Introduction
On Monday, July 16, 2018, the last day of a three-day weekend, the photographer Naoya Ochiai came to Salon ZERO to photograph the studio for the website.
A year had passed since the move to this space, and the shoot finally happened.
How We Met
We first met at a friend’s wedding. Looking at the photographs he had taken there, I was struck by how well he catches people looking like themselves. I thought that if the timing ever worked out, I would ask him to shoot for me.
As it turned out, he came in for Rolfing sessions, and there was a period when he was coming regularly.
What We Photographed
The photographs on the site were all from the old studio. The images running alongside the description of how a session goes needed replacing. That was the occasion for the July 16 shoot.
We started with the crystal fountain, which the old studio did not have. Then the mirrors in both rooms — the large one and the small one — the water server, and the treatment tables, room by room. The large room has a changing area, so that went in as well, along with the equipment.
What I had in mind was to bring forward the fact that the space is also available to rent.
I do not advertise this much on the site, but the rooms are available to bodyworkers, Rolfers among them. As the site stands, though, it is hard to see how the rooms are laid out.
The kitchen is equipped well enough to host events, so we photographed that too.
The result was a new arrangement of studio photographs on the site. I also added my certificate from the European Rolfing Association to the profile page.
Conclusion
As for the site itself, what I would like to work toward next is an English version.
If you are a colleague looking for a space — or if you are interested in a session — please do get in touch.
Note, September 2026
This was written as a record of a photo shoot, but rereading it, one thing in it reads as advice for anyone starting out.
The rooms changed again after this. What was photographed here was the second studio in Shibuya; in March 2019 I moved to Ebisu-Daikanyama, the third location since first setting up in Shibuya. The photographs taken that day are still on the site. I would like to have the current studio photographed afresh.
Even so, this one decision holds up. If you are going out on your own as a Rolfer and setting up a session room, have a photographer shoot it. What you take yourself and what someone who does this for a living takes are two different things. I asked Ochiai because of those wedding photographs — because he catches people looking like themselves. The job was to photograph rooms, but what ends up in the frame is what kind of place it is.
A word about the rental as well. The article says the rooms are used despite my not advertising them. That is still going, and I do advertise it now, though not loudly. I would rather it spread by word of mouth.
At the end I wrote that I wanted to work toward an English version of the site. Work on it actually began in 2026, eight years later. Rereading this article and writing this note is part of that work.
There have been other things that did not go as written. I wrote three times that I would become a Certified Advanced Rolfer in 2018; it came in 2025. I wrote that I would hold seminars every one or two months, and no record of them survives. The English version took eight years, and it is taking shape now.