Nearly a week has passed since moving to Munich. Working at a pharmaceutical company in Japan, the encounters along the way did widen a view of the world. This time the decision was a large one — leaving the work and spending a year looking at things from outside the country — and what registers, having taken that step out, is that the world now appears from a blank state, and entirely unexpected things keep occurring.
A few days ago, on August 2, 2014, a childhood friend turned out to be in Germany and a meeting followed. Kaori Nakamura, a Japanese Rolfer, lives in Munich as well. Coming by so much information was unforeseen, and fortunate.
If the present state needed a description, it would run like this: having let go of everything, the mind widened, and so something new has been coming in.
Today, August 4, 2014, the Rolfing training began.
The participants number sixteen: one Swede, three French, one Belgian, two Danes, three Germans, three Swiss, one Pole, one Ukrainian, and myself. The teachers, too — Italian, Spanish, German, among others — meant being surrounded by people holding a range of nationalities.
The training runs weekdays from nine in the morning until six in the evening, until five on Fridays, across three weeks from August 4 to August 23, 2014. Final interviews on the 23rd and 24th determine whether one proceeds to Phase II. Rolfing training comes in three stages in total; this is the first, Phase I.
The first day centered on introductions. Roughly a third of the group teach yoga; there were osteopaths, and people who had left companies, three including myself; and the ages ranged from the thirties to the fifties. Cultures and circumstances differ, yet everyone is friendly, and the atmosphere suggests the group will settle into itself quickly.
What proved interesting was learning, through people from these various countries, how much interest alternative medicine draws. Before the training began, asking Kaori Nakamura, the Munich-based Rolfer, about the situation in Germany brought out how widely massage is practiced there — osteopathy and Thai massage among the forms — and that a qualification exists called Heilpraktiker, a healing practitioner.
This qualification, which Nakamura also holds, is a state credential in the Federal Republic of Germany permitting the practice of natural and traditional therapies. Depending on which insurance one carries, coverage sometimes applies, and this is likely why alternative medicine has spread in Germany. The situation in other countries is worth asking about over the course of the training.
After a large decision, the state comes close to entrusting oneself to the world from blankness. Whatever unexpected things follow from here, the feeling running strong is: let all of it be experienced.
What comes next is unknown. The hope is to walk it step by step, at a pace slowed below the usual.