June 30, 2017. The first day of the workshop by Peter Schwind (hereafter Peter) arrived. This workshop is held as a preparatory stage for the Advanced Training. How does Peter teach? It is a perfect opportunity to find out.
The headquarters of the European Rolfing Association is in Munich, and it is said that in Munich alone there are nearly 80 Rolfers. Among them, Peter is famous, alongside Robert Schleip. Giovanni Felicioni of Phase II, Pierpaola Volpones of Supervision, and Konrad Oppenheimer, familiar in Japan, have all actually learned from Peter and been influenced by him.
With about 37 years of experience as a Rolfer, he is also well-versed in the Feldenkrais method and the techniques of the Barral Institute. So it seems there will be aspects of movement to learn as well.
Three from Switzerland, one from Italy, one from Austria, six from Germany, one from the UK, and me — 13 in total took part. As ever, it became a gathering surrounded by people of various backgrounds.
It began with each person’s self-introduction, hearing how many years of Rolfing experience they had and what they were interested in. On the first day, frozen shoulder was the most common, followed by the iliopsoas. So the workshop came to be conducted centering on those two.
In this column, I’d first like to introduce what was discussed.
A characteristic of Peter’s teaching is that, like Sharon Wheeler, he teaches while recounting what kind of experiences he shared with patients.
The difference is that Sharon turns her attention more to the psychological dark part of the human being and, after organizing a safe and reassuring environment, speaks from perspectives such as:
- “How to bring awareness of a person’s original self to them?”
- “How to face the person?”
- “How did Ida Rolf think, and actually carry out treatment?”
By contrast, Peter is more specialized in technique:
- “How to cure the symptom?”
- “What technique to use for that?”
- “With what experience were problems solved?”
— he has a more clinical, problem-solving approach, with precision and fineness of detail.
My own way of working in sessions is closer to Sharon’s approach. So there is more to learn from Sharon, but learning a different approach is, after all, important. In particular, since knowing how to see the foundations of Rolfing from the anatomical and the fascia’s scientific aspect is truly useful, I think there is much to learn from Peter.
Peter became a Rolfer in his early twenties and began working as an Instructor before the age of 30. He met various teachers. The teacher who influenced him most was Jan Sultan.
“A teacher who clearly says YES/NO — don’t do this, this is good” — useful for building sessions. He was also taught the importance of time management: to finish a session in 50 to 55 minutes.
At first, Peter’s sessions were about an hour. What changed that thinking was an encounter with Ida Rolf’s son (himself a Rolfer). The son apparently offered sessions so efficient that, at the shortest, he would finish in about 15 minutes; through that encounter, Peter noticed that taking too much time can, on the contrary, drum a large amount of information into the brain. Since then, he came to keep sessions to about 45 minutes — so he recounted.
For Peter, too, in order to clarify intention and build the session — how to raise the quality of the way the hand touches (touch)? how can the practitioner’s side make the use of the body easier? — he explains from these perspectives, so it is easy to understand. The reason the treatment table is raised and lowered. Why the current treatment table has problems. And so on — detailed.
He also spoke about the importance of taking care to give a session contrast (variation in intensity), and about the necessity of sometimes intense and sometimes soft touch. What was impressive was the quality of touch when he discussed Feldenkrais’s methodology.
Ida Rolf’s touch, the story went, was considerably strong; but when Feldenkrais approached the body, he approached with a way of touching that rivaled it. That a session can be given diversity only by knowing both intense and soft touch was interesting.
Next time, I’d like to write about more concrete content of the workshop and about the Advanced Training.