Sunday, December 1, 2019. At the European Rolfing Association (ERA) in Munich, Germany, I safely received certification as a Rolf Movement Practitioner.
The training that began on July 7, 2017, too, reached its 30th day (the final day).
It ended up that I went back and forth between Tokyo and Munich six times; a television interview came in along the way, so it was a year and a half later than planned, but in terms of timing I think it was truly good. This is because there was time to digest the content of Rolf Movement.
As for the second half of Part 3, I wrote about it in “How Does the Class Proceed? Feedback + the Atmosphere of the Class“; the main thing was a 50-minute Embodiment presentation.
I received the presentations of 18 people in total — four presentations a day for four days, and two on the final day.
I wrote about my own presentation in “My Presentation Came Last on the Second Day: How Did It Proceed?” Since I finished on the second day, it was good that, over the following three days, I could receive the Embodiment presentations of the remaining 10 students with concentration and without tension.
Rita Geirola (hereafter Rita) conveyed in the class that what is important in teaching things to people is to practice and to enter into the process; the ways of teaching of the 17 people besides me each had their characteristics, and there were many I’d like to incorporate.
What I learned in this training:
- To convey the content after knowing my own strengths and characteristics.
- Who is the target customer? To prepare in advance words that each can understand.
- To hold the class after making clear what I want to convey to the customer.
These may be commonplace, but knowing them through bodily experience is significant.
Also, listening to the feedback after receiving others’ presentations, I came to know that no matter how good a class is, opinions of “good” and “bad” come out — so it is better to value what I convey.
What is interesting is that there is no procedure in giving a Rolf Movement session or presenting to a group.
As I wrote in “Confusion in a Good Sense + On Tonic Function,” to the extent that Rolf Movement has a degree of freedom, how a session will conclude can become invisible, and anxiety can arise. Still, since in the end it can come together as a session, trusting the process of the body’s change further is required.
Come to think of it, when I was taking Part I of Rolf Movement, Giovanni Felicioni recommended Guy Claxton: Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, and I picked it up during the training period.
The book introduces that the human mind has three kinds:
- 1) The mind that judges instantly (unselfconscious, instantaneous reaction) → the five senses are involved.
- 2) The mind that deliberates logically (called Deliberation) → called the intellect (Hare Brain = the rabbit’s brain). *The “liberate” in “deliberate” has the root meaning of “to balance.” It is translated in the sense of thinking logically while calculating.
- 3) The mind that thinks slowly (called Contemplate) (Tortoise Mind = the turtle’s mind). *”Contemplate” has its roots in Latin con- (together) + templum (temple; a place for performing divination rituals) → temh- (to cut). It means “to be absorbed in meditation in a place cut off from the secular world.” It is translated as thinking slowly.
I think 1) and 2) are easy to understand, but the slowly-thinking “turtle’s mind” is not so much in the spotlight. In fact, as was so in the Basic Training, in the Rolf Movement training too, I digested the content, knowledge, and technique that I learned over time. Sometimes while confused, while using intuition, and sometimes entrusting myself as well.
The book says that, since scientific discoveries too are discovered over time, the “turtle’s mind” is stronger than the “rabbit’s brain.”
It is the same with Rolfing and bodywork: because a different brain comes to be used, it inevitably takes time until experience drops to the level of bodily sensation. Seen from the standpoint of a person working as a company employee, since the efficiently-thinking “rabbit’s brain” is used, getting into the state of the “turtle’s mind” is not easily gotten used to, so it is probably a struggle.
On the morning of the final day (8:15 a.m.), such a topic came up in the individual interviews with the three — Rita Geirola (hereafter Rita), France Hatt-Arnold (hereafter France), and Herve Baunard (hereafter Herve).
What is interesting was France’s suggestion that it might be better to incorporate the Contralateral movement a little more into sessions and to improve the skill. Since it is very important when offering sessions 8 to 10, it became valuable feedback.
Rita, France, and Herve all learned Rolf Movement from Hubert Godard, and they said it takes time to digest the content. It is probably exactly learning with the posture of the “turtle’s mind.”
It centered on things like how to improve a class and which part to improve, and it was interesting. They said the skill is steadily improving, so it is good to keep working on Movement like this, which was encouraging.
On the final day, after finishing the two presentations, on to the certification ceremony. At the certification ceremony, we split into three groups and also did a little game, and I think it was good to be able to take part in a truly convivial, harmonious atmosphere.
In receiving the certification, I was indebted to many people. I’d like to express my thanks once again.
Now that I have received certification as a Rolf Movement Practitioner, I’m thinking of incorporating it into yoga classes, ordinary sessions, and maintenance sessions.