we embark on a path to your vision of health, and well being.

Read a great article about my work from SF Yoga Magazine here!

Modalities Used

Myofascial Release

This technique works with the connective tissue, and some deeper layers of muscle tissue. Usually this helps to put the fascial layers of muscle tissue back into a place of homeostasis.

Work with Emotion and Trauma  

This is a specific area of interest to me, and my work. We all have various forms of stored emotion and trauma. Some of us are told at a young age we can't emote, or express, so it ends up being suppressed and can even act out as disease in the body. Others of us have had very physical, or emotional traumatic experiences that creates a deadened sense of self, or a dynamic trigger that seems too overwhelming to breech on our own. By using various tools that I've developed, and learned over time (like somatic experiencing), together, we can help you to overcome those traumas, and gain access to emotions you haven't had access to, as well as give you a restored sense of strength, love, and strength, and love of self.

Postural Analysis

Essential to any bodyworkers palette. Observing the body, and how it is held allows both the practitioner, and receiver to engage in what the body is carrying, where, and how that effects the rest of the systems of the body. Then the practitioner can begin to help unravel where the body is wound in both physical, and emotional capacities.

Structural Integration

Otherwise known as, Rolfing. While it is deep, and sometimes painful work, it's highly effective in aiding the body to come to a neutral state, and allows the body to move more freely by releasing areas of highly restrictive tension.

TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises)

There are different ways to help the body process through the micro, and macro traumas we experience. Some of these things can be done alone, and others are necessary to do while someone is facilitating your process with you so that you feel supported in moments of vulnerability or fear.

Trigger Point

Trigger Point therapy involves finding a small point in a muscular region that when a firm pressure is applied helps to relieve that entire region. This sort of therapy works great for athletes, and people with RSI's (repeat stress injuries).

Visceral Manipulation

A work that incorporates physical, and energetic therapies to release tension of the various organs. Well known through parts of Europe but quite foreign to most people in the United States. A powerful, and immensely useful technique.

Ayurvedic Medicine

Ayurveda is the Indian form of medicine. It deals with a combination of 3 'doshas' or body/mind types to discern how that specific body can be navigated for optimal care including diet, exercise, and ways to navigate your individual challenges.

Breathwork

Many traditions incorporate breath into their practices of self-care. There are so many layers of breath that function to help the body cleanse, open, sleep, focus, and charge. Not to mention other types that offer a deep, and intense look into ourself, and the way we hold our joy, pain, availability, and challenge.

Chinese Medicine

Chinese medicine (TCM or 5 Element) deals often with acupuncture or needling (which I don't offer). However, the same system is applied with Tui-Na (Chinese style massage), qi-gong, and, Yin yoga to help open up the stagnant energetic pathways of the body. This also includes knowledge of diet, exercise, acupressure, herbs, and body types.

Herbology

Herbs are a great way to supplement the process of health, and nutrition. There are so many herbs out there that can help with everything in the book! Our prescription medicine all comes from something natural right?! So why not try to heal, and aid yourself direct from the source of nature?  Herbs can assist in sleep (and dreams), pain, male, and female related issues, immune response, and so much more.