Seven years have passed since I first encountered Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, one of the many traditions within yoga (for that story, see “How I Found Yoga — Exercise, Habit, and the Long First Step”).
As I continued practicing, my bodily awareness gradually became more refined. At the same time, after two or three years, I began to notice something else.
I was using too much effort in my shoulders and neck, and my body’s rigidity became particularly apparent in forward bends and backbends.
Two questions began to occupy me:
- How can I deepen the postures?
- How can I learn when to use effort — and when to let it go?
Following these questions eventually led me beyond yoga and into bodywork.
For a period, I attended Under the Light Yoga School in Yoyogi, Tokyo, where I explored approaches outside Ashtanga, including Iyengar, Yin, and Restorative Yoga. This eventually led to my completing the RYT200 yoga teacher training in February 2013.
Beginning around the same time, an Alexander Technique teacher came to my home once a month to lead a workshop.
My understanding of the Alexander Technique at the time was that unnecessary tension in the relationship between the head and spine could contribute to problems such as stiffness in the shoulders and neck. By learning to stop interfering with that relationship, the body could begin to organize itself differently.
I also spent some time studying at Body Chance, the Alexander Technique school directed by Jeremy Chance.
The Alexander work produced noticeable changes, and my yoga postures deepened considerably.
It was through this exploration that Rolfing eventually came into view.
On December 23, 2013, I attended a party celebrating the wedding of a friend who was living in Italy. There I happened to meet Akinori Ito, a Rolfing practitioner.
I already knew a little about Rolfing.
Through Noh performer Noboru Yasuda’s Yurumete Reset: Rolfing Kyōshitsu and Yasushi Fujimoto’s Karada no Home Position — both available only in Japanese — I had learned that Rolfing was developed by Dr. Ida P. Rolf, who had a PhD in biochemistry, and that the work approached the organization of the body through fascia.
Something about the encounter felt significant.
I booked a session with Ito that very evening, and received my first Rolfing session on December 29, 2013.
The first thing I noticed was my breathing.
It became deeper.
The change was unmistakable.
I then went through the full Ten Series at a pace of roughly one session per week: three Sleeve sessions, four Core sessions, and three Integration sessions. The tenth and final session took place on March 2, 2014.
It took some time for the changes to settle into my body, but the stiffness in my neck and shoulders that had troubled me for so long largely disappeared.
My walking changed as well. I began to feel more movement through my hip joints, and walking required less effort. My upper and lower body seemed more connected. I was beginning to understand, through direct bodily experience, what it meant to let unnecessary effort go.
Even simple things — sitting in a chair, walking, moving through everyday life — began to feel different.
The effect on my yoga practice was substantial.
On April 28, 2014, I was finally able to deepen Kapotasana, one of the more demanding backbends in the Ashtanga sequence. For two and a half years, I had been unable to reach my heels with my hands. Now I could reach them, and more importantly, I could enter the posture with much less strain.
One thing that particularly impressed me about Rolfing was the structure of the Ten Series. The work was concentrated into ten ninety-minute sessions, and then it ended.
There was no expectation that I would need to keep returning indefinitely.
Nor was I given a particular set of exercises that I had to continue afterward. Instead, the idea was that the body would continue to adapt through its ongoing relationship with gravity.
That matched my own experience. Even after the series had ended, changes continued to unfold. My shoulder stiffness and lower-back discomfort improved, and I began to notice other changes in the way I stood, walked, and moved.
Around this time, another thought began to take shape:
Someday, I want to study this. I want to learn how to do this work myself.
The thought came at a point when my professional life had also reached a natural pause, something I wrote about in “The Decision and What Comes Next.”
I decided to take an extended leave from work, give myself time to reconsider the direction of my life, and pursue certification as a Rolfer.
I had no idea where that decision would lead.
It was simply a new challenge.
In her 2008 Harvard commencement address, J.K. Rowling ended with an idea that stayed with me: what matters is not how long a life is, but how fully it is lived.
At the time, that felt like an appropriate thought with which to begin the next chapter.
We go around only once. I wanted to make that one life count.