Since Wednesday, November 9, 2016, I have been taking part in a workshop in Kagurazaka hosted by the Japan Rolfing Association. The instructor this time is Sharon Wheeler. She is one of the teachers who learned directly from Dr. Ida Rolf, the founder of Rolfing. The recommendation came in part from Takami Kamata, a Rolfer living in Frankfurt, Germany, and that led to enrolling this time.
From 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the talk runs nonstop, with one useful piece of information after another. What is interesting is the way she speaks. There is an image of Americans talking like a machine gun, but she places intervals between her words, so that despite being nonstop it does not feel that way — which is fascinating.
Sharon herself engages sincerely with each individual client, and she describes their emotions and the changes that occurred in their physical state vividly. That she genuinely enjoys her work comes through, and because she speaks about the clients’ emotions as well, one is drawn further and further into her world.
Simply listening to her, what should be held as important in approaching a session comes across.
An episode with Ida left a strong impression. When Sharon was learning Rolfing in the early days, she was thinking of quitting, worried that having learned the technique she might overdo it and cause harm to clients. Ida told her:
Working on the body means that each of its parts will come to know on their own where its home — its appropriate place — is, so there is nothing to worry about.
Sharon’s anatomy and physiology textbooks were taken away by Ida, and she accumulated her sessions with sensation as the priority. That background is presumably what produced this way of teaching.
The Bone Work being studied here also came into being when she happened to approach the bones of a child whose foot had been deformed by an accident. This work, which would presumably never have emerged from theoretical reasoning, went on to develop into something useful for a range of problems involving bone — hallux valgus, bone enlargement, displacement and restricted range of motion from incomplete healing.
The way the teaching proceeds is interesting. After a demonstration on the first day, the basic techniques are taught over two and a half days. The following two and a half days bring in outside clients for practice. Hands-on practice is what is valued throughout.
During the first day’s demonstration, an outside client was brought in whose clavicles were deformed on both sides from fractures, and yet in Sharon’s hands they improved in an instant. With apparent ease.
The introduction of the techniques that followed was the same: the scientific reason is unclear, but she says that carrying out this sequence will make it possible right away, and doing it as instructed genuinely works. The impression is of settled assumptions collapsing one after another.
Two of the five days are over, and the sessions with outside clients begin tomorrow. Something to keep enjoying.
Note, August 2026
What Sharon received was not a textbook. With her anatomy and physiology books taken away by Ida, she accumulated her sessions relying on sensation. That was the way of learning of one of the few Rolfers who studied directly with Ida from around 1970. Bone Work itself came into being from an incidental approach to the bones of a child whose foot had been deformed in an accident. It is not a work that emerged from theory.
Ida’s words recorded in this entry state the disposition plainly. To Sharon, who confessed her fear of overdoing it and causing harm to clients, Ida answered that working on the body means each of its parts will come to know on its own where its home is, so there is nothing to worry about.
The practitioner does not bring in the correct answer; the judgment is left to the body’s side. Shape the Hand, in 2025 — not trying to do something with one’s own hand, but letting the client’s body form that hand — points in the same direction.
Looking back eleven years on, three distinct lineages were being encountered during this period. The European lineage (Giovanni, Hubert Godard, Tonic Function) carries the theoretical framework of Rolf Movement. The Advanced Training in 2025 (Ray McCall, Hiroyoshi Tahata) places Jeff Maitland’s philosophy at its base and designs individual sessions through five principles and the classificatory system of Taxonomy.
And Sharon is neither of these. What she received directly from Ida, she transmits using almost no anatomy and almost no theory.
Moreover, Sharon takes a critical view of the very circumstances under which Maitland’s philosophy was introduced (described in detail in “Cranio Work – Sharon Wheeler (3): What Sharon Said (3)”). Within the same Rolfing, positions this different stand side by side.
Encountering this lineage in Tokyo and Seattle across 2016 and 2017 mattered a great deal for taking the training in 2025. Had only one system been visible, it would have looked like the only form there is. The trip to Seattle was worth it less for the technique than for this.