On 23 March 2015 the client sessions reached the last one, the tenth. Before going into it, there was a sharing of information on where each student’s client had got to and on how the final session should be conducted, and then we went to the sessions themselves.
Sessions 8 and 9 are essentially two sessions for connecting the upper body (the shoulder girdle) and the lower body (the pelvic girdle) (see Session 8: The Shoulder Girdle and the Pelvic Girdle). After body reading, the decision is made whether to begin from above or from below.
Watching the eighth and ninth sessions of the other students, the differences that follow from the client come out clearly. In integrating the sessions that have gone before, each body is different, and what each one is working with turns out to be its own.
The discussion was mainly about what state each client was in. Some say nothing at all when asked how something feels; some want more work; some say everything that needed doing has been done and there is no need for more. No two alike.
Andrea shared an experience of her own. A well-known Rolfer had told a client, after seven of the ten sessions, that everything necessary had been done and there was no need to come again. The client was not satisfied and came to Andrea instead. Andrea, of course, took the time to carry out the ten sessions.
The most interesting question was how to respond to a more dependent client, one who wants to come straight back after finishing the ten.
Jörg said it is good to answer that they should see how things go for three to six months. Taking time to watch what changes appear in the body is itself part of the Rolfing process. Through it, where the trouble lies becomes clearer to the client themselves, and it is better to come back for sessions guided by that sense.
One of my clients was already in a state so well organised that no further work was needed, so we did a reconfirmation of what had been done up to then. Specifically, the client took the lead in going back over what had been learned, as exercises. This encourages independence — Ownership, in English.
With the other client, rather than moving the body, I worked by changing the modality and by bringing weight onto the feet, which had not been in her awareness until then. She was a client who did not feel the ground through her feet.
In this way the ten sessions for each of my two clients — nineteen in all, to be exact, nine and ten — came to a close. Once the sessions were completely finished, a celebration was held at a restaurant outside Munich.
Tomorrow (25 March 2015) brings the Final Interview and the Certification, and I will become a Certified Rolfer. Now that it is over, it has gone by in no time. I would like to write about that, and the rest, next time.
Note, August 2026
Almost the whole of that day’s discussion was about how to end. Those who want more, those who say they have had enough, those who answer nothing whatever they are asked. What Andrea described was a client who, told at the seventh session that everything necessary had been done, could not accept it and went to another Rolfer. And Jörg’s answer was that a client who wants to come straight back after the ten should be told to see how things go for three to six months. A reason came with it: taking time to watch makes it clearer to the client themselves where the trouble lies.
Ten years later, in the advanced training, Ray McCall was saying the same thing. After a session, deliberately give no explanation, keep the talking to a minimum, and send the person off. So that they can stay with what is still resonating. Then talk about it at the next meeting.
The lengths are entirely different. One is six months, the other the few minutes at the end of a session. Even so, I think what is being done is one thing. Until something has taken shape within the other person, no words are put in from this side. The reason is the same as well: their own sense of it is the more accurate one.
The same operation exists at a shorter length still. Deciding, during a session, which part not to work on. What was taught as Less is More turns out to have been not a technique of touch but the shortest form of leaving time. Three lengths stand together, from minutes to half a year.
And the three come from different places. Jörg belongs to the European lineage; Ray McCall belongs to another stream. The theoretical systems are not shared. Even so, on the matter of waiting they arrived at the same shape, down to the content of the explanation. I do not think something passed between the lineages. Each arrived at the same place from where it stood.
There is one more thing this article does not say. Two clients were assigned, and what was actually carried out came to nineteen sessions. The design is ten each, twenty in all. One of them ended at nine. The article says of that client that she was already in a state so well organised that no further work was needed, so a reconfirmation was done and independence encouraged.
It mirrors Andrea’s story. One person, told at the seventh session that it was finished, did not accept it; here, a judgement in the direction of ending was accepted. The same judgement leads to different outcomes depending on who receives it. The recognition that ten is not an absolute frame was already in hand, in the last session before certification.
This question of how to decide the ending later acquires a name: CLOSURE. In the Rolf Movement course two years on, of the three questions raised in designing a series of three sessions, it was the last of them.