After staying in Munich from June 29 to July 10, 2017, this was my second stay there. On Wednesday, August 30, 2017, I flew from Haneda via Frankfurt International Airport, heading once more for Munich.
Last time I attended Peter Schwind’s workshop (June 30 – July 2, 2017) (see “Peter Schwind WS (1) — What Purpose Does a Technique Serve?” and “Peter Schwind WS (2) — What the Advanced Training Covers, and What to Learn Beforehand“), along with the first three days of the thirty-day Rolf Movement training (July 7–9, 2017). I also managed to visit Nuremberg and Salzburg.
The Rolf Movement training that began on July 7, 2017 is divided into three: Parts I to III.
Part I, “Functional Embodiment of 10 Rolfing Sessions,” is led by Pierpaola Volpones (hereafter Paola) and Rita Geirola (hereafter Rita), and runs three times in 2017 (see “What Kind of Curriculum Does It Follow?“).
This was the second of those, from Thursday, August 31 to Sunday, September 3, 2017. From this block Giovanni Felicioni joined as an assistant, making three Italian Rolf Movement instructors in the room — Paola, Rita, and Giovanni. Because each gives feedback in a different form, I feel truly fortunate.
The first three days covered sessions one, two, and three of the Rolfing ten series, centering on the functional approach to the body and on how to bring movement in (see “An Introduction to the Basic Way of Thinking” and “What Comes into View Through Movement: Words and Direction“).
About two months had passed since the third day ended on July 9. We had been given homework — to bring what we had learned into our sessions — so the block opened with a discussion of what had come into view.
After that, as a review of session four, we began with an Embodiment session, as in the basic training. Embodiment is done to confirm the content of a session within your own body (see “Bodily Sensation — What Is Embodiment?“). For session four, it centered on raising bodily awareness through movement, working with the soles of the feet, the knees, the pelvic floor, the coccyx, the sit bones, and the pubis.
We then practiced bringing the movement side into the procedure — the recipe — learned for session four in the basic training, including AMP (Active Movement Participation).
Two things came into view on the fourth day.
- When incorporating Rolf Movement, to take time and proceed slowly and carefully.
- When posing/offering words and questions, to have the client think as much as possible, and to ask questions that help the client put things into words in their own way.
On the first. It was something I had been feeling during Rolfing sessions: I had been thinking of running a movement session efficiently, cutting straight to whatever concerned me in the body. Paola’s advice was that thinking with the brain takes only a moment, but giving new awareness to the body’s habits takes time — better to take an approach that raises bodily awareness slowly, taking the time it needs.
In session four especially, which connects the feet and the pelvis, other regions may move in their place: the abdominals, the lumbar spine, the gluteals, the pectorals. On observing posture — where effort is entering, what needs to be let go of — Giovanni showed me step by step how to watch carefully and make contact carefully with the region in question, and explained it clearly.
For myself — how to distinguish and move the sit bones, pubis, and coccyx within the pelvis. How to move the adductors of the leg while releasing effort in the shoulders, abdominals, and pectorals. Combining Rolfing’s fascial approach with the movement of Rolf Movement, I could feel the possibility of giving a client something valuable.
On the second.
- Where is the place that releases effort?
- Is this movement easy for you?
- Where does the body need support?
- What is happening now?
- What kind of change is that?
Asking questions like these, which cannot be answered yes or no, prompts the client to put things into words. And bodily awareness shifts considerably through that. I met such moments in this practice, and I want to bring these questions into sessions from here.
The fourth day ran from nine in the morning to six in the evening, with breaks. The range of what there is to learn is genuinely wide. I am looking forward to what comes from tomorrow.
Note, August 2026
This article clearly reflects how I was thinking at the time.
My idea was to conduct movement sessions efficiently by working directly with whatever area of the body the client was concerned about.
Paola’s answer is recorded here as well. Thinking something through intellectually takes only a moment, but bringing new awareness to the body’s habitual patterns takes time. It is better to take an approach that allows bodily awareness to develop slowly.
What I was looking for was efficiency.
Two years into practice, the sessions had accumulated. The technique was in hand. Which is probably why I was trying to take the shortest path to whatever caught my eye.
I received the same subject in several different places around this time.
The previous November, what Sharon Wheeler taught in Bone Work was waiting. Take hold of the bone, apply the right pressure, and wait. The bone begins to move. Follow that movement and the body finds the position it wants and stops. The practitioner does not move it into the correct place.
In London in 2014, I watched Alan Richardson spend twenty minutes closing the distance before he touched anyone.
And nine years later, when Neutral was set out in the 2025 Advanced Training, it was described as placing yourself in the right balance between the force that would make something happen and the waiting for it to happen. Letting and Making.
The same thing, at least four times, from different people.
Even so, in 2017, I was thinking about efficiency. It is not that I had not heard it. I had written in the Bone Work article that it was a wonder how the bone starts to move when you wait.
There is distance between knowing something and being able to do it.
What I think now is that this distance does not close through understanding. I became able to wait because I confirmed, with my own hands and more than once, what happens when you do not. There were sessions where I went for efficiency and did not reach the person. Those accumulated, and eventually my hands learned to stop.
What Paola said was that giving awareness to the body’s habits takes time. She was speaking about the client’s body.
It turns out the same holds for the practitioner’s habits.