Before moving on to the explanation of Rolfing from Session 8 onward, I would like to take up “letting go of tension” once more (here, in the sense of letting go of excess force). For me personally, “letting go of tension” was a challenge in yoga, and it became the impetus for exploring various forms of Western bodywork (see “Letting Go of Tension (1)“).
Rolfing holds that, by directing awareness to the presence of space (articulation) within the body — “evoke” in English — the excess force of the muscles is released (see “Letting Go of Tension (2)“). This time, I would like to consider how to widen the awareness of space.
In Rolfing, how gravity is felt is treated as important. A major reason is that the body can feel weight in any situation.
For the body to move freely against gravity, if the body is thought of as one large mass, the upper body and the lower body need to be felt. An awareness that the upper and lower body are distinct. What this means is that each has its own corresponding space. On the foundation of the lower body, the body is ordered so that the upper body can move freely (for details, see “Bidirectionality (Palintonicity)”“).
The body can also hold the spaces of front and back, left and right.
For this reason, the body has six spaces: up and down, front and back, left and right. In Rolfing, through Sessions 1 to 3 the awareness of up–down and front–back, and in Sessions 4 to 7 the awareness of left–right (the awareness of the central axis), is widened by working on the fascia.
Through this, change arises from within the body. A body that had become superficial-dominant through tension and daily stress sheds its excess tension and, given space, the deep layers begin to work. In the end, gravity comes to give appropriate stimulus to the deep layers, so that, experientially, the body settles into a more fitting place (for details, see “The Deep (Core) Sessions“).
調As indicators for bringing the body into order — what kind of weight is bearing where? — two are used: g and g’ (g being the g of gravity). g and g’ mean:
- g: relative to the whole body, is the weight toward the front or the back?
- g’: seen from the hip joint, is the weight toward the front or the back relative to the upper body?
When either g or g’ tilts extremely toward the front or back, excess force enters, and the awareness of one of the six spaces narrows. For example, when g’ tilts toward the front, the muscles on the spine side stretch and the muscles around the chest and abdomen shorten.
For Sessions 1 to 7, the point is how to widen and free the six spaces, using g and g’ as indicators. By holding an awareness of widening space against gravity, force is released of its own accord.
In that process, one encounters a force at work that resists the current trying to widen space against weight.
There, together with the client, we consider:
What happens if it is let go? What benefit is there? What possibility is there?
What is preventing it?
As a theme, why is there attachment to it?
What is interesting is the subsequent Sessions 8 to 10. This is where the body, which until now had six spaces, is ordered so that each can move with interconnection. For example, how can up–down, front–back, and left–right move with a relationship (relationship, or link) to one another? This interconnection is ordered in Sessions 8 to 9, and in Session 10 the widening of space between one’s own interior and the external environment is considered.
There is really no substitute for experiencing Rolfing firsthand, but by the stage when Session 9 was finished in the training, I felt that my awareness of space had widened considerably. Once I begin performing Rolfing, I would like to approach the work without forgetting this kind of awareness.