This is the second of three pieces in the Letting Go of Tension series. The series was written during Phase II of the Rolfing Basic Training.
Before moving on to the account 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, letting go of tension was a challenge in yoga, and it became the impetus for exploring various forms of Western bodywork (see “Untangling a Body That Won’t Let Go — What Yoga Was Missing“).
In this piece I would like to consider letting go of tension in Rolfing.
In 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 use Articulation rather than Joint?
As the word join suggests, Joint carries the nuance of bringing two things together, of connecting. Taking the joint to be the part that links bone to bone is, at first glance, not wrong.
The word articulation, on the other hand, means space or interval more than connection, and it is kin to the verb articulate, to make clear — the quality that gives a sentence its spacing.
Rolfing holds that directing awareness to the presence of space within the body — to evoke it, in English — is what releases the excess force of the muscles.
Articulation, holding an awareness of widening the space within the body, is precisely what expresses Rolfing’s distinctive character.
When there is stiffness in the shoulders or pain in the lower back, for instance, the various muscles related to those areas are tense and cannot work in concert — a lopsided way of using them — or the trouble arises because a certain amount of space for moving has not been made. In Rolfing, releasing the tension of the fascia brings the whole of the body into order, the shoulders and lower back included. As a result, an awareness becomes available in which the space within the body widens, and the movement of the muscles improves.
Consider the relationship between space and Sessions 1 to 3. Session 1 organizes 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 space of front and back, making improvements in breathing and walking possible.
The practitioner offering a Rolfing session likewise places the feet on the ground and works with the excess force of the upper body released, in order to widen the awareness of space within their own body. There is the fact that a tense practitioner 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 the other person’s information easier to receive.
Finally, a word on space and the body from the side of yoga. At Leslie Kaminoff’s teacher training held in Japan in May 2013, yoga philosophy was explained through a contrast between two words, duhkha and sukha. Kha means space, and the two run as follows.
- Duhkha: a state in which space is cramped — suffering, bad space. The Buddhist notion of suffering comes from this.
- Sukha: a state in which space is open — good space, freedom.
Given that the body cannot breathe properly without sufficient space, this resembles the thinking of Rolfing. Kaminoff put it that yoga widens sukha and narrows duhkha — that yoga makes 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.”
Rolfing as the making of space has points that connect with the thinking of yoga, which I find interesting. How the training will proceed from here is something I look forward to, and from time to time I would like to keep thinking about letting go of tension.
Note, August 2026
This piece was written around a single word, Articulation. An anatomical term for a joint, and yet one that points to space rather than to connection. At the time, it stood as an inquiry into the meaning of a word heard often in the training.
The word went on appearing, in changing forms.
From a word to the vocabulary of technique
In a piece on the history of painting and the body, Giovanni Felicioni set out a framework of four Articulations (see “Phase II (6) — The History of Painting and the Body (1)“).
In February 2018, in Part 2 of the Rolf Movement certification training, France Hatt-Arnold presented a framework for building a session. Among the correspondences given: for the viscera lying in front of the spine, movement that is Articular — making space within the body — and movement that is musculoskeletal are brought in (see “Rolf Movement – Part 2 (6): Territorial Body and Body of Action“).
What this piece looked into as the meaning of a word had become, four years on, part of the vocabulary for choosing which movement to use.
And in March 2017, at Gael Rosewood’s workshop, it appeared as an actual procedure. Gael is the Rolfer who certified Hubert Godard, and she introduced, with worked examples, how Tonic and Phasic Muscle are applied in the work (see “Gael Rosewood WS (4): How Do the Tonic Muscles Involved with Gravity Keep the Body in Balance?“).
The partner work ran through five movements, each carried out while breathing slowly out: drawing the pubic bone and the coccyx toward each other; drawing the ischial tuberosities toward each other; drawing the left and right ASIS toward each other; drawing the iliac bones at the back toward each other; and lifting the coccyx.
Working through all of them, the breath could be felt entering the whole body. The sensation is fine-grained, but bringing it into Sessions 4 through 7 makes for a fuller session.
Drawing bone toward bone makes a place within the body for the breath to enter. That Articulation, looked into here as the meaning of a word, would appear in this form was not something imagined at the time.
What had been hardest to grasp in the Basic Training was the relation between Rolfing and Tonic Function. The account came from Giovanni, but how to use it in a session remained unclear, and it stayed as knowledge held rather than understanding. Three years later, Gael’s examples made it something available to the body.
Space on the practitioner’s side
This piece holds a line about the practitioner, written while still on the side receiving the work.
“Widening the awareness of space within one’s own body makes the other person’s information easier to receive.”
In the 2025 Advanced Training, three points were set out for cultivating Neutral: Shape the Hand, letting the client’s body form one’s hand; Finding Back Space, sensing the space behind; and connecting to Hara (see “Journey to Becoming an Advanced Rolfer — A Summary of the Road to Certification“).
The second overlaps with what this piece describes. When awareness leans too far into the here and now, the body draws in on itself or tips excessively forward. Deliberately sensing the space at the back — the space behind — returns the center of gravity to the middle and allows a stable neutral position.
This piece wrote of space within one’s own body. Eleven years later, a specific direction has been named: behind.
This piece also gives two reasons. That a tense practitioner conveys tension. And that widening the awareness of space makes the other person’s information easier to receive. The latter, it says, is the larger point.
What the 2025 training taught was that side, the receiving. Shape the Hand is not doing something with one’s own hand but having the client’s body form it. Information is received through the hand, and the work stays close to it. This is the basis of a neutral touch.
Giving priority to receiving had already been written down at this point.