Judit Ruiz Onandi

Before Rolfing

Judit studied dance in Bilbao while also studying Telecommunications’ Engineering. She enjoys knowing how mechanisms work, but after finishing the Engineering degree, she decided to move to Belgium and follow her always present desire to dance professionally. She worked as contemporary dancer in Belgium and the Netherlands for 19 years, where she also developed a career as freelance choreographic and artistic assistant for dance companies throughout Europe.

Choreographic assistantship always attracted her, helping choreographers develop a concept to an evening long physical and artistic piece. In a way, her work is to engineer, step by step, a dance performance that integrates music, dance language, lights, costumes and dramaturgy into a whole, from a given idea. She never worked as a engineer, but she transformed what she learned of engineering into helping artistic creation. Judit prioritises the human being above the dancer in the movement they have to perform, encouraging them to be in the present moment, even when reproducing fixed steps.

Inspiration to train in Rolfing®

Judit developed chronic back pain during her dance career and became interested in how she could help herself out of that discomfort. Studied Anatomy and No-Risk Abdominals with Blandine Calais-Germain. This was the first time she heard about fascia and she became very interested in developing a method that would integrate fascia and movement. She was thinking about helping dancers prepare themselves in order not to have injuries, and rehabilitate themselves, not only physically, but emotional and psychologically, from a career that very often feels an identity to dancers. Around this time she first started to hear and read about Rolfing.

When she received her first Rolfing session, Judit felt changes that might seem small from the outside, but that transformed her way of seeing and feeling not only herself, but her relationship to the world. She felt an enhanced capacity to breathe, greater fluidity of movement, strength without strain and a sense of centre and ground inside herself she didn’t have before.

She thought Rolfing could connect dance, anatomy, prehabilitation and rehabilitation. Upon studying Rolfing, Judit felt as if she was in contact with the innate wisdom of the body itself, which she still feels.

Teaching Method

Judit thrives on helping students feel their resources. Coming from movement, she tries to bridge theory into palpable practice and uses metaphors as a way to reach deeper than the logical mind, and help students find their own personality. She uses several means of teaching, from theory, to touch, physical movement and delving into perception.