January 30, 2018. The workshop, too, finished its sixth day (counting the days from last year, 17 days in total). Four days remain.
Over the six days, I have offered four Rolf Movement sessions (two for a student, two for an outside client).
Basically, it proceeds in this form:
- Day one (the 4th, 7th day): Embodiment (in the morning), Practicums (practice)
- Day two (the 5th, 8th day): Embodiment, Practicums (in the morning), sessions between students (three in total)
- Day three (the 6th, 9th day): Embodiment, Practicums (in the morning), sessions for outside clients (three in total)
- Final day: overall summary; each student presents a 10-minute Embodiment to the whole class
In Part 1, the learning centered on the manual technique, but in Phase 2, the emphasis is placed on how to put it into practice in the field (on the curriculum, see “With What Kind of Curriculum Does It Proceed?“).
In Part 1, the techniques corresponding to each of Rolfing’s ten sessions are practiced, but in Phase 2, based on Tonic Function (see “Confusion in a Good Sense + On Tonic Function“), the learning is how to look at the whole body and what approach to take.
To improve body awareness, there is work using a pole, and work from all-fours, sitting, and standing postures to look at the relationship between the spine and the upper and lower limbs, and so on. The Tonic (continuous) Muscles, which relate to Tonic Function, are for the most part concentrated on the spine side (the back side of the body).
Since a human is prone to falling forward, the muscles on the spine side work in order to avoid the influence of gravity as much as possible and to support the body. The Tonic Muscles are muscles that do not tire easily, but when the Phasic Muscles — which are Outer Muscles rather than Inner Muscles — work instead, low-back pain, stiff shoulders, and the like occur.
So, in Part 2 these are mastered through the work:
How to move efficiently and separately the spine, which connects the lower body and the upper body?
How to move separately the front side of the spine and the viscera and the area around the abdomen connected to the front side of the spine?
So it is closer to content useful in the field than the basic manual technique.
In terms of the Basic Training of the European Rolfing Association (ERA), it is good to think of Phase 2 (the basic technique) as corresponding to Part 1 of Rolf Movement, and Phase 3 (technique learned through clients) as corresponding to Part 2 of the same.
Another thing on which emphasis is placed is “what kind of relationship to build with the client?”
Beginning from “how to organize the practitioner’s own body,” it includes:
- When first meeting the client, what words to offer, and how to build the relationship?
- Once the relationship is built, what body information to draw out from the client?
- Why has the client come to the session? And what kind of expectations does the client hold?
- How to see the client’s resources and potential?
- What words to offer the client?
- How should the client take part in the session in the form of movement?
- When losing sight of myself as a Rolfer, how to return to my own body?
While incorporating such perspectives into the practice, time is set aside for the Instructor/Assistant and the students to look back together, and a question-and-answer session is held as well.
To the extent that Rolf Movement does not have a procedure like the ten-session Rolfing series, building the relationship with the client is valued more. The content is full of hints on mastering that method through practice and on how to offer a maintenance session to those who have completed the ten-session Rolfing series.
As a result, I think it gradually became clear, in the form of bodily experience through Embodiment, that by grasping what quirks I carry when offering treatment as a Rolfer, it becomes easier to obtain information from the client.
Four days remain. Perhaps Rolfing may have more freedom — without being bound by the procedure, engaging more flexibly in line with a person’s needs.
And, while using intuition within the flow, and while also attending, as a Rolfer, to the changes within my own body — rather than technique and knowledge — “how to draw out the client’s goodness to the fullest?” Including the relationship with the client, “what to do in order to draw out that person’s potential further?” I hope to learn over the remaining four days and put it to use in sessions after returning home.