Since staying in Munich from June 29 to July 10, 2017, for a second stay in Munich, on Wednesday, August 30, 2017, I headed once again to Munich by plane, departing from Haneda Airport via Frankfurt International Airport.
Last time, I attended Peter Schwind’s workshop (June 30 – July 2, 2017) (see “For What Purpose Is Technique Used?” and “The Content of the Advanced Training — What Should Be Learned?“) and the first three days (July 7–9, 2017) of the 30-day Rolf Movement workshop. In addition, I was able to visit Nuremberg and Salzburg.
The Rolf Movement training, which began on July 7, 2017, is divided into three: Phase I–III.
And Phase I — “Functional Embodiment of 10 Rolfing Sessions” (acquiring the functional aspect of Rolfing’s ten sessions), led by Pierpaola Volpones (hereafter Paola) and Rita Geirola (hereafter Rita) — was held three times in 2017 (see “With What Kind of Curriculum Does It Proceed?“).
This time is the second (period: Thursday, August 31 – Sunday, September 3, 2017). From this time, Giovanni Felicioni joined as an assistant, and a total of three Italian Rolf Movement Instructors (Paola, Rita, Giovanni) took part in the workshop. Because each gives feedback in a different form, I feel truly fortunate.
In the first three days of Rolf Movement, centering on the functional approach to the body in sessions 1, 2, and 3 of Rolfing’s ten-session series, I learned how to incorporate bodily movement (see “An Introduction to the Basic Way of Thinking” and “What Comes into View Through Movement?: Words and Direction“).
This time, it was about two months after the third day of training finished on July 9, 2017. A homework of incorporating what had been learned into sessions had been given, and it began with a discussion centered on what kind of awareness had arisen.
After that, also as a review of session 4, it began — as in the Basic Training — with an Embodiment session. Embodiment is done to confirm the content of a session within the body; in the case of session 4, it centered on heightening bodily awareness through movement, focusing on the soles of the feet, the knees, the pelvic floor, the coccyx, the sit bones, and the pubis (on Embodiment, see “Bodily Sensation — What Is Embodiment?”).
その後、セッション４の復習を兼ねて、基礎トレーニングと同じように体感セッション（Embodiment）から始まった。Embodimentとは、自分の身体内でセッションの内容を確認するために行うものだが、セッション４の場合には、足裏、膝、骨盤底、尾骨、坐骨、恥骨を中心に動きを通じて身体意識を高めるものを中心に行った（Embodimentについては「身体感覚〜Embodimentとは何か？」参照）。
After that, practice was done that incorporated the aspect of bodily movement into the procedure (recipe) learned in session 4 of the Basic Training (including AMP — Active Movement Participation).
As awareness on the fourth day, there were the following two:
- When incorporating Rolf Movement, to take time and proceed slowly and carefully.
- When posing 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 (1). It was something I had felt during Rolfing sessions: I had been thinking of carrying out the Movement session efficiently, in the form of cutting in directly to the place that personally concerned me in the body. However, from Paola I received the advice that, while thinking with the brain takes only a moment, giving new awareness to the body’s habits takes time, and that it is good to take an approach that heightens bodily awareness slowly, taking time.
In particular, in session 4, which connects the feet and the pelvis, there is the possibility that body parts such as the abdominal muscles, the lumbar vertebrae, the gluteal muscles, and the pectoral muscles move in their place. From Giovanni, regarding observing posture — where force is entering, where it needs to be let go of — I was shown, step by step, how to observe carefully and to touch the relevant places carefully, and he explained it in an easy-to-understand way.
Personally — how to distinguish and move the sit bones, the pubis, and the coccyx within the pelvis? How to move the adductors of the leg while releasing the force in the shoulders, the abdominal muscles, and the pectoral muscles? I could feel that combining Rolfing’s approach to the fascia with the movement of Rolf Movement has the possibility of giving great awareness to the client.
On (2).
By asking questions like these, which cannot be answered with YES/NO, the client is prompted to put things into words:
- “Where is the place to release force?”
- “Is this an easy movement?”
- “Where is support needed in the body?”
- “What is happening now?”
- “What kind of change is that?”
Through this, bodily awareness changes greatly. In this practice too, such scenes were encountered, so going forward I’d like to incorporate questions like these into sessions.
The fourth day’s workshop, too, ran from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. It proceeds with breaks in between, but the content to be learned is truly wide-ranging. I’m truly looking forward to the content from tomorrow on as well.