The Rolf Movement training hosted by the ERA (European Rolfing Association), held in Munich, Germany, over the four days from Thursday, October 10 to Sunday, October 13, 2019.
It was originally scheduled to finish in July 2018, but a television interview came in in April 2018, and taking Part 3 ended up being postponed for over a year (see A Television Interview — Appearing on Kinyō Premium: You Can Find an Easy Posture for Yourself, only in Japanese ). It is a long-awaited participation.
This is my first time in Munich in one year and eight months, since Part 2 finished on February 4, 2018 (on that occasion, see Pre-movement, Yoga, and the Alexander Technique). I depart from Haneda Airport on October 9, 2019, on a late-night Emirates flight via Dubai.
Three people I already know are among the participants: Judith Wohlrabe of Germany, who was with me in the Supervision Workshop; Monica Hammer, who was with me in Part 1; and Sibyl Darrington of the UK, who was with me in Part 2. What’s more, the teachers I learned from in Part 2 — Rita Geirola of Italy (hereafter Rita) and France Hatt-Arnold of Switzerland — are in charge, so I am truly looking forward to it.
Of the eighteen ERA-certified Rolfers taking part, three were with me in Part 1 or Part 2, and the rest I am meeting for the first time. Six Germans, three Swiss, one French, one Italian, three British, one Belgian, one Austrian, and two Japanese. We will spend nine days together — four in the first half and five in the second.
The ERA’s Rolf Movement training, like the Basic Training, is divided into three stages, Part 1 through Part 3 (for details, see What Kind of Curriculum Does It Follow?).
Part 1, “Functional Embodiment of the 10 Rolfing Sessions,” taught by Pierpaola Volpones and Rita Geirola, was held on July 7–9, 2017 (3 days), August 31 – September 3 of the same year (4 days), and October 19–22 of the same year (4 days) (see Body and Brain: Why Is Slow Movement Important? and Overall Summary).
Part 2, “Strategy and Design of a Rolf Movement 3-Series,” taught by Rita Geirola and France Hatt-Arnold, was held from January 24 to February 4, 2018 (with January 27 and 31 off; 10 days in total). It makes it possible to put together a three-session Rolf Movement series separately from the ten-session Rolfing series, and it was a valuable chance to learn how to sharpen sensation within the body (see Confusion in a Good Sense, and on Tonic Function, What Comes into View Through Intuition and Body Reading, and Pre-movement, Yoga, and the Alexander Technique).
Part 3, “Introduction to Leading Rolf Movement Groups,” taught by France Hatt-Arnold and Rita Geirola, is held in October and December 2019: October 10–13 (4 days) and November 27 – December 1 (5 days). Here, I am told, you can learn how to conduct a movement class in a group setting. This time too, I plan to write up the training in this column as it unfolds.
Note, August 2026
Part 3 should have been finished by July 2018. A television interview came in in April 2018, and it slid more than a year. This article states that fact and moves straight on to being long-awaited. What I made of the delay, I did not write.
The gap came to one year and eight months.
What I was doing in that time was testing what Part 2 had given me. The course had been about learning to design a three-session Rolf Movement series, separate from the ten-session Rolfing series. The framework handed to me in the classroom, I used on my own clients, over and over, and the delay turned out to be one year and eight months of exactly that.
Seen now from the side of the institution, this is not an exception. The three Parts of the Rolf Movement training are each offered every twelve to fourteen months, and you may take them in any order. Spreading them across several years is assumed from the outset. The reason the training is split into three is likewise stated: so that Rolfers can build what they meet in the classroom into their practice, and come back with the questions and insights that arise there.
Being interrupted, in other words, was built into the design. Not keeping to the schedule did not put me outside the course. It put me inside the range the course had allowed for.
The same thing happened once more further on. The Advanced Training was originally to be taken in Vienna in June 2018, or in Bologna that October. I took it in Tokyo, beginning in April 2025 — seven years late. Here too the institution held some slack. A certified Rolfer normally has three to seven years in which to take the Advanced Training; with Rolf Movement certification, that window extends to nine. The choice to delay Part 3 by more than a year had widened the deadline for the course after it.
There is one more thing this article passes over. On learning that Part 3 would be taught by Rita Geirola and France Hatt-Arnold, I wrote that they were teachers I already knew.
Rita was involved in all three Parts, from Part 1 through Part 3. France taught Part 2 and Part 3. When I came back after one year and eight months, the same two were in the room.
The two of them entered from opposite directions. France became a Rolf Movement practitioner in 1986 and was certified as a Rolfer four years later: movement first. Rita was certified as a Rolfer in 1987 and took Rolf Movement ten years after that: manual work first. They arrived in the same place all the same, and both studied with Hubert Godard. France studied with him for twenty years.
What they taught toward was plainly different. Rita’s question was who you are teaching, and which words you choose for them. Each person has a way of using language with their own culture behind it, she said more than once, and she wanted us to learn that through the act of teaching itself. France’s was about building the thing logically, and about tightening where tightening is needed. Rita looked from the side of the person in front of you; France from the side of the structure.
Two teachers with the same theory behind them, entering from opposite doors, pointing in different directions. I received that across two Parts. The gap in the middle changed nothing about the two directions being handed to me. That mattered a good deal more than not keeping to the schedule.