This is the sixth of six pieces in the Body and Mind series. The series was written across the periods of Phase II and Phase III of the Rolfing Basic Training. This piece was written during Phase III, starting from what was experienced in Session 5 of Phase II.
I think it was while learning Session 5 of the Phase II Rolfing training. A person is asked to stand, and someone walks slowly toward them from the left side, the right side, and the center, observing how that person perceives the world. In my own case, there was a sense of wariness when approached from the left, whereas from the right or the center there was nothing of the sort.
A colleague who had lived in New Zealand and is now learning Rolfing alongside me says that wariness arises when approached from the front.
This happens because the perception of Space differs from one person to another.
How does the world of science think about Space?
In The Body Has a Mind of Its Own by the well-known science writer Sandra Blakeslee, Space is introduced in the following way.
Stretch both arms out in front, fingers extended, and sweep them through the full range around the body — overhead, out to the sides, up and down. The entire volume of space the arms pass through is the personal space surrounding the body, which neuroscientists call peripersonal space, and it is mapped, corner to corner, within the brain.
This peripersonal space differs by individual, and it shows up in how each person handles the sense of distance from others. The reason securing personal space matters is that, placed in an external environment, unless the brain grasps how it is moving through space, responding to the unexpected becomes impossible — a car or bus coming toward the body, a person approaching. Responding calls for extending the hand, pulling away, drawing near, protecting oneself. It is for this that peripersonal space is formed.
Next, how is Space thought of in Rolfing?
I have introduced Tonic Function several times in this column (see “The Muscles That Tire and the Muscles That Don’t — Tonic Function and the Support of Posture” and “Bidirectionality Brings the Body into Order — Tonic Function in Walking and Sitting“); its proposer, Hubert Godard, is one of Giovanni Felicioni’s mentors. What I myself learned from Giovanni is to value the Space between practitioner and client — Hold the space. This idea is influenced by Godard’s way of thinking.
Godard defines Space as “the imaginary building of our relationship to the world.”
And the objectively measurable space is called Topos, considered as distinct from Space. Because Space is about building a relationship, in the sense of how an individual grasps Space, it comes to be influenced by the environment a person grew up in, the experiences lived through personally (experiences of success, experiences of trauma), and cultural background.
One cultural example is Japan’s packed commuter trains. On a packed train, a situation may arise crammed so tightly that there is no physical Space — no Topos — at all. And yet there is no sense that personal Space has been violated.
This column has taken up the history of painting and the body; that expresses precisely how, across the history of humankind, the painters who made the works perceived Space with the body (see “The History of Painting and the Body (1) — Viewing the Body Through the History of Western Painting” and “The History of Painting and the Body (2) — How Do We View the Face and Head Through the History of Painting?“).
To bring the body into order in Rolfing is to create Space within the body (see “Letting Go of Tension (3) — Awareness of Gravity and Space“). And Space is not only the Space within the body; it can also be said that the body exists within Space, and the inner and outer Space influence each other.
Godard developed his thinking about Space and crystallized it into the theory of Tonic Function. The key to it is bidirectionality (Palintonicity) (see “Basic Concepts — Bidirectionality (Palintonicity)“).
To introduce Godard’s words: the two directions mean holding both a direction of building the foundation of the lower body by ordering the feet (Ground Orientation — ground: settling onto the earth; orientation: direction) and a direction in which, based on that foundation, the upper body freely builds a relationship with Space (Space Orientation). By holding two directions, the Tonic Muscle works efficiently and the body comes into order.
The real delight of Rolfing — for all the various techniques and exercises that are introduced — lies, I think, in bringing the client new options regarding the Space around them. And Hold the space is what helps make that possible. I would like to keep offering sessions with Space held dear from here on as well.
References
- Sandra Blakeslee, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own
- Phenomenological Space, Interview with Hubert Godard, Contact Quarterly, 2003
Note, August 2026
This piece ends with the phrase Hold the space. It came from Giovanni Felicioni, and it derives from Godard’s thinking. The phrase would go on appearing.
A phrase that appeared three times in eleven years
In January 2018, in Part 2 of the Rolf Movement certification training, the task was how to design a three-session series. No procedure was given, and what was asked for was taking a risk and bringing in a different approach. Where the instructors placed their weight was on preparing the environment — on holding the field (see “Rolf Movement – Part 2 (3): Confusion in a Good Sense, and on Tonic Function“).
In the 2025 Advanced Training, it came as Jeff Maitland’s account of energy work. Energy work is holding a field in which healing occurs of itself. The practitioner’s part is not to bring healing about but to keep the space in which healing happens. What is, then, shows itself (see “Journey to Becoming an Advanced Rolfer — A Summary of the Road to Certification“).
2015, 2018, 2025. The same phrase, in three different settings.
What changed was what is being held. In this piece it was the Space between practitioner and client. In 2018 it was the room in which teaching happens. In 2025 it was the space where healing occurs. The object widens from the space between two people, to a group, to the field where change itself comes about.
Peripersonal space becomes technique
This piece introduces peripersonal space by way of Blakeslee’s book: the entire volume the arms pass through is the personal space surrounding the body, and it is mapped within the brain. At the time it was an introduction to how the world of science grasps Space.
In February 2018, on the eighth day of Part 2 of the Rolf Movement certification training, France Hatt-Arnold, a Swiss Rolf Movement Instructor, presented a framework for building a session (see “Rolf Movement – Part 2 (6): Territorial Body and Body of Action“).
Dividing the work into Territorial Body — the regions of the body, corresponding to the body regions in Rolfing — and Body of Action — the movement of the body, what Rolf Movement handles — makes a session easier to assemble.
One of the six correspondences given was this. In approaching the various regions of the body (Territory of Flesh), movement is brought in relative to peripersonal space.
The concept from neuroscience that Blakeslee introduced had been placed within the procedure of the work.
The other correspondences overlap with this piece as well. For sensing space and depth within the body — the space between the spine and the sternum, between the back and the front of the head, what the training called Volume — movement of Vectorial Space is brought in, giving a sense of two directions in relation to space. Where a boundary with the client (Border), an opening out (Frontier), or safety (Security) is called for, Orientation is brought into movement. In approaching the sense that the body belongs to oneself (Sense of belonging), the surrounding environment is involved, so movement that allows safety and ease is brought in.
Boundary, opening out, safety. The sense that the body belongs to oneself. None of these can be accounted for by physical distance.
This piece introduced Godard’s definition. Space is the imaginary building of a person’s relationship to the world, held distinct from the objectively measurable Topos.
The framework France set out is built on that distinction. Territorial Body is the regions of the body — close to Topos. Body of Action is how that body moves and builds a relationship with what surrounds it. It stands on the side of Space.
What was written as theory in 2015, the distinction between Topos and Space, had become three years later the two axes for designing a session.
The packed train
The cultural example this piece gives carries another meaning on rereading.
On a packed train, where there is no Topos at all, there is no sense that personal Space has been violated. It was written as a clear illustration that Topos and Space are independent.
In Part 2 of the Rolf Movement training in 2018, among the five factors of Tonic Function was meaning and the symbolic. Turning the face slightly away, or making a gesture that closes the chest, is done because it feels safe to that person, because it carries meaning — so it was explained.
That personal Space goes unviolated on a packed train is presumably because the situation has been given a cultural meaning. At the same physical distance, a difference in meaning changes how the body responds.
This piece wrote that Space is influenced by the environment a person grew up in and by cultural background. That had been organized as a factor within Tonic Function.