It looked like it was all over. Despite being on the cusp of competing at the international level in modern pentathlon, Jen Rorrison decided to call time on a lucrative US collegiate athletic scholarship. Maybe the goal of competing in the 1988 Seoul Olympics just wasn't meant to be, she reasoned. Perhaps it was simply time to return home to South Africa and get on with life. The dream was gone, accept and move on. Not that this decision came lightly.
The name Jen Rorrison is one that resonates with many. Through her work as a structural alignment therapist, Jen has helped legions of individuals overcome chronic pain. Possibly best known for her use of corrective wedges made out of Yellow Pages, Jen's career included a long spell based in Cape Town's South Peninsula area. Unbeknown to many, though, is her journey to that point and beyond. It is a voyage that has been both traumatic and euphoric, all the while with a strong sense of intuition and self-direction.
These days sees Jen continuing to help others in a multi-faceted way. She still treats a limited number of clients but is also giving back. Yes, she is sharing her knowledge with practitioners who seek out her expertise and aspire to expand their own skill set. That said, her methods and working style have evolved over the years, owing to a host of factors and life experiences. But to truly understand the how and why of Jen's philosophy, one has to rewind way back to a time when her aspirations were fixed on peak physical performance.
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It was a persistent hamstring niggle morphing into a chronic lower back issue that spelled the end of not only Jen's American adventure, but seemingly also her athletic potential. Barely able to sleep, let alone run, her athletic wings were well and truly clipped. It really seemed as if it would take a miracle to prise them open, any flicker of hope seemingly dissipating as she was referred from one medical professional to the next. Unbeknown to Jen, though, was that this personal crisis was in fact the nucleus of a far greater life journey
'I had come from a swimming background and soon found that I had a knack for distance running too. I started to improve and then had success in modern biathlon (swim-run), which was a fledgling sport at the time. By that time I was studying teaching at the old JCE (now Wits Education Campus) and was performing well in both running and biathlon.'
But all the time on her legs proved more than just a competitive outlet, as Jen goes on to explain.
'I had lost a boyfriend to cancer while still in matric. It was a very traumatic time, so running became a therapy of sorts. And it turned out that I was quite good at it.'
As Jen's athletic career progressed, so did her results. By now competing at a provincial level in both biathlon and athletics, she caught the eye of talent scouts for another highly specialised sport.
'The modern pentathlon suited my skills. Of course I needed to learn the shooting, fencing and equestrian disciplines but I was able to adapt fairly quickly. The other factor was that while I was excelling at athletics, I wasn't really at an international class. And with modern pentathlon being an Olympic sport, it seemed like a good opportunity as well as a natural fit.'
Thanks to Jen's burgeoning athletic success, an opportunity to study at San Antonio University in the US came about upon completion of her studies at JCE. A fully furnished modern pentathlon training center at a nearby military base was a big attraction for Jen and gaining access to this world-class facility was a major goal. It's just that her body seemed unable to match her aspirations.
'I saw several physiotherapists who recommended rest. I would take two days off and then start training again only to be back at square one. An orthopedic surgeon diagnosed a degeneration in my lumbar vertebrae and recommended six months off. All of this uncertainty plus waiting for clearance to train at the modern pentathlon center was just taking from my life. So I decided to come home to Johannesburg.'
Jen may have been at an athletic crossroads, but the bills still had to be paid. She managed to secure employment as a part-time teacher, which allowed her to lie down between classes in order to gain some pain relief. But her inability to run continued to gnaw deep within, as did the merry go round of medical practitioners and inconclusive advice. And then came a turning point, one which involved an elusive Johannesburg chiropractor who moonlighted as an opera composer.
'There was no conclusive diagnosis from any of these practitioners, although surgery was often mentioned. I guess I was just fed up too. Another factor was that I kept seeing all of these older people running in my neighbourhood - I just couldn't accept that I couldn't do the same.
'Then my brother urged me to go and see Dr. Ron Holder. He was a Comrades runner and Ron had been helping him with a knee injury. So after much procrastination I eventually went to see him.'
Using a combination of applied kinesiology, chiropractic and intuition, Ron Holder had gained widespread credibility with his unique method of posture therapy. A qualified chiropractor who had primarily worked with ballet dancers, Holder had developed a unique method whereby muscle imbalances were remedied by shoe wedges made from a Yellow Pages directory. The reason? Despite his frequent chiropractic adjustments, the ballerina's imbalances continued to resurface owing to the sheer amount of time spent on their feet. Holder figured that a small wedge tailored to the individual would restore balance and eliminate pain.
'Ron soon discovered that my left sacroiliac (SI) joint was the problem,' Jen explains. 'He said I was leaning too far to the left and made a small heel wedge to help correct this issue. Surgery was a non-starter in his opinion. Then he told me to go and run. When I protested saying that was ridiculous, he said "well go and walk then". He was just so nonchalant.'
Homework was prescribed in the form of the plough stretch and super-slow sit ups, and Jen quickly got to work. Not that the rehabilitation process was smooth sailing.
'It was a three month process. Sometimes the wedge worked, other times I wanted to throw it away. But I ended up being able to run again. I also got back into windsurfing, which doubled as a natural form of strength training.'
As Jen's vitality improved, her athletic hunger returned. A second stint chasing Olympic aspirations in the modern pentathlon ensued thanks to her dual-citizenship with Great Britain. The politics of the day eventually put paid that opportunity and Jen turned her attention to triathlon once back in South Africa. But through her physical rehabilitation and renewed confidence came a discovery, one that would prove to be life defining.
'Ron was so booked up and unavailable that I started doing his manual muscle test on myself. It just came naturally to me, I suppose. I had also started to make my own wedges. Despite my urging, Ron refused to teach me his method saying that I needed to work it out for myself and create my own philosophy, just like he had. In hindsight, he really was a genius as his non-teaching actually turned out to be the best education.'
By now helping out a few fellow triathletes with their own imbalances, Jen gradually developed her own philosophy and treatment style. The wedge remained the sole common denominator between her way of working and that of Holder, though, a factor that has remained key to alignment therapy to this very day.
A stint at Stellenbosch University pursuing a degree in physiotherapy followed. But it was while working part time as a massage therapist at Coetzenburg to help pay the bills that Jen came to a realisation; she was doing too much in pursuit of gaining a formal piece of paper. So she turned her back on academics in favour of forging her own path.
'By the early 1990s, I had been working for a few years as a gym instructor in Bedfordview and then down in the Cape at Tyger Valley. My structural alignment therapy work was growing but limited to after hours. I had met Benita Kropman on the treadmill one day and she had offered me use of her physiotherapy room in the evenings. That was a major step for me and Benita was really the one that gave me a gap. She started referring some patients my way once she saw the success of my methods and soon started implementing the wedge techniques into her own practice. It was from then on that my practice started to grow at a rapid rate.'
As Jen's practice grew, so did her curiosity. What caused an injury, she wondered. Was there more to physical pain than misalignment?
'As I matured I realised that physical injuries could have an emotional and spiritual component. I thought back to my own injury all those years previously and figured that the cause was indeed multi-faceted. It was very possible that various emotional trauma and stress could have contributed to that debilitating pain in my sacroiliac joint. So I started investigating the emotional and spiritual side of humanity and started integrating breathwork and meditation into my own life. It was a fascinating time and one of real self-discovery. As I developed my spiritual side and interest in cellular memory, I found that I developed a much deeper intuition. This had a positive knock on effect as it helped me work with clients suffering from depression and other emotional trauma.'
There is a well known phrase saying that things come full circle. And thanks to a series of curveballs, this could most certainly be apt when one considers where Jen finds herself today.
'There were certainly some further traumatic life experiences. I was bitten by a spider, lost my home in a fire and ended up having heart bypass surgery. I realised whilst lying in hospital that if I was gone from this earth, few people would be able to have access to structural alignment therapy. I wanted to share my knowledge with others. So I decided that I wanted to spread the word in the form of workshops and more formal courses.'
There was a catch, though. Before commencing with her teaching, Jen wanted to gain permission from her early mentor to spread the word of his basic principles.
'It sounds crazy but when I tried to contact Ron, I learned that he had died tragically in a car accident only the previous week. It was devastating. He was the one that had introduced me to alignment therapy in the first and, through his refusal to teach, inspired me to develop my own way of working.
'Despite not being able to get his blessing, it is this philosophy that I teach now. He was the one who initiated my own thought process that the body needed to be centered structurally. So the basic principles of the wedges remain constant but each student is required to find their own way. It's funny to think now that I try to teach others in a similar manner to how Ron taught me – by lack of direct instruction. I let my students absorb the basic principles and then let them develop their own style and intuition whilst observing from a distance. Full circle I guess.'
