A question came up recently about an appointment schedule that does not match the conventional wisdom for structural integration. I learned – and other practitioners seem to agree – that a person should not receive sessions too close together. The body, I was told, needs several days to integrate the work received before getting new input. That seems to make sense. In addition, when I received the series during my training, I felt like I had too much work in too short a time by the end of my classes.

However, I have recently heard from someone who did not follow this advice, was fine, and plans to repeat the experience. How to explain that – is he just lucky that he felt great or is the guideline wrong?

I also learned that people should have the full ten-series before getting spot work or one-off sessions. Then I met a practitioner who did spot work and has found that to be good for most of his clients. I became open to the idea. I have now had a number of sessions with various people who did not receive the ten sessions first. They seem fine, happy and have experienced reduced pain and improvements in their mobility. Some of them later signed up for the full ten-series.

I am still pondering when to follow the received guidelines and when to experiment with something different. I believe these guidelines came about for valid reasons based on peoples’ experience with the work.

For more thoughts on this topic, here is a blog post from tech specialist Bex Huff on Five Ways to Move Beyond the Conventional Wisdom, including 1) Become fearless about failure. I don’t know his work otherwise, but thought this post was good.