From Session 4, the Core sessions begin. Sessions 4, 5, and 6 organize what lies above the pelvis — the psoas major, the sacrum, and the spine — and what lies below it, the pelvic floor and the adductors: Session 4 working from the adductors to the area of the pelvic floor, Session 5 the psoas major, and Session 6 the spine and the sacrum.
The major aim of Session 4 is to organize the pelvic floor and the adductor muscles. In that process, the medial line running through the middle of the body comes into order.
In the upper body, the medial line runs through the head, the neck, the spine, the sacrum, and the pelvis. In the lower body, it vanishes abruptly. What the body devised in its place was the development of the adductors and the pelvic floor. Noboru Yasuda — a Noh performer and a Rolfer — described this in Yurumete Reset: Rolfing Kyōshitsu (in Japanese only) as a virtual medial line.
Of course, muscle taking on the support where bone ought to have been places a burden on the adductors and the pelvic floor. The work therefore attends to these two.
The adductors are the muscle group used in drawing the leg inward, in closing the legs. Running from the pubis and the sit bones to the femur, they consist of five muscles. They participate in walking and standing, and when they stiffen, they contribute to anterior pelvic tilt and to knock knees. Strengthening them slims the legs and lends beauty to the walk. In a world of desk work, this is a muscle group that gets fewer and fewer occasions to work.
Rolfing works on the adductors while also taking in questions such as: are the foot and the adductors firmly connected along the inside? Is the movement of the foot pronating or supinating? Releasing the fascia around the talus, the navicular, and the calcaneus in particular heightens awareness of the plantar arch, smooths the movement of pronation and supination, and brings the foot into fuller contact with the ground.
The pelvis is the foundation that produces stability in the lower body and movement in the upper. The spine of the upper body extends from the pelvis, and most of the adductors, the axis of the lower body, issue from it. The pelvis takes the shape of a vessel receiving the internal organs, and at its base lies the muscle group called the pelvic floor. Strengthening it brings the abdomen, the back, and the thighs into engagement, and the medial line comes into order. Intra-abdominal pressure rises, the lower abdomen draws in, the spine lengthens, and posture improves.
Working the pelvic floor also requires reaching the depths of the diaphragm and the area at the top of the thoracic cavity — around the neck, the pleural dome — though this carries a strong sense of leading into Session 5.
Stated more explicitly, the goals of Session 4 are:
- Organize the medial line.
- Organize the virtual medial line of the legs.
- Organize the body so that the virtual medial line of the legs connects to the medial line of the spinal column. (Session 4 organizes below the pelvis, Session 5 above it.)
Body reading observes: how does the body as a whole feel gravity, forward or back? How does the upper body feel gravity, forward or back? Is the balance of supination and pronation in the movement of the foot organized? Is there a left-right difference in the movement of the legs? Does the pelvis tilt forward or back? What came out of that observation:
- The chest is under compression from above and below — from the neck above, from the rectus abdominis below — and the back is rounded.
- Some muscular tension below the sternum.
- The right leg feels gravity more than the left. Excess rotation is occurring on the right side.
- Kyphosis in the thoracic spine is pronounced.
- A sense of the feet in dialogue with the ground, connected to the spine.
The work proceeded with the body lying on its side, shoulder down: the inner arch of the foot, the thigh, the knee, and the pelvic floor, followed by work around the neck lying face up.
What emerged was that the walk carries a problem. The characteristic of my walk: effort enters the psoas major. The rectus abdominis, connected to it, is pulled upward, and with abdominal breathing dominant over thoracic breathing — presumably from long years of Ashtanga yoga practice — the pull from the neck and the clavicles leaves the chest under compression. The thoracic spine lengthens and the lumbar shortens, and the back ends up rounded.
Going forward, in walking:
- Letting unnecessary effort leave the psoas major.
- Breathing available from the clavicles to the chest.
- Movement around the neck, at the AO joint in particular — the joint between the first cervical vertebra and the skull.
These look to be the tasks ahead.
What was gained this time: walking with the feet more fully on the ground, the awareness of supination having come into order; increased mobility in the left hip joint; the balance of the shoulders organized; the rotation of the right foot reduced. On the other hand, the tension around the neck does not release easily. That looks to be a task for some way ahead.
As the sessions progress, the tasks come into sharper definition. In my case, the movement of the psoas major, the clavicles to the chest, and the area around the neck look to be where the work lies. Session 5 takes up the psoas major, above the pelvis. How to keep unnecessary effort out of this region is the task, and it is something to look forward to.
Note, August 2026
This piece records the following observation:
“With abdominal breathing dominant over thoracic breathing — presumably from long years of Ashtanga yoga practice — the pull from the neck and the clavicles leaves the chest under compression.”
The habit of abdominal breathing being dominant was grasped in connection with the yoga practice. Why that led to compression in the chest, however, went unexplained at this point.
Four months later, in the breathing series written during the Phase III training, the observation found its place within a framework.
Breathing comes in two patterns, the inhaling type and the exhaling type. In the inhaling type, g’ tips forward as seen from the hip joints, and the shoulder girdle is carried back to strike a balance; the pelvis tilts forward and the spine extends. In the exhaling type, g’ tips back, and the shoulder girdle is carried forward; the pelvis tilts back and the spine flexes (see “The Inhaling Body and the Exhaling Body — Breath Seen Through Gravity“).
The observations recorded here — pronounced kyphosis in the thoracic spine, a rounded back, compression at the front of the chest — overlap with the characteristics of the exhaling type. In the exhaling type, the muscles at the front of the body tense: the pectoralis major, the pectoralis minor, and the serratus anterior.
And as Part 1 of the breathing series describes, the muscles involved in inhalation are Tonic muscle, those involved in exhalation Phasic muscle. When the muscles of inhalation contract and then fail to relax at the changeover to exhalation, Phasic muscle begins to work (see “Exhaling Takes No Effort — Conscious and Unconscious Breath“).
Which is to say: the abdominal breathing cultivated through yoga was not itself the problem. The problem was that breathing had settled into abdominal alone, with the movement of the rib cage left unused, and that this had fixed itself as a postural pattern.
The Session 1 body reading — abdominal breathing available, thoracic breathing not — is the same thing seen from another angle (see “Session 1: Organizing the Breath“).
What the yoga practice had left in the body. Acquiring the framework to see it took another four months.