An interview with Renata Leung, Certified Rolfer® and Yoga Teacher from Enschede (Netherlands), about her personal path from Yoga to Rolfing® Structural Integration.
Yoga first brought Renata Leung back to herself after a difficult time. But it was the Rolfing® Training that became the true turning point: opening a deeper healing journey, reshaping how she stands in the world, and transforming both her Yoga practice and her teaching. In this interview, she shares her personal path from Yoga to Rolfing® Structural Integration – and why this training can offer new dimensions of body awareness and embodiment that go far beyond the mat.
From Yoga to Rolfing®
Q: What drew you to Yoga and later to Rolfing® Training?
I discovered Yoga during one of the most difficult times in my life. After giving birth, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. However, at that time, I didn’t feel ill, didn’t accept the diagnosis, and didn’t seek treatment. A year later, although my daughter was thriving, I couldn’t enjoy life at all. When I finally sought help, it took years of emotional ups and downs before I began to feel stable again, always with the support of psychiatric medication and psychotherapy.
After six years of conventional treatment, something I still can’t fully explain drew me into a Yoga studio. I had never been interested in Yoga before - and I didn’t even enjoy my first class - but for some reason, I kept going. Slowly, something began to shift. The way Yoga works on both body and mind reconnected me to myself in a deeply transformative way: feeling my body, sensing the pulse of my breath, experiencing the inner strength that sustained me in each asana... all of it made me feel alive again. This experience led me to train as a Yoga teacher.
As an elementary school teacher in Brazil, I introduced Yoga to children and teens in the school I worked. It was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life!
After moving to the Netherlands, I began teaching Yoga to adults, which brought a new challenge: unlike children, who are naturally mobile and flexible, adults often arrived with physical restrictions and even pain. Sometimes, they couldn’t perform movements or postures that are usually considered simple and pleasant. This made me curious: how could I teach Yoga in a way that was both accessible and meaningful for everyone, regardless of their individual needs and condition?
While searching for further training to help me explore that question, I came across Rolfing® Structural Integration. I immediately knew it was what I needed, even though I had no idea at the time how deeply it would transform not only my teaching, but also my personal Yoga practice, my way of being, feeling, and perceiving my body.
My Rolfing training led me into an even deeper healing journey - one I hadn’t realized I still needed to take. It brought structure and groundedness to my inner work, and gave me a new lens to understand how the body moves, holds, adapts, and heals.
“Rolfing Structural Integration transformed my way of being, feeling, and perceiving my body.”
A Healing Journey I Didn’t Expect
Q: How did Rolfing® guide you through your healing journey?
After discovering Yoga, I felt alive again. However, my body was still holding patterns shaped by years of depression, along with everything that came with it: fear, anxiety, insecurity.
Although I was feeling much better, the way I used to stand, sit or walk still expressed those same patterns. It was as if all my gestures had been carved by that history. For example, my thorax used to fall behind my pelvis, collapsing the front of my chest and curving my shoulders forward - like someone showing the typical postural traits of insecurity or depression. (Maybe that’s why I loved all the Yoga postures that opened the chest: they helped me feel strong and present in a very positive way.)
Before Rolfing, I wasn’t aware of this pattern in my thorax. So even though I enjoyed chest-opening postures during Yoga classes, I would return to my habitual posture afterward. And it’s important to say: this wasn’t just a physical pattern. It was postural in the full sense of the word - not just how I held my body, but how I carried myself in life: my attitudes, my way of being in the world, the way I used to relate to others. Even after being cleared from medical treatment, I continued to carry those patterns within me.
I can say for sure that Rolfing training brought me to the next level of body awareness and perception. Through this deeper embodiment, Rolfing invited me to face patterns that were not only rooted in my body, but in myself as a whole - the way I thought, felt, related, and existed in the world. I had to confront how deeply insecure I was, and how much I lacked self-confidence, for example. It wasn’t always easy - at times it was really hard to face those patterns - but I can assure you: the process has been liberating.
Rolfing Training brought me to the next level of body awareness and perception.”
Interview partner: Renata Takllan Rogow Leung, Certified Rolfer® and Yoga Teacher, Enschede, Netherlands
Interview and editing: Sabine Becker
Photo: Copyright © Renata Leung
More about Renata Leung
Also read about Renata’s story in her own blog
Renata Leung’s Instagram channel
More information on how to become a Certified Rolfer®
Learn more about Rolfing® Structural Integration.
Find a Rolfer® or Rolf Movement™ Practitioner near you
Curious for more?
Sign up for our newsletter and receive regular information about Rolfing® Structural Integration.
