Monday, February 5, 2018. I arrived at Haneda. Two weeks is a long stretch, and it is a relief to be back in Tokyo.
Ten days of workshop (see “The State of Your Own Body Shows Up in the Session“). With four instructors and assistants and fifteen participants, we worked on how to raise the quality of a Rolfing session. Everyone taking part was a Rolfer, which made it all the more instructive.
Rolf Movement carries a strong influence from the Frenchman Hubert Godard’s Tonic Function, and its theoretical side grew stronger as that thinking entered the work (for details, see “Confusion in a Good Sense, and on Tonic Function“).
At the same time, as I learned in the Rolfing basic training, it also matters that the three information-gathering systems — visual, vestibular, and kinesthetic — work in balance (for details, see “Psychological and Perceptual Change — The Body Map“).
This time I experienced what changes in the body when observing someone with both eyes and with one, how close you can come to a partner, and how the field of vision shifts when you close one eye or the other.
In Rolfing, the view is that when those three systems work in balance, the body can meet gravity.
Rita Geirola explained that a human being learns to see through education and experience — in contrast to the other two senses, the vestibular and the kinesthetic, which are already in place.
Because vision is learned through experience, it is the easiest of the senses to be aware of, and therefore the one most likely to dominate. And when the sense of the eyes runs too strong, the work of the vestibular system and the sense of gravity become harder to feel. The eyes connect back to the occiput, so overusing them leads on to a stiff neck and shoulders.
The eyes also differ left from right. In my case, if the left eye’s field is 100 and spherical, the right is 60 and tilted somewhat to the rear. The work made that clear. And closing the left eye, using only the right, produced a sense of constriction in the chest.
So my partner made a sound out to the right and behind, activating the vestibular sense. The field of the right eye widened, and the constriction in the chest cleared.
What interested me was the distance with a partner. Closing one eye pushed back the distance at which they could approach. But when I took in the sight of them with the sense of looking from far off, they could come close without my tensing. And organizing the sensation of the feet made the vision feel steadier still. A slight change in vision had a considerable effect on how the body organized itself.
In Rolf Movement, too, I learned that various devices are brought in to widen the visual field when integrating the body.
How to combine the three — visual, vestibular, kinesthetic — was not something I had given much thought to in ordinary sessions. In Rolf Movement, handling the combination freely can make a considerable difference to a client.
One last thing. I want to write about pre-movement, which produced the most striking results of Part 2.
Note, August 2026
What Rita said here is brief and carries weight.
A human being learns to see through education and experience. The other two senses, vestibular and kinesthetic, are already in place.
Only vision is acquired afterward. Which makes it the easiest to attend to, and the most likely to dominate.
And when the sense of the eyes runs too strong, the vestibular system and the sense of gravity become harder to feel.
Seeing pushes feeling aside.
That runs opposite to the subject of Seeing received in Phase III. There, what I learned was that without a concept you can look at something and not see it — and that with a concept, you begin to see it.
Here, what is being said is that seeing too well keeps you from feeling anything else.
In the 2025 Advanced Training, Ray McCall said the same thing. Seeing with your own eyes is misleading; receiving with the whole body is what observation means. Maitland’s Somatic Sensorium — the full mobilization of bodily sense.
Not restricting vision, but bringing the other senses up to the same level of work.
And there is a record here of something confirmed in my own body.
If the left eye’s field is 100 and spherical, the right is 60 and tilted to the rear. Closing the left and using only the right produced constriction in the chest.
So a partner made a sound out to the right and behind, activating the vestibular sense. The right eye’s field widened and the constriction cleared.
The eye was not treated through the eye. Something entered through the ear, and the eye changed.
That is what it means for the three systems to work in balance. When one is weak, you come in from somewhere else.
There is also the passage about distance with a partner.
Closing one eye pushed back the distance at which they could come close. And yet, taking in the sight of them with the sense of looking from far off, they could approach without my tensing.
The state of your vision is setting how near another person can come.
That carries directly into the treatment room. When you move toward a client, at what distance does tension appear? It depends not only on the relationship but on the state of your own vision.
In London in 2014, I watched Alan Richardson spend twenty minutes closing the distance before touching anyone. What was at stake there was how you approach and when you enter.
That sense of distance shifts with how the eyes are used.
What strikes me eleven years on is that this piece uses the body as the experiment.
Close one eye. Have someone make a sound. Organize the sensation of the feet. Each time, check what changes. It did not run from explanation to conviction; the order was the other way around.
The same shape as Gael Rosewood handing over examples and nothing else. The soleus fires before you raise your arm. The tongue at the palate steadies the neck and face. All of it testable.
That way of teaching runs through Godard’s line, I think. The theory exists. But when it is handed over, it is handed over in a form you can try.