The ten Rolfing sessions among students came to a safe close, and the training with clients brought in from outside finally began. For the eight students, each took charge of two clients.
The students worked in pairs, with one carrying out a Rolfing session in the morning and the other in the afternoon, while the other observed (the pairs were arranged so that each student had a different partner on the first and second days).
The two clients I took charge of were both German women, but there was no problem with English and communication went well. Interestingly, one of them was a physician.
Since both were new to Rolfing, the sessions proceeded with the theme of the first session, organizing the breath. After the body reading, the goal and strategy were explained to the Teacher or the Assistant Teacher. The work then followed the standard procedure. Advice on the work came from the instructor at key points, and it was an immensely full, enjoyable, exhilarating session of one hour and twenty minutes.
Trusting one’s own internal sensation, and not fearing failure — though the word failure itself was hardly used in the training to begin with — were things learned during the training. What became apparent here is that by organizing my own body and making a certain amount of space for the other person, what needed to be done came to be understood of its own accord.
Working with clients brought three things to learn.
First, the importance of organizing one’s own body. When that happens, the state of being able to receive information through the five senses is in place, and the necessary information comes in. And taking a certain amount of time to organize one’s own body — this too may be called space — matters.
Second, making the goal clear. The strategy — what specifically is to be done — comes after being conscious of what the session is aiming at. Relying on strategy or technique leads to losing sight of what one wants to do. In fact, though I did not experience it myself, while observing a session I saw a student receiving advice from the instructor after having drifted away from the goal.
Third, that there are things one cannot know without trying. People might call this “failing,” or say that “it has to be done correctly.” Skill improves through trying and repeating trial and error, but this becomes possible not by thinking in terms of “must,” but by preparing space within oneself and having the readiness to receive the other person.
The two clients this time each had only a single session. In Phase III, I will take charge of two clients and carry out ten sessions every other day. Building on what was learned in these thirty-three days of Phase II, I would very much like to raise my own level.
Note, August 2026
Here, for the first time, the work was with someone I would never meet again. For the preceding eight weeks, the person on the table was a classmate seen every day. Even the loop of student A to student B to student C presupposes that the roles will reverse the following day. But the clients over these two days came from outside, and each was seen once. There was no next time.
At this point, the goal and the strategy were not mine to determine. The theme of session 1 was set as organizing the breath; there was a standard procedure; and that had to be explained to the Teacher or the Assistant Teacher before the work began. The basic training begins by learning the ten-series as a fixed order. The goal was given from the side of the structure.
What the Advanced Training took up eleven years later was the work of constructing that goal itself. What does the client want. Which principle is lacking. Which Taxonomy is appropriate for the approach. An individual session is designed by looking at these three (see “Designing Individual Sessions Through Framework“). It is a question of what to take as one’s bearings once the fixed order has been set aside.
What appears earlier in this entry is not the procedure but the disposition. Organizing one’s own body puts the five senses in a state where the necessary information comes in. Relying on strategy or technique leads to losing sight of what one wants to do. There are things one cannot know without trying. All of these were written under conditions where the goal was given, and yet they are the kind of observation that takes effect at the stage of setting the goal oneself. How to design a session that ends after a single meeting remains a live question in the present practice, and the earliest record of it is here.