Before entering into the specifics of Rolfing’s full ten-session series, I would like to touch on the relationship between “letting go of tension” (here, in the sense of letting go of excess force) and Rolfing. This is because it also leads into an explanation of why Rolfing makes up for what yoga lacks.
This is something I learned during yoga training: anatomically speaking, there are three ways to “let go of the body’s force” (which could also be put as keeping excess force from entering).
The first is that force can be released to some degree by applying force.
To begin with, in order to let go of force, it is important to know how the force is getting in there in the first place. For example, when stiff shoulders occur, unless one knows which muscle the force is entering (in the case of stiff shoulders it is the trapezius, but…), there is no way to know how to release it. Most people with stiff shoulders, it is said, do not understand how the force is getting in there. And by putting still more force into that place, one can eventually relax it.
The second is to make use of reciprocal inhibition of the muscles.
The body is built so that, when one tries to relax a muscle one actually wants to release — say, the hamstrings at the back of the thigh — putting force into the opposing quadriceps (the muscle at the front of the thigh) relaxes the hamstrings. In the arm, too, when the biceps is contracted, the muscle behind it is relaxed. This is called reciprocal inhibition of the muscles.
The third is to be aware of the central axis.
For a human to sit or to stand is to resist gravity. That means that, unless the central axis can be felt firmly, excess force enters the body. When sitting, if the line from the crown of the head to the sit bones becomes a firm axis and the spine extends, there is no need to put force into the other muscles, and force is released smoothly.
Seen this way, letting go of force requires a certain degree of awareness of the muscles and of the central axis. It is something acquired through trial and error, by way of experiences that throw one off balance.
And as force is released, the spine extends, the chest opens, and so the breath deepens as well. When the breath deepens, the mind grows calm, leading to relaxation.
How can one sit for a long time and breathe deeply? Yoga poses were developed for that purpose, and within them, how to apply force and how to let it go becomes important.
In this way, as concrete methods for letting go of force, there are three: (1) that force can be released to some degree by applying force, (2) making use of reciprocal inhibition of the muscles, and (3) being aware of the central axis.
And as force is released, the spine extends, the chest opens, and so the breath deepens; when the breath deepens, the mind grows calm, leading to relaxation — and so I have written that letting go of force is important. However, with regard to letting go of force, even after attending several yoga instructor training courses, I never came across a grand theory that made me think, “This is it!” And so I came to turn my attention to the bodywork developed in the West.
The first thing I encountered was the Alexander Technique. By focusing on the relationship between the head and the spine, one becomes aware of the body’s unnecessary automatic reactions and learns to stop them — a method of teaching the body, through the body, to let go of force. It was developed by the Australian playwright Frederick Matthias Alexander. Encountering this method made my own yoga poses dramatically easier to take. In that process, I happened to encounter Rolfing as well.
Rolfing is a method developed by Ida Rolf. Ida Rolf, Frederick Alexander, and Moshe Feldenkrais — who developed the Feldenkrais Method — are said to be the three great masters of bodywork in the West, and it seems they lived in the same era and were figures who greatly influenced one another regarding the bodywork methods they developed. Indeed, during the Rolfing training, the names of Feldenkrais and Alexander come up again and again.
Rolfing is a method in which one works on the fascia within the body’s structure, and the body comes into order through the influence of gravity. And through the process of the ten-session series — the superficial part of the body (Sessions 1 to 3), the deep part of the body (Sessions 4 to 7), and the final integration (Sessions 8 to 10) — the body ultimately becomes one that does not use unnecessary muscles, with force released to some degree. That the body comes into still greater order by working on its structure and having a specialist perform the work was, for me personally, a great discovery. Having actually experienced it, I became convinced of its effect. My stiff shoulders and stiff neck improved more than before. It became a major reason for coming to Munich and deciding to explore further.
From here on, in this blog, I will write — with attention to this perspective, the relationship between body, mind, and Rolfing — about how Rolfing affects the body and how it works on the mind.