Before moving on to the explanation of Rolfing from Session 4 onward, I would like to take up “letting go of tension” once more (here, in the sense of letting go of excess force). For me personally, “letting go of tension” was a challenge in yoga, and it became the impetus for exploring various forms of Western bodywork (see “[Rolfing Column Vol.11] Letting Go of Tension (1)”).
In this post, I would like to consider “letting go of tension” in Rolfing.
When taking the Rolfing training, the word Articulation comes up often. It is an anatomical term meaning a joint, but there is another word for joint — Joint. So why does Rolfing frequently use Articulation rather than Joint?
As the word join suggests, Joint carries the nuance of bringing two things together (connecting). Taking the joint to be the part that links bone to bone is, at first glance, not wrong.
On the other hand, the word articulation means “space” or “interval” more than “connect,” and it is also derived from the verb articulate (to make clear) — the quality that lends a sentence its spacing, its pauses.
Rolfing holds that, by directing awareness to the presence of space within the body — “evoke” in English — the excess force of the muscles is released.
Articulation (= holding an awareness of widening the space within the body) is, I think, precisely what expresses Rolfing’s distinctive character.
For example, when there is stiff shoulders or lower-back pain, the various muscles related to the shoulders or the lower back are tense and cannot work in concert (a biased way of using them), or it occurs because a certain amount of space for moving has not been created. In Rolfing, by releasing the tension of the fascia, the whole of the body — including the shoulders and the lower back — is brought into order. As a result, one becomes able to hold an awareness as if the space within the body were widening, and the movement of the muscles improves.
Let us also look at the relationship between space and Sessions 1 to 3. Session 1 “settles the breath” by widening the space of the upper body. Session 2 widens the space of the lower body, and Session 3 brings an awareness of widening the front-and-back space of the body, making it possible to improve breathing and walking.
The practitioner who offers a Rolfing session also, in order to widen the awareness of the space within their own body, places the feet on the ground and performs the work with the excess force of the upper body released. Of course, there is the fact that if the practitioner is tense, this conveys tension to the other person and the work does not come together; but the larger point is that widening the awareness of space within one’s own body makes it easier to receive the other person’s information.
Finally, I would like to touch on space and the body from the perspective of yoga as well. When I attended Leslie Kaminoff’s teacher training held in Japan (May 2013), he explained yoga philosophy by contrasting the two words duhkhaand sukha. “kha” means space, and the meanings of duhkha and sukha are:
- duhkha: a state in which space is cramped (suffering, bad space) — the Buddhist concept of “suffering” comes from this.
- sukha: a state in which space is open (good space: freedom, space).
Considering that the body cannot breathe properly without sufficient space, this resembles the thinking of Rolfing. Kaminoff also said, “Yoga is widening sukha and narrowing duhkha (= yoga creates space within the body and makes breathing easier).”
Rolfing as space-making has points that connect to the way of thinking in yoga, which I find interesting. How will the training proceed from here? I intend to learn with excitement, and from time to time I would like to keep thinking about “letting go of tension.”