wo weeks have passed since the Phase III training began. The third session with my client is finished, and if things go well the fourth should be done by the end of next week.
As I have touched on in this blog, among the various techniques learned in Phase II, what is most essential? How should information be narrowed down in facing a client? What I am learning, I think, is the importance of holding those questions (see “The Introduction, and Organizing What Is Known” and “Space and the Room in the Mind“).
For instance, giving the body time to take in what the work is doing — giving it space (see “Space and the Room in the Mind“) — and not working so much that the client is given too much information (see “The Introduction, and Organizing What Is Known“) are things noticed only after entering Phase III.
Rolfing consists of ten sessions, and for each one, besides the two sessions given by the instructors and the two I experience myself, the sessions of the other students can be observed as well. Watching other people is a real education.
In practice the sessions with clients are carried out in pairs, with one person working while the other supports. There are moments when it can be felt in the body whether the Rolfer doing the work is concentrated or whether the concentration has broken. On that point, Jörg gave the following advice after a session I had observed rather than one I had given myself.
At the start of a Rolfing session, in doing body reading, a great many things can come into view. The volume of information grows, and confusion sets in. In the end the Rolfer loses himself and the session stops going well — the concentration has broken at that moment. Or the client suddenly says it is cold, or that the lower back hurts, tasks multiply, and panic follows.
The way out is to take a deep breath, settle down, and bring the body to the ground — bringing the body to Neutral, as written in “[Space and the Room in the Mind]”. Then recall the aim of the session at hand, and rather than working it out in the head, value what is felt inside one’s own body. That is to say: since the client and I are equally human, there are things that become clear by feeling them in oneself. Do that, and the information narrows of its own accord, and the place to work on comes into view.
What differs from Phase II is that Phase III is teaching the inward side, the frame of mind, rather than technique. And strangely enough, this is what proves useful in sessions with clients.
I am also beginning to notice that stepping back from knowledge and from what has been learned, and emptying the head, is of use. On that point, in Shōbu Tetsugaku, a book of conversations between the shogi player Yoshiharu Habu and Takeshi Okada, the former manager of the Japanese national football team, it is said that the accumulation of effort is what develops the power of intuition. Sharpening knowledge and understanding the body through logic matter; and yet there are times, it seems, when what is learned comes through intuition.
Two weeks have already gone by, and six remain. What further noticings lie ahead is something to look forward to.
Note, August 2026
Two weeks into Phase III, this piece records advice received from Jörg. It is not about technique. It is about what to do when confusion sets in.
At the start of a session, body reading brings a great many things into view. The information grows, confusion follows, and the Rolfer loses himself. The client suddenly says it is cold, reports pain in the lower back, tasks multiply, panic follows. The way out is to take a deep breath, settle down, bring the body to the ground, and value what is felt inside the body rather than what is worked out in the head.
Those three would be given names ten years later.
Neutral, as taught in the Advanced Training of 2025, was defined as a way the practitioner uses the body, with three requirements: Shape the Hand, Finding Back Space, and Hara. The form of the hand, the space behind, and the belly. Settling the breath, bringing the body to the ground, and taking the inner sensation as a guide point to the same things. The wording of 2015 already contains the phrase about bringing the body to Neutral — but that word had been borrowed from the coaching training I was taking at the time. The same word comes back ten years later from a different line, redefined as a way of using the body.
That the answer set down here faces inward becomes clear only through a contrast drawn much later.
In March 2017, at Gael Rosewood’s workshop, the coordination of the upper and lower limbs improved with almost no manual work. What Gael indicated there was outward: what words are handed to the client. What Jörg indicated was how the practitioner holds his own state. To the same question of going beyond technique, the two answer from opposite directions. Both are right. At the time, only the inward answer was in hand.
This piece closes with a line from Yoshiharu Habu: the accumulation of effort is what develops the power of intuition.
Read again eleven years on, the quotation explains only half of it. Accumulation is certainly required. But what Jörg indicated is the condition that comes after it: setting the accumulation back, once, at the moment of use. The information narrows and the place to work on comes into view not when knowledge is added but when it is withdrawn.
The same shape of teaching appears three times across these years.
The first is here, Jörg in February 2015. The second is the prāṇāyāma course in November of the same year, where the instruction was to set knowledge down once during practice — to avoid tipping into the state of asking whether the count is right and the method correct. The third is Gael in March 2017, in the phrase Break the Breathing Pattern: keeping the usual rhythm of the breath, once, from holding.
None of the three denies accumulation. Each moves the accumulation to the back at the moment of use. All three were received in different contexts, from different people, in different words. At the time, the three are not connected.
One sentence in this piece deserves a final word.
Since the client and I are equally human, there are things that become clear by feeling them in oneself.
The method of observation I now use in coaching comes out of this. Rather than inferring the other person’s state from outside, it is checked in my own body. Where the gaze rests, how the breath has changed, how my own heart rate moves in the air of the room. Such bodily cues are handled not as instruments for reading the other person but as changes on my own side.
Jörg said this as a way out of confusion during a session. Eleven years later it has become a method in constant use, confusion or no confusion.