On 21 April 2015 I was able to see Toshihiro Aramaki, the Alexander Technique teacher, again. How I came to know the Alexander Technique (AT below) through him is described in On the Relation Between Rolfing and the Alexander Technique (1) — Two Ways of Learning to “Let Go” Through the Body.
As I wrote in Untangling a Body That Won’t Let Go — What Yoga Was Missing, AT involves attending to the relation between the head and the spine, noticing the body’s unnecessary automatic reactions, and learning to stop them. It is one way of letting the body learn to release effort. It was developed by Frederick Matthias Alexander, and it had a considerable influence on Ida Rolf as she developed the Rolfing method.
Toshi and I talked about the differences between Rolfing and AT, and talking with him clarified a great deal for me about how the two forms of bodywork differ. This time I would like to work from what we discussed. Last time I took up what the Rolfing training has in common with AT; this time I want to write about why Rolfing and AT stand in a relation where each can supply what the other lacks.
Rolfing has the idea of Tonic Function. I have introduced it in this column before (see The Muscles That Tire and the Muscles That Don’t — Tonic Function and the Support of Posture and the Bidirectionality Brings the Body into Order — Tonic Function in Walking and Sitting), and the key to it is bidirectionality, Palintonicity (see Basic Concepts — Bidirectionality (Palintonicity)).
To put it in Godard’s terms, the two directions are these: one direction builds the foundation of the lower body by organising the feet (Ground Orientation — ground meaning to come to the earth, orientation meaning direction), and the other has the upper body form a free relation with Space on the basis of that foundation (Space Orientation). Holding these two directions is what it means.
In AT, the thinking is that releasing tension at the AO joint, where the spine meets the skull, allows the upper body to move freely and effort to drop away. That alone produces an effect one can feel strongly. In fact, though, it shows itself as an effect only once the other direction is there as well — an approach to the lower body. After releasing tension at the AO joint, for instance, directing awareness to lengthening from the sit bones and the feet makes it possible.
And in Rolfing, of the ten sessions, the first, third, fifth and seventh work with the upper body, and the second, fourth and sixth with the lower. Alternating between them turns attention toward bidirectionality.
There is also something Rolfing can learn from AT.
The AT teacher Basil Kritzer has written a book which sets out the importance of the use of words in AT, and it can be put to use in Rolfing.
Let me give an example.
In AT it is said that the back is not something one straightens but something that lengthens. This is because the back does not lengthen through the intention to straighten it. To put it more fully, the state in which the back lengthens arises when the deep muscles responsible for postural control and stability are at work, and it is, so to speak, an unconscious action.
It can also be described as the state in which what Rolfing calls Tonic Muscle, the continuously working muscle under the gamma motor system, is engaged (see The Muscles That Tire and the Muscles That Don’t — Tonic Function and the Support of Posture).
To straighten the back seems, at first glance, correct enough. But done consciously it brings effort with it, and as fatigue sets in the posture can no longer be held and collapses. That is, in trying to hold a posture by force, muscles that have nothing to do with holding posture are used, and the posture collapses. It can also be described as the state in which what Rolfing calls Phasic muscle, the temporarily working muscle under the alpha motor system that brings fatigue, is engaged.
In Rolfing the thinking is:
giving the body two directions creates space within it, and the muscles begin to work in the positions most suited to them
(see Basic Concepts — Bidirectionality (Palintonicity)). For this reason I think the phrase applies to Rolfing as well.
Knowing that a person cannot hold a sensation in memory makes the importance of the use of words clearer still.
Meeting a client during a Rolfing session, I have often been told afterwards:
if only I could keep this feeling
I can say from my own experience that a sensation is a vague thing. One knows that the body has changed, and reproducing it turns out to be more difficult than expected.
Basil’s book says this can be solved by looking, rather than at the sensation, at what movement occurs in the body from the instruction the brain gives — that is, by looking at the process:
thought → movement → sensation
Tracing the process, what kind of thinking led to that sensation, raises the chance of reproducing it. And the most effective means of expressing a thought is words. The use of words matters because reproduction becomes possible through thinking.
Reproducing a thought through the use of words is something I very much want to convey to clients through my own Rolfing work from here on.
AT and Rolfing each have their strengths in this way, and combining them raises the effect. For my own part, rather than clinging to Rolfing as a single method, I hope to convey the Rolfing approach by working together with people who hold a range of perspectives and ways of thinking.
I would like to take up the relation between AT and Rolfing again in this column.
Note, August 2026
In the second half of this article stands a question that has not aged. A client finishes a session and says, if only I could keep this feeling. But a sensation cannot be held in memory. One knows the body has changed, and calling that state back oneself is harder than it seems.
The answer set down here is to look at things in the order in which thought gives rise to movement and movement gives rise to sensation. Trace what kind of thinking led to the sensation, and the chance of reproducing it rises. And since the most effective means of expressing a thought is words, the choosing of words matters.
Eleven years on, this question has stayed at the centre of the work. In the question-and-answer session on the last day of the basic training, the advice for musicians and for people who play sport was to have them perform the actual movement at the start and at the end of the session. The Rolf Movement course is described as supporting clients in integrating new coordination into daily life. Both are about how something is carried out of the room. It is the same question this article raises.
What is interesting is where the answer was borrowed from. A book written by an Alexander Technique teacher, addressed to those who teach wind bands. Borrowing from a system outside Rolfing is a method used repeatedly in this period. A book for people who teach wind instruments is, among all of them, the furthest afield. What came from the furthest away is what has lasted longest.
There is another term written here for the first time: Ground Orientation and Space Orientation. The direction that organises the feet and builds the foundation of the lower body, and the direction in which the upper body forms a relation with space on that foundation. Godard’s two directions stand side by side, each with a name.
Using them, this article explains the structure of the ten-series. Odd-numbered sessions work with the upper body, even-numbered with the lower, alternating between them. An arrangement learned in the classroom as an order of sessions is now visible as a single principle, two directions.
The two directions themselves had come up in the basic training classroom. What is new is writing them down in this form. As the opening says, this article was written from a point where talking with an Alexander Technique teacher had clarified things. Between having heard something and being able to write it, there was a distance. And what closed that distance was a conversation with someone outside the classroom.