2015年4月14日に日本へ帰国した。
I returned to Japan on April 14, 2015.
On April 16 I saw Akinori Ito again, and on April 17 Kosuke Sato. Both are Rolfers based in Japan, and it had been a long time. I met Ito in December 2013, and I have written here before about how that came about (How I Found Rolfing — Searching for a Way to Deepen the Postures) and about receiving the work from him (After Completing the Ten Sessions).
I came to know Kosuke through Takami Kamata, a Rolfer working in Frankfurt.
When the training began in August 2014, what I wanted was to master the technique. That is how I entered the nineteen weeks: Phase I in August 2014, Phase II in October and November 2014, Phase III in February and March 2015.
Having finished, what strikes me is that how I have dealt with my own body matters far more than acquiring technique. How do I create the space in which a session happens? How does a client come to trust me? Hearing two Rolfers who are further along the road talk about these things made for a rich afternoon.
My extended leave began on June 1, 2014. I had decided on three things I wanted to do.
The first was to qualify as a Rolfer. The second was to receive two weeks of Ayurvedic treatment in India or Sri Lanka. The third was to travel around the world on a round-the-world ticket, focusing on countries I had never been to — Mongolia, Morocco, Spain, Peru, Argentina, New Zealand and others. The second is scheduled for June 2015 in Sri Lanka, so all three will be more or less done.
Two days before I flew home, on April 12, 2015, I received an email from my former company asking whether I would consider working for them again. Had it arrived around the time I handed in my resignation, I would have thought about it seriously.
What I feel now, having finished the journey, is how much it matters not to depend on others, to choose for yourself, and to build your own life.
Returning to the pharmaceutical industry is one option. But having seen twenty-five countries, spent five months in the Rolfing training, and become a Certified Rolfer, I want to begin working as a Rolfer by June 2015, or July at the latest.
There is a lot to think about before the first session. Where will I work? What will I call the practice? How should the room be laid out? How do I explain Rolfing clearly, and how do I get the word out? All of it is interesting in its own right.
Things may well become unstable for a while. I would like to spend this moment well.
Yesterday, April 22, 2015, I started practicing yoga again. I had been practicing three or four times a week during the leave, but this was my first Mysore class in ten months. Working out how to bring what I learned in Rolfing into yoga is another pleasure.
I hope to keep writing about what comes next.
Note, August 2026
This piece ends on how much it matters to choose for yourself. I wrote that line just after declining an offer from my former employer, two days before flying home.
But the energy work I moved into after this is hard to describe as something I chose.
The meetings came first
The piece records seeing Akinori Ito on my second day back and Kosuke Sato on my third. It also notes that I came to know Sato through Takami, a Rolfer living in Frankfurt. The first two people I saw on returning were connected through a third person in Europe.
I had met Takami during the training. In October 2014, on Giovanni Felicioni’s introduction — he taught my Phase II — I stopped in Frankfurt on my way to a yoga training. The three of us turned out to share a background as yoga teachers. What we talked about that day was Rolfing in Europe. That Takami is also a Jikiden Reiki teacher was something I learned later.
In July 2015 she came back to Japan and held a seminar in Tokyo. That is how I took it. She held another in December of the same year, and I attended that one too.
The other person comes through the line running from Akinori Ito, who appears by name in this piece. He gave me my first ten-series and showed me the path toward certification. The person who had shown Ito that same path was Hiroki Sato, who runs TEN in Osaka.
One month after this piece, I met him for the first time, and after lunch I received a session. It was Source Point Therapy. I signed up for the training on the spot, and went on to complete the full course over five years. From the following year I also studied IMAC with him.
The two paths are independent of each other. One ran through Europe during the training, on Giovanni’s introduction. The other ran through Japan after certification, along the line from Ito. Different times, different places, different people making the introduction. Had either one been missing, I do not think I would have entered energy work at all.
Choosing, and meeting
I have written repeatedly since then about choosing who to learn from. For continuing education, I set out the four things I look at when deciding on a course (see “How to Choose Continuing Education — Four Things I Look At Before Signing Up“).
But criteria only work when the options are in front of you. When I started my leave, I did write that I wanted to see what medicine looks like where it does not rely on drugs. What I did not know was that a field called energy work existed inside that. In five months of basic training, this side of the work never came up either (see “Becoming a Certified Rolfer in Europe — The Certification Training of the European Rolfing Association“). You cannot choose a field you do not know is there.
Then, in 2025, ten years later, energy work became a central subject of the Advanced Training (see “Journey to Becoming an Advanced Rolfer — A Summary of the Road to Certification“). By then I had ten years of practice behind me.
Choose for yourself, I wrote at the time. I still think so. But before the choosing comes the question of who you meet. Having criteria, and having the occasion to use them — neither is enough on its own.