The final day of the second block of Rolf Movement Part I (August 31 – September 3) has ended. Over four days, centering on sessions four through seven of the Rolfing series, I have been learning how to bring movement into a session — through Embodiment and through practice with the body in motion.
Session four on August 31 (see “To Encourage Bodily Awareness: Slowly, Carefully, Into Words“), session five on September 1 (see “Where to Look in Movement: Phoric Function and Fixed Point“), session six on September 2 (see “How to Relate the Body’s Movement to Tonic Function“). And on the final day, practice with session seven seen from the side of movement.
This time the Embodiment for session seven was guided by Giovanni Felicioni (hereafter Giovanni). In a manner characteristic of him — free, expansive — we could observe through movement how the shoulders and neck link with the torso and the lower body.
As for session seven, the content was close to the basic training, and nothing struck me as new. Approaching the neck, shoulders, and chest in sitting and supine positions, deepening bodily sensation through the breath. Unexpectedly simple.
That said, I could also feel this: rather than my doing something, waiting for the other person to change, and prompting the change, is what produces the larger change.
If anything, what became clear this time is that Rolf Movement brings out its full effect when combined with the fascial work of sessions four through six. What was learned there can also be put to use heading into the integration sessions, eight through ten, so I want to try it once I am home.
The workshop had four teachers: the Rolf Movement instructors Giovanni, Pierpaola Volpones (hereafter Paola), and Rita Geirola (hereafter Rita), along with the assistant Hervé Baunard. Seventeen students came from across Europe.
Across the four days, whenever concentration broke during practice or a question came up, Paola, Giovanni, or Rita would come over right away with useful feedback.
In Japan you fairly often meet workshops where the teacher is exalted and the students are placed a rung below. What is good about studying in Europe is the weight placed on how a student can come to understand.
Paola, when someone is stuck, asks why and about what the question has arisen. She makes space for the question first, and then offers feedback with a smile that says: let us find the right answer together; as long as you do not lose yourself, a solution will come. It is easy to listen to.
Rita was my teacher for Phase I of the basic training. Back then she seemed hard to approach, but two years of practice had given me some sense of how Rolfing sees things, and this time she was easy to ask. Rita is also a certified Feldenkrais practitioner, and from her I learned several approaches to how you bring awareness to movement — particularly how to heighten awareness of the deep. Session six stayed with me.
Giovanni comes over to the table at unexpected moments and makes it enjoyable. He taught Phase II of the basic training, and he is a natural entertainer. A good listener, and I think he watches closely what the students are doing.
He arrives suddenly, smiling, and asks you to show him again what you were just practicing. When you do, he says: here is another option — how about it, shall we try?
He sees things differently from Rita and Paola. But it is feedback you cannot give without watching carefully what the student is working on, and it impressed me.
Five men and twelve women, seventeen in all. The nationalities were varied: one Belgian, seven Germans, two Swiss, one Pole, one Czech, one French, one Dutch, one Russian, one Swede, and one Japanese. A convivial atmosphere, and I have been enjoying it.
Paola, Giovanni, and Rita are all said to be taking part in the four days of October 19–22 as well. There is much to learn from them, and it looks usable in Rolfing sessions. In October, Phase II and Phase III run in parallel, and several people from Japan will be attending, so I look forward to seeing them again.
Finally, I’d like to end by introducing two photos of the meals I had during the lunch breaks over the four days in Munich. I was able to eat mainly Asian food, which was more delicious than expected.
Note, August 2026
This post preserves a revealing contrast among three teachers.
When a student is struggling, Paola asks why the question has arisen and what exactly the question is about. She first creates space for the question, and only then explores the answer together with the student. As long as you do not lose contact with yourself, she says, a solution will emerge.
Rita focuses on how awareness is brought to movement, particularly on how to deepen that awareness. Her perspective as a certified Feldenkrais practitioner is clearly present in her teaching.
Giovanni appears without warning and asks you to show him what you have just been practicing. After watching, he suggests another possibility and asks whether you would like to try it.
Three different teachers, each with a different approach. Yet they share one essential quality.
All three respond only after observing what the student is actually doing.
Paola first draws out the precise nature of the question before exploring an answer. Giovanni asks for a demonstration before offering an alternative. Rita observes the movement and points out where awareness is absent.
From the student’s perspective, this makes it clear which specific aspect of one’s own actions the teacher is addressing. The feedback can therefore be taken in and explored.
Elsewhere, I have written about what I look for when choosing continuing education. The first item on that list was whether feedback is grounded in observation or in the teacher’s personal judgment. What matters is not whether the teacher highlights strengths or corrects weaknesses. Even criticism can be received when it is presented as a concrete observation.
That criterion arose partly from these four days.
At the time, I interpreted the difference as one between Japan and Europe. In Japan, I wrote, one fairly often encounters workshops in which the teacher is placed on a pedestal and the students positioned one level below.
Reading this again now, I no longer think the difference is geographical. Around the same period, I attended workshops in Japan with teachers who placed the emphasis on how each student came to understand the material. Jonathan Martine, for example, gave each question the time it required. He moved around the room during practice and explained things individually, always with a smile.
The real dividing line is whether the teacher is genuinely observing the student.
There is one more passage that reads differently to me now.
Writing about Session Seven, I noted that its content was close to what I had learned in the Basic Training. Nothing seemed particularly new, and I was surprised by how simple it was.
Immediately afterward, however, I wrote:
Rather than trying to make something happen myself, it is waiting for the other person to change—and gently inviting that change—that produces the greater transformation.
In the very post where I wrote that there was nothing new, I encountered what would later become the central subject of my work.
Waiting.
Nine years later, in the Advanced Rolfing Training, Neutral was described as a balance between the impulse to make something happen and the willingness to wait for it to happen. What I wrote here leads directly to that understanding.
At the time, I was still evaluating what I learned according to whether it seemed new. That reflects where I was in my development then.