In the European training, three sessions called Mentoring (Mentor meaning a guide or teacher) must be taken between Phase III and the Supervision Workshop, the final follow-up training (in the interval from March 25, 2015 to December 12, 2016). The details of Mentoring were covered in “Training in Munich (3) — Mentoring and the Supervision Workshop.”
Around July of this year, an invitation came from Arnaud Lelièvre, a Frenchman who was with me from August 2014 to March 2015 (Phase I through Phase III), to take Mentoring in Paris with Hubert Godard, who had a major influence on the shaping of the Rolf Movement curriculum.
Hubert Godard has also had a major influence on the idea of Tonic Function in Rolfing, which was touched on in “The Muscles That Tire and the Muscles That Don’t — Tonic Function and the Support of Posture.”
I accepted at once, and Paris was set for September 2, 2016. Given a trip to Paris, arriving the previous day from London by Eurostar seemed the best way to approach the Mentoring, so the schedule was arranged to enter London on August 30 and leave on September 3.
That made it possible to take one Mentoring session in London, and I contacted Keith Graham — one of the two Rolfers I had seen in London between Phase II and Phase III, who offers Rolfing sessions at Waterloo in London. The Mentoring was set for August 30, 2016.
The previous Mentoring session with Keith Graham was covered in “An Experience in the UK (1).”
This time it began with a request: in approaching the body with a focus on the lower limbs, how can the whole body be used without placing a burden on the hands?
Being told there was no problem with the use of the fingers was a relief, and the main instruction concerned approaches using the elbow and the forearm. What was particularly interesting is that having the client move reduces the burden on the Rolfer.
For example, movement of the knee while approaching the gluteal muscles, and movement of the heel during the same approach to the tensor fasciae latae: coordinating these reduces the burden on the fingers. And while the approach around the iliotibial band (ITB) had been carried out with unexpected force, I learned that working without much force, in a way that releases the neural sensation, in fact minimizes the damage to the ITB while maximizing the effect.
Another point: session 4 takes an approach to the adductor group, and citing Ida Rolf —
Energy travels from beneath the feet up to the head
— I was taught that in approaching the adductors it is better to attend to the upward and downward direction of the muscle, determine which of the two is easier to approach, and work from there. A technique for carrying the work up to the pelvic floor using the forearm was also part of it.
After that came a method for deepening the session by observing which of the four areas of the foot is least mobile, along with an introduction to the Cranio Sacral approach and to simple pelvic adjustments. It made for a dense hour and a half.
Compared with the previous time, the questions had become more concrete. In particular, since the fingers do tire during the approach to the feet in a Rolfing session, learning that taking time over the work also matters was valuable, and I would like to bring what was learned back to Japan and carry it into practice.
There was a range of exchange with Keith Graham as well. That sales had fallen for two months under the effects of Brexit and the exchange rate. That forty Rolfers are active in the UK. That eleven of them are at the Phase III stage through Modular Training (a format completed over several years with weekends only; what I took was the Intensive Training, carried out in concentrated blocks) — Keith Graham serves as an assistant in the instruction of the UK training. These were among the things we were able to discuss.
A single session runs 85 to 95 pounds. Considering the exchange rate it feels cheaper than in Japan, though I take this to be temporary.
August 31, 2016 was spent enjoying London, and September 1 will be the move to Paris. September 2 brings the Mentoring with Hubert Godard. Something to look forward to.
Note, August 2026
The question this time was how to reduce the burden on the hands. Keith’s answer had nothing to do with adjustments on the practitioner’s side: it was to have the client move. When approaching the gluteal muscles, have the knee move. For the tensor fasciae latae, have the heel move. Coordinating with the movement removes the need to press in with the fingers.
The less the practitioner does, the further the work reaches. This direction was at the center of the full Rolf Movement training taken between 2017 and 2019 — the idea of waiting for the body to organize itself through movement.
Shape the Hand, in 2025, points the same way: not trying to do something with one’s own hand, but letting the client’s body form that hand. What that hour and a half in 2016 contained was the earliest version of this.
The same thing is said about the iliotibial band. What had been done with unexpected force turned out to work better without force, releasing the neural sensation instead — minimizing the damage to the ITB while maximizing the effect. The reversal is here: pressing harder does not make it work better.
Eleven years on, the reversal was confirmed outside the treatment room as well. Sparring with the higher belts in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, no force registers at all.
There is no sensation of being pushed, and yet movement has somehow become impossible. And the better a person is at releasing force, the less they get injured (see “Two Years of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu — On Distance, and on Learning with the Body“).
A body with force in it cannot respond when moved in an unforeseen direction. For the one working and for the one grappling alike, being able to release force sets the level of the skill.
Two years had passed since the previous Mentoring, and the substance of the questions had changed. The first time, the question was how to deal with my own neck tension. The second time, it was what to do about the fingers tiring during the work. What had been asked as a recipient had become what is asked as a practitioner.