Introduction
Meeting Akinori Ito — Nine Years Ago, and the Session I Signed Up For
Akinori Ito (hereafter Ito-san) rented the room for two and a half years in Shibuya and three years and eight months in Ebisu. With my own move from Ebisu to Shibuya and Tsunashima, today marks the last day of that rental.
Looking back, nine years have passed since we met.
Nine years ago, on December 23, 2013, came the meeting that changed the course of my life. At an acquaintance’s wedding reception, I met Ito-san, who had been certified as a Rolfer only the year before. I wrote about it in detail in “How I Found Rolfing — Searching for a Way to Deepen the Postures.” On instinct, I felt I ought to receive a Rolfing session, and signed up for the ten-series on the spot.
The ten sessions began on December 29, 2013 — once a week, two of them in Ebisu and eight in Machida — and the series finished in March 2014. Three maintenance sessions followed.
To the Rolfing Training in Germany
While receiving the ten sessions, the thought took hold: I want to earn this qualification. That June I left my job and submitted an application to the European Rolfing Association in Munich. From August, eight months in Germany were spent studying for the certification.
In March 2015 I was certified as a Rolfer, and from June of that year I opened a practice in Shibuya.
What I had not expected was what came next.
Opening in Shibuya — Meeting Again, and the Rental
Ito-san moved from Machida to Kobe. Whether it was a matter of timing, I was fortunate that he came to rent the room in Shibuya. It gave us occasion to exchange all kinds of information about Rolfing, and my own learning deepened through it.
(Through Ito-san I met Hiroki Sato, and through that connection came IMAC and Source Point Therapy.)
After two and a half years in Shibuya, I moved to Ebisu. There was a period when the rental was suspended, with the state of emergency declared for a time, but we both came through the pandemic and the rental resumed. In total it ran three years and eight months.
The Move, and the Last Day of the Rental
With this move, I am leaving Ebisu for Shibuya. Today, December 14, 2022, is the last day of the rental.
It means that, in Tokyo, we will be working from different places. Over nearly seven years and nine months of my life in Rolfing, Ito-san has been a large influence, and I hope very much that he will continue to work not only in Kobe but in Tokyo as well.
His sessions come recommended, from one practitioner to another. For anyone in the Kansai area, do have a look at the website for “THE CIRCLE.”
Conclusion
My thanks, truly, to Ito-san for renting the room over these long years. I expect we will see each other in Tokyo, and I look forward to continuing.
Note, September 2026
This piece was written on the day the room rental with Akinori Ito came to an end. December 14, 2022. Two and a half years in Shibuya, three years and eight months in Ebisu — a relationship of more than six years, closing on that day.
A Line Inside Parentheses
Midway through the piece sits a line set in parentheses.
(Through Ito-san I met Hiroki Sato, and through that connection came IMAC and Source Point Therapy.)
What came out of that line makes up a large part of the learning that followed.
IMAC (Integrative Muscle Activation Concept) was studied over twenty-one days, from 2019 into 2020: the lower limbs, the upper limbs, the spine and viscera, the head and neck, and integration. It reads the meridians through range of motion, and it is part of the sessions I offer now.
Source Point Therapy (SPT) was taken through Modules 1 to 3.
Neither road would have been traveled without meeting Hiroki Sato through Ito-san.
A Line Running from December 23, 2013
At an acquaintance’s wedding reception, I met a Rolfer who had just been certified. On the spot, I signed up for the ten-series.
From there: receiving the ten sessions, deciding to earn the qualification, leaving the job, going to Munich, being certified, opening a practice in Shibuya. And then the practice I had opened became the room Ito-san rented.
From the side that receives, to the side that offers. And then to the side that lends the room.
Seven and a Half Years of Renting Out the Room
Not written in this piece: there were practitioners other than Ito-san who rented the room. Rolfers, an acupuncturist, a yoga instructor. For seven and a half years from the opening, there were stretches when that rent was what made a living possible.
This was not work begun alone.