My salsa teacher, Mitsue, was going for Rolfing, and that is how I became interested. Ever since I started working, I had drifted from one massage or seitai place to the next. I disliked the feeling that with massage and seitai nothing gets better unless you keep going back, and what drew me to Rolfing was that it finishes in ten sessions.
After the Rolfing, not only did my stiff shoulders and low-back pain ease, but dancing became easier. When I danced salsa right after a session, or the next day, the men I danced with often said my axis was really steady, that I was easy to dance with (laugh). Session by session, I came to feel the axis in my body. During a lesson I had never understood what it meant to be told, in words alone, to “be aware of your axis”; now I understand it through the body.
Through the ten sessions I also had the experience that when the body changes, awareness changes. Partly thanks to that, I did not quit the job I had lost motivation for and had been wanting to leave; I was able to face myself instead.
Relationships at work improved as well. I recommend it to people who dance and to people who do not.
