The Rolf Movement training reached the end of its fifth day. Exactly halfway, and the workshop turned to looking back over what we had learned.
Part 2, compared with Part 1, has us giving sessions as Rolfers on six of the ten days, which makes it more practical (for details, see “The State of Your Own Body Shows Up in the Session“).
In the basic training, the procedure — the recipe — for each of the ten Rolfing sessions was given, and you could work along it. When you lost your way, there was something to return to.
In Rolf Movement, guides are given: what kind of relationship to build with the client, what state to be in as a Rolfer, what method of body reading to use. But how to build the three-session series is not taught concretely (for details, see “What Comes into View Through Intuition and Body Reading“).
So the way of training differs accordingly.
You are asked to take a risk and bring in a different approach — reducing the work done on the table, for instance, and giving the session standing.
The instructor therefore puts the weight on preparing the environment. Holding the space, in other words. There is nothing at all of the form it has to be done this way. Course correction comes only when something is actually wrong.
At the end of the fifth day, Rita asked each of us for a comment. Several people said they were confused in a good sense.
Because Rolf Movement leaves so much open, you cannot see how a session will end, and anxiety comes with that. Still, it does come together as a session in the end, which asks you to trust the process of the body’s change further.
Now, if the character of European Rolf Movement had to be put in a word, it would be the influence of the Frenchman Hubert Godard — of Tonic Function — which I have written about repeatedly here.
In the 1990s, Movement training was conducted simply in terms of the relationship between bodily awareness and movement. Entering the 2000s, with Tonic Function brought in, a theoretical spine entered, and the content deepened.
This time, the assistant Aline Newton took time on the second day to explain Tonic Function.
The body’s structure requires tonus — muscular force — in order to stabilize posture. But the stability of that tonus is affected by various factors.
Where do you entrust the weight? And as a result, the body becomes free to move. This bidirectionality, Palintonicity, lies in the basic thinking of Rolfing (see “The Five Principles“).
And tonic means continuous. Godard attended to the function of muscles that work continuously against gravity, and divided muscles into phasic, which fire briefly, and tonic, which work continuously (see “The Muscles That Tire and the Muscles That Don’t — Tonic Function and the Support of Posture“).
How do you draw out the tonic side? That matters in bringing bidirectionality into play.
What influences the phasic and the tonic is easier to see through five viewpoints.
- The first is tissue. The fascial work done in Rolfing affects structure and tonus.
- The second is the perceptual and cognitive. Something acquired as a person grows, taken into the body as habit — largely to protect oneself from threat in the environment.
- The third is thinking and words. This includes which mother tongue you carry, and gesture as well. One experience settles into the body as a verbalization, as a concept. Take a single phrase such as straighten your back: whether that means lengthening the spine, putting effort into it, or letting it lengthen on its own is remembered differently by different people, through different experience.
- The fourth includes meaning, significance, and the symbolic. Turning the face slightly away, or making a gesture that closes the chest, is done because for that person it feels safe and carries meaning.
- The fifth is coordination. Nikolai Bernstein proposed the hypothesis of motor coordination as one of his findings: that structure is maintained by the appropriate muscles working efficiently.
Observing the body through these five viewpoints makes it clear where to work. The exercises often use the five as well, and you can feel the depth of the angle.
Next I want to write about what I learned regarding the atmosphere of the class and building a relationship with the client.
Note, August 2026
The five factors Aline Newton set out here are the last of four routes by which Godard’s thinking reached me.
The first was Giovanni Felicioni in Phase II, in 2014 — someone taught directly by Godard, who explained the hypothesis. Even so, I finished without knowing how to use it in a session.
The second was Godard himself, in Paris in September 2016. The third was Gael Rosewood in March 2017. And the fourth is Aline here, who studied in a study group Godard ran for ERA members, as I heard from her later.
Gael offered almost no theory, only examples. The soleus fires before you raise your arm. Serratus anterior before you grasp something. The tongue at the palate steadies the neck and face. Every one of them in a form you could confirm in your own body.
Aline did the opposite: she organized. Tissue, perceptual and cognitive, thinking and words, meaning and the symbolic, coordination. Observe a body through these five and it becomes clear where to work — the shape of an instrument.
The one upstream handed over examples; the one downstream handed over a system. Gael was among those who certified Godard; Aline was among those who learned from him. What I could not receive from the teacher in the middle came in from both ends.
And these five factors differ from the four aspects taught in Phase III.
In February 2015, Jörg taught Godard’s four aspects as Structure, Coordination, Perception, and Meaning. He called Structure the physical.
Aline’s version has five, and what was added is tissue: that Rolfing’s fascial work affects structure and tonus.
The original four contain no reference to the hands-on work itself. Godard is a physiotherapist with a background in dance, and manual technique is not his starting point. Adding tissue as a fifth gives what a Rolfer does with their hands a place inside the theory.
At the same time, thinking and words has become a category of its own. Take the phrase straighten your back: whether it means lengthening the spine, putting effort into it, or letting it lengthen is stored differently in different bodies.
That viewpoint sits directly on top of Gael’s guidance about language. Use Push, Reach, or Meet for the same action and the way force enters the body changes.
Theory changes shape as it is passed along. Four became five because the person receiving it rebuilt it into a form that connected with their own work.
There is something else recorded here.
Without a procedure, you cannot see how a session will end, and anxiety comes with that. At the fifth-day review, several people said they were confused in a good sense.
The confusion is not left alone. The instructor puts the weight on preparing the environment, and there is nothing of the form it has to be done this way. Course correction comes only when something is actually wrong.
That is what holding the space meant.
Seen from eleven years on, this design is not particular to Rolf Movement. In Part 3, in 2019, I would learn how to make a space in which students can speak. In the 2025 Advanced Training, I would be taught that the practitioner’s role is to hold the field in which healing occurs of itself.
Prepare the space, and wait. Teaching or working with a body, the same thing is being done.
Confusion is allowed because the space is being held.