Sunday, July 9, 2017. The first three days of the Rolf Movement training finished (on the concrete curriculum, see “With What Kind of Curriculum Does It Proceed?“). Having known the foundations of Rolfing’s ten sessions, it became a good opportunity to relearn them from a different perspective (“movement” = “Movement”).
In the first ten days of training, sessions 1–10 are reviewed in order, day by day. How to incorporate the way of thinking of Rolf Movement is learned.
For example, I touched on the way of thinking of Rolf Movement in “An Introduction to the Basic Way of Thinking“; the four structural approaches, the idea of the four Articulations = space, and how to communicate, and so on, became topics.
In the Basic Training, there is an explanation of the method called AMP (Active Movement Participation — by the client actively moving from a certain posture, it acts on the fascia and tissue), to activate Rolfing’s approach to the fascia and the awareness within the body; the impression is that this is developed further here.
For example: “In order to bring awareness to the anterior and posterior tilt of the pelvis, how should the client be guided to tilt the pelvis?” The method of movement is actually conveyed, and the client moves actively. As a result, the necessary muscles begin to move, and which muscles are involved with the pelvis can roughly be brought to awareness.
Ultimately, how does the brain become aware of the body? New options are prepared in the body information the brain holds — the map — and whether they are actually useful comes to be entrusted to the brain’s judgment. If the brain can feel that they are useful, the map the body holds comes to be rewritten.
This time, in three days, the Rolfing sessions covered were the superficial sessions, 1–3, and the place each session approaches is fixed.
“How should movement be incorporated into a Rolfing session?” This time, there were two pieces of awareness.
First, putting it into words.
Posture has parts such as the lower back, the hip joint, the shoulder, the neck, and the knee; but where is each body part actually located? If words and body do not match, there is a possibility that the brain does not recognize that part. And, troublesomely, through the influence of parents, education from school, and society, a person comes to think there is an ideal body shape (= a fixed belief, a meaning assigned).
How to put into words something difficult to verbalize, such as body awareness? By being able to do that, the awareness of the body itself changes.
This time, through being together with people whose mother tongue is not English, how to heighten awareness using English words? Depending on the person, if there are too many words when guiding, the brain cannot process them and some people become completely unable to move; conversely, there are also people who do not move at all unless the guiding words are many — it was instructive.
Not only cultural background, but how to use useful words? As a task until the next workshop, I’d like to try it out.
The second is developing an understanding of how I use my own body.
In order to make a natural movement, the lower body feels gravity (downward) and, at the same time, the upper body, with that as a foundation, lengthens through the back and moves freely (upward). Rolfing is aware that there are these two directionalities, “downward” and “upward.”
For example, when sitting in a chair too, with the feet on the ground and the sit bones supported by the chair (the feet and sit bones downward), and with the awareness of lengthening the upper body upward with the sit bones as the base (the upper body upward), it becomes the most suitable movement.
What I’d like to draw attention to is that “downward” is the foundation. In English, it is called the Fixed Point or the Reference Point. “Upward” expresses directionality. In English, it is called Direction or Orientation.
In the case of sitting, with the feet and sit bones becoming the Fixed Point, the upper body moves freely — the directionality (Direction) is determined.
When taking a yoga pose, simply by being aware of “where is the Fixed Point? where moves freely?”, it comes to be taken with ease.
This idea can also be incorporated for the Rolfer and the client during a session.
For example, feeling the feet (= the Fixed Point), the upper body moves freely. Between reaching out and shaking hands while aware that there are these two directionalities, and simply shaking hands without feeling the feet at all, the information received from the other person comes out completely different. By looking more carefully at two-directionality, there is a premonition that the quality of a Rolfing session, too, heightens. I’d like to look forward to what lies ahead.