September 5, 2017. From Munich, via Düsseldorf International Airport, I arrived safely at Narita International Airport. Since I had headed to Munich on the flight of August 30, 2017, it was a short stay of one week.
Without minding the jet lag much, I was able to engage with concentration in the workshop, which ran from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (5 p.m. on the final day) from August 31 to September 1. The content was packed, all of it usable in my own sessions, and I came to truly look forward to my sessions from tomorrow (September 6).
As I wrote in “Impressions of the Three Rolf Movement Instructors and the Atmosphere of the Class,” the composition of participants was five men and twelve women — 17 in total. The nationalities, too: one Belgian, seven Germans, two Swiss, one Pole, one Czech, one French, one Dutch, one Russian, and one Swede. The three Rolf Movement Instructors are Italian, and the one Assistant is French. It was a good opportunity to come to know multinational cultures.
The difference from training in America is that almost everyone was a non-native English speaker (only the Rolf Movement Instructor Giovanni Felicioni (hereafter Giovanni) is a native English speaker).
So, on August 31 when the class began, Pierpaola Volpones (hereafter Paola) gathered all the participants around a round table and gave each person an opportunity to speak. The Russian participant spoke first. As if desperately picking English words from his mind, he spoke slowly, but the people around, including Paola, cheered him on, trying hard to understand.
Also, from the second day on, we split into groups of four to six, and about 30 minutes were set aside to talk about what had been learned the previous day. In this discussion, I was often paired with Germans; rather than one person speaking one-sidedly, there was an atmosphere in which each person could naturally voice an opinion. Even though we were taking the same workshop, the eye went to different places, and I felt that the way this was respected was good.
When I was taught by Giovanni in Phase II of Rolfing’s Basic Training, for the first two weeks, in order to gauge the students’ degree of understanding, the submission of a report on what kinds of places were being looked at in each session was required; once again, I felt keenly that each person’s degree of understanding differs, and at the same time, the good thing is that this degree of understanding, too, was not evaluated as “good” or “bad.”
In the exchange sessions between students too, even with the differences of the country of background, I could feel each person’s difference in what kind of approach they take as a Rolfer. For example, when paired with the Russian, the words were fragmentary, but bodily sensation is universal. What is the intention? I also learned that it comes across anew without using words. As for the others, how do the two Rolfers who were with me from Phase I through III approach a session? I could see, including the delicacy of their approach to the body, and could be stimulated.
However, the workshop content too was packed. What was treated this time was the deep sessions, sessions 4–7. The sensation of receiving two sessions every day is a great burden on the body. At the breaks in between, many people lay down and slept, which impressed how dense the training was.
The next training is six weeks later, October 19–22, 2017. Since I will meet the same members again, I’d truly like to look forward to it.