About Hidefumi Otsuka

Rewriting the Recognition OS — through the body.

大塚英文（おおつか・ひでふみ）

Certifications

  • Certified Advanced Rolfer
  • Rolf Movement Practitioner

Rolfing® Structural Integration is a lineage of bodywork, some sixty years old, that brings the body’s structure and movement into integrated balance. The title of Advanced Rolfer is held by those who have completed an advanced certification program beyond the foundational training — roughly 1,950 practitioners worldwide as of 2025, and about 130 in Japan.

Background

  • 1971 — Born in Tokyo, Japan
  • 2001 — PhD in Medical Science (Immunology), Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo. (The doctorate is registered under my legal family-register name, 大塚秀文.、博士（医学）/ PhD in Medical Science）
  • Please note: this is a research doctorate, not a medical (MD) license.
  • ~11 years at a foreign-affiliated pharmaceutical company, working in medical marketing across several therapeutic areas and new business lines — including responsibility for natalizumab, a disease-modifying therapy for multiple sclerosis, from 2011 to 2014.
  • 2014 — Left the pharmaceutical industry for a journey around the world, across 26 countries and 65 cities.
  • 2015 — Completed Rolfing training in Germany; registered as a Certified Rolfer.
  • 2019 — Certified as a Rolf Movement Practitioner.
  • 2025 — Certified as an Advanced Rolfer.

In my doctoral years I worked on basic research in immunology. I then spent about eleven years at a foreign-affiliated pharmaceutical company, in medical marketing across several therapeutic areas and new business lines. Natalizumab, the drug I was responsible for from 2011 to 2014, is a disease-modifying therapy (DMT) for multiple sclerosis — a humanized anti-α4-integrin monoclonal antibody that blocks immune cells from entering the central nervous system. Its mechanism sat in direct continuity with my doctoral research in immunology. It was also where I deepened, as everyday practice, an evidence-based way of thinking about medicine.

My turn toward Rolfing was not a rejection of the pharmacological approach, but a way to take up another, equally fundamental method — one that works with the body from the inside.

A Background in Bodily Practice

The way I see things as a Rolfer is inseparable from years of bodily practice.

  • Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga (20+ years)
  • Meditation, pranayama, and Ayurveda
  • Brazilian jiu-jitsu
  • Tea ceremony (Urasenke school)
  • Noh Theatre (My grandfather was a Noh performer, and I studied under Ms. Kimiko Inoue in Kyoto in 2016.)

These varied experiences of the body seep naturally into the way I work within a Rolfing session.

What is Recognition OS?

To work with the body is not merely to release tension; it is to touch the very way a person experiences the world. I call this way of experiencing the world the Recognition OS.

A Rolfing session is one practice for rewriting that Recognition OS. The philosophical background and the neuroscience behind it are explored in depth at Mind Bodywork LAB, a companion space to this site. (Currently in Japanese; an English edition is in preparation.)

Booking & Inquiries

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