To attend the Module 3 training in Source Point Therapy (SPT), held from October 6 to 12, 2020, I flew from Haneda to Itami on an early flight on October 5.
Since the occasion presents itself, before the first day begins I would like to describe how I came to SPT and how I bring it into my Rolfing sessions.
My first encounter with SPT goes back to May 26, 2015.
I met Hiroki Sato (hereafter Hiro), the Rolfer who runs TEN — the space for your Life & Body, for the first time, and after lunch and an exchange of information I received a session from him. What I received was SPT. I wrote about that experience separately (see “Receiving Source Point Therapy at TEN in Osaka“).
SPT is a form of energy work in which, by connecting to the Blueprint — the information needed for a human being to take human form — the body changes of its own accord.
There are a number of points on the body: the Diamond Point, the Rectangle Point, the Navel Point, the Sacral Point, and others. The practitioner is not touching, and is not adding any intent to make the other person better. By yielding intent to the Blueprint, I felt substantial change take place.
This is interesting, I thought.
More than that, I became convinced that if I could take SPT into myself, my Rolfing sessions would improve and the field of my own session room would settle.
I had been wondering whether the SPT training could be taken in Japan, and when Hiro said he would begin teaching in the latter half of 2015, I decided on the spot to sign up.
The SPT training, like the Rolfing training, has three stages — Modules 1, 2, and 3 — amounting to twelve days in total.
Of these, I took the first six days, Modules 1 and 2, in 2015. Module 1 ran from October 10 to 12 (see “Learning the Blueprint: The Information Needed for a Human Being to Take Human Form,” “On Choosing a Teacher, and What to Look For in Feedback,” and “Using Sensation Rather Than Knowledge: Accessing the Blueprint”). Module 2 ran from November 21 to 23 (see “Concrete Ways of Accessing the Blueprint, and How a Body Changes,” “How the Training Runs, and What Techniques There Are,” and “What Is Healthy Information for the Body?“).
Hiro’s website gives a fuller account of SPT. It describes it as a simple energy work that uses points around and within the body so that the body can return to a state of health, and explains that rather than the practitioner sending energy, the points of the person receiving begin to work, so that energy fills them and the body changes. Each point, it says, does what is needed for the whole person — not only the physical body but the emotions and the mind as well — to return to a state of wholeness, which makes the work highly comprehensive; and although it is energy work, distinctly noticeable physical changes occur.
Rolfing attends to the fact that the body already knows the answer — where it belongs — and explores the answer suited to each individual through how they sit, stand, and walk, and through the posture that feels easy.
Rolfing helps a person look for where the body belongs, by way of the fascia. What is interesting about SPT is that the work is carried out without the practitioner’s intent entering it. As a result, change occurs in directions the practitioner cannot predict, helping the session along in a way quite unlike work with the fascia. It is also likely to bring about changes that shorten the session.
On top of that, SPT helps me bring my own mind to neutral.
Why that matters: when too much intent to treat the other person enters, your ego reaches them, and the work ends up producing no effect.
SPT can be done without knowing anatomy, once you learn the method. But knowing anatomy deepens your understanding and awareness in a session.
Lately I have been bringing the basic SPT techniques — the Diamond Point, the Entry Point, the primary blockage — into sessions one through seven, and watching how clients change. What is interesting is that for some people, more change occurs than through work with the fascia.
On December 2 and 3, 2017, I also had the chance to take the SPT supplemental class and study the work more deeply (see “Taking the SPT Supplemental Course — How Should One Deepen Knowledge? Learning Through Practice“).
Five years since Module 2. Module 3 finally begins tomorrow.
Because of the pandemic, the founders, Bob Schrei and Donna Thomson, will join online. It is the first time they have worked this way.
Twelve participants. I want to enjoy finding out what kind of field forms, with Hiro.
Note, August 2026
This piece gives, in a single line, the reason I took Module 3 five years later: since Module 2 completes the basic techniques of SPT, I left Module 3 for later.
That was not the plan. At the end of Module 2, in November 2015, I intended to take Module 3 the following April. It became October 2020.
What happened in the gap
Setting out what filled those five years shows what putting it off amounted to.
First, practice accumulated. The fifty or so sessions using SPT that I had done just after Module 2 multiplied many times over. Using it, I worked out where in a Rolfing session it goes and how.
Second, early in 2016 I changed course. Six months in, I revised the hypothesis that energy work would work for everyone, and decided to deliver the first through seventh Rolfing sessions properly while keeping SPT to the minimum necessary (see “What I Noticed About Jikiden Reiki and SPT“).
And in December 2017 I took the supplemental course. There I learned where the eight points of the Guardian Point sit anatomically and what they relate to. The history of cranial work beginning with William Sutherland came to me then as well (see “Taking the SPT Supplemental Course — How Should One Deepen Knowledge? Learning Through Practice“).
Had I taken it as planned in April 2016, I would have entered the final module having only just learned the basic techniques.
Choosing when to take something
In the basic training you choose neither your teachers nor your dates. It proceeds in a set order. After certification that changes. What to take, and when, becomes your own decision.
Ten years later I set out what I look at when choosing a continuing education course, as four criteria (see “How to Choose Continuing Education — Four Things I Look At Before Signing Up“). But those are criteria for what to choose. When to take it is not among them.
What this piece shows is that second judgment. If nothing remains to be learned as technique, there is no need to hurry. Take it once practice has accumulated, and there is more to receive.
I wrote the same thing about the supplemental course: relearning a foundation you had already acquired, after experience, means that the same material yields something entirely different.
And so it came from the founders
In the end, Module 3 in October 2020 came directly from Bob Schrei and Donna Thomson. The pandemic made it online, and it was the first time the two of them had taught that way.
Putting it off by five years placed me in a course taught by the people who created it. At the time, I did not yet understand what that meant.