ABSTRACT Rolf Movement Instructor Hiroyoshi Tahata offers a method for Rolfers to bring spatial awareness and attunement into their sessions by working with ma – the empty space and time in between people. By tracking his internal sensations, Tahata describes turning the practitioner’s presence into an instrument of change for the client. Instead of focusing on taking all stiffness away from his clients with manual interventions only, Tahata writes that he prefers working towards suitable tone to help clients experience spaciousness and comfort with ma. He presents the Resonating Tensegrity Model designed by Yasushi Kajikawa and the exquisite balance that is possible when a person lives with suitable tone in their body. He presents three case studies to illustrate this practice. Working with ma offers the potential for working remotely with Rolfing clients, which is discussed. Tahata reports that tracking a stress biomarker in the client’s urine offers correlational evidence that using ma does reduce the oxidative stress of the client’s physiology.
Introduction
Dr. Ida Rolf (1896-1979) spoke extensively about gravity – the universal relationship between body and Earth, and quite possibly the most significant factor affecting our bodies. In an earlier article (Tahata 2018), I wrote about ma, introducing another factor that affects our bodies in relation to physical space. In that article, I wrote that “Ma is a traditional Japanese concept that relates to both space and time” (44), and shared the artist Ninia Sverdrup’s description: “Ma; the empty space, the in between, the silence, the pause, the emptiness, the interval, the distance, the timing etc. is something that is present throughout the entire Japanese society, but it’s predominantly in the traditional arts that you usually refer to the concept of ma” (Sverdrup 2006, online).
We could perhaps relate the concept of ma to what is known as ‘geopathic stress’, which posits that certain locales have beneficent or adverse impact. The ancient system of feng shui is based on this thinking, and is used to determine how to live in balance with these impacts through placement and arrangement in terms of our built environment. In my 2018 article, I shared how my explorations of ma in Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) sessions indicate that arrangement in space and time is equally important to our work as Rolfers. Specifically, where we stand in the room as the practitioner at any given moment in the session can have a significant impact on the client’s mood and health, either creating or impeding energy flow. Knowing this, we can condition the field for transformation by improving ma, by attending to space and time elements in the relational positioning between client and practitioner.
From this perspective, it is crucial that practitioners find the appropriate position of the moment before any touch intervention, as that will determine the context for the session. As a simple example, I think we all would agree that if the practitioner stands too close for comfort – in general or in relation to an area needing work – the client’s soma may become tense and defended in a heightened alertness that is averse to our interventions, even if the practitioner was situated right where intervention is needed. Likewise, our Rolfing community has a similar understanding already in terms of the location and timing of depth of touch. What we are offering for consideration here is that there is more than the client’s soma to be aware of – like the kinesphere1 – we can discuss peripersonal space, ground, and gravity through the concept of ma.
Tuning the Practitioner as an Instrument
Interoception through the Hara
It is not only the client who is sensitive to ma. As Rolfers, we can develop the sensitivity to sense ma – i.e., the right relational positioning in space and time – through our interoception. I propose that our sensitivity to ma comes from simultaneously sensing one’s hara (肚) and the surrounding space. Hara is the Japanese name for the subtle center of the belly that is recognized in many traditions. It can be loosely equated with what is called the dantian2 (丹田) in Chinese systems, and is analogous to the belly center recognized in some Western systems such as Gurdjieffian work. Physically, the hara is at the center of gravity (G), but it is more than a physical location. The physical reference point is two to three finger-widths inferior to the umbilicus, then inward to the core. (We’ll initially talk about this location, and then later, I’ll discuss how my understanding is evolving through further study and experience.) Contact with, and development of, the hara is what gives a martial arts master the ability to sense his oncoming opponent’s energy and movement, and to act with those energies in such a way that they can with ease throw their opponent across the room.
This perceptual state that harnesses the practitioner’s hara in accord with the ma in the room is empirically desirable in our work, but rather than countering an opponent, we are aligning with the client’s system and the larger field to create the best possible conditions for transformative work. In my work with my Rolf Movement mentor, Carol Agneesens, on what we call “Yielding” (Agneessens and Tahata 2012), we found that the cue that initiates therapeutic transformation is the establishment of a safe matrix in the session that facilitates yielding in the client’s body. As we cultivate our ability to sense and position using ma, we
are supporting the establishment of the safe matrix.
Including the Field
Working with ma is when the practitioner is able to hold awareness and feel subtle interoceptive sensation at the hara; they then extend sensing to the space around their body, feeling where they can stand comfortably with no sense of resistance. They also note during the session when something they intend to do causes a sense of resistance to arise: this is also tracked through interoception and changes in tension in their own body that comes through somatic resonance. In this way, we ease resistance through the session and use interoceptive cues to guide and clarify when to start work, where to work, when to disengage if some process occurs, and how long to observe the process before continuing. By using the term “process,” I am considering such things as discharge, motile response, spontaneous movement, feelings of reconnection of areas or parts, and increased presence in certain tissues/organs. Some of these could relate to what Somatic Experiencing® views as response completion (or gesture completion), where the body is able to finish a response that was truncated in the course of a traumatic event.
This particular approach also requires a certain posture towards the client’s process. We pay attention to how the client reacts, and work in such a way that we don’t escalate any reactions. Largely through the work of Peter Levine, PhD (founder of Somatic Experiencing), the Rolfing community learned that dramatic process (e.g., cathartic emotional release) is often counterproductive to the goal of self-regulation. Similarly, through the work of yielding we have found that the best practitioner stance is to find the ‘sweet spot’ that allows the client’s process to occur organically – not seeking to stimulate it, accelerate it, direct it in any direction, or suppress it through either our presence or intent. It is a state of flat, neutral silence where the necessary processes naturally arise. Nicola Carofiglio, a Rolfing and Rolf Movement instructor, described it as “listening to the sound of gravity” (personal communication). Yasushi Kajikawa, a design scientist, described such a state as “the place where no wind blows” (personal communication).
The Flow of a Session
Working with ma through hara interoception guides the whole session seamlessly to create the conditions that elicit necessary changes in the client’s body. Let’s consider what the flow of the session might look like. First, suppose that in pre-intervention body reading you have identified areas of restriction, and those are consistent with the client’s injury history. Once the client is on the table – positioned according to the session of the Ten Series, or according to what seems best to help their body to yield and rest into the safe matrix – and reporting a subjective experience of comfort, the practitioner finds their own starting position in the room. This location to stand is determined through hara interoception and felt as the place where you feel settled and also the intersubjective field feels settled. Just being in their respective positions with the “right” ma will allow, over some time, a further settling, generating a relaxed rhythm of breath and a sense of reassurance that allows you to move closer to the client without sensing resistance. This tells us the field is “conditioned.”
Now, based on your training, the body reading, and your sense of what intervention is needed, you may feel an impulse, almost an obligation, to begin an intervention to what you identified as the restricted area. Say, however, that as you try to approach that area, you feel increasing tension through your body. Even moving closer to the restriction becomes challenging. This is your hara interoception and sensing of the field telling you to wait before contact there. So you backtrack a bit toward your initial place and wait for a signal of sorts, which could be that you feel your body drawn toward the client and no sense of resistance to touch, or it could be a sense of less of a boundary in the kinespheric membrane, or less density in the client’s kinespheric space. This is a possible area of contact. As your hands approach the client’s body, if you feel in any way uncomfortable (i.e., your body resisting) just before touching, pause with your hands at that location, but still not touching, as long as necessary. This contactless contact alone can provide sufficient stimulation to elicit a motile response. You’ll recognize when to move on by a sense of your body becoming unsettled, intense sensations arising, or perhaps just a sense of boredom. This is a sign to go back to your initial standing position until drawn towards your next intervention through the same process.
Thus, your initial standing position in the room, that place of “good” ma, serves as a base camp of sorts. This is a tranquil and silent place where, to borrow Kajikawa’s metaphor, “no wind blows.” Here, you can rest while your body resets from whatever tensional tone came about through interaction with the client. Here you receive nourishment from the ma of the field. In a sense, we could say you are recalibrating the tuning of your hara interoception to a neutral state before again attuning to subtle changes in your body tension as you explore what is next.
Put simply, the intersubjective field is dynamic and each change in positional relationship with the client during the session will be felt as a shift in your hara and overall body tension. Your sensing of these tensions will tell you whether you are making the appropriate intervention. Listening to music puts your body into a resonance with sound waves, and if the music is pleasant or has a groove it can elevate your mood. Similarly, there’s a resonance between your body and the client’s body, like appropriately tuned instruments or tuning forks. When you are firmly centered in your hara and your breath transmits a relaxed vibration, this is the body language of calm, comfort, relaxation, and stability that the client’s body can come into resonance with. The reverse is true as well – bodily tension transmits to others in the room and changes the tone of the field.
If you doubt this, try this exercise with a colleague. One person lies down on the table as the client. They note their felt experience as their partner, the practitioner, changes position in the room. I believe you’ll find that even with eyes closed, the “client” will feel changing tensions in specific areas of their body as their practitioner inhabits certain locations, as well as shifts into relaxation and a sense of a comfortable intersubjective field from the practitioner being in other specific locations.
Sensitive Attunement
Finding a comfortable position between the practitioner and client might be relatively easy, but there are degrees to this. In seeking an appropriate ma (space and time) relationship, we are relating not as person to person, but as presence to presence. I relate presence to what in Rolfing SI we call core. When we are settled in our core, it is much like the satisfying sense of the perfect arrangement of stones in a Zen rock garden. There’s a feeling of rightness, of spatial fit.
That is the ideal, and it may be elusive or a fleeting phenomenon. The interoceptive sense may be a temporary sense of relief rather than a deeply satisfying landing in the hara. In other words, once we can settle in a sense of containment in the gut yet not be embodied in a developed hara, then we will find ease being guided by ma with our clients. (Later in this article I will discuss how my studies of tensegrity and embodied practice are suggesting to me an alternate location of deep settling and interoception, somewhat lower than the traditional hara.) As noted earlier, the hara is a subtle center that requires cultivation – martial artists spend years on this. To the extent the practitioner is not able to land in the hara in a profound way, there may be difficulty working with clients whose systems require precise titration. Then the process is prone to what we know in the Rolfing community as the client becoming “cooked” – at risk of decompensation to a disoriented state. Thus, the more the practitioner is grounded in hara interoception, the more attuned, safe, and beneficial their interventions.
Appropriate Tensional Forces
Connective tissues and the cellular cytoskeleton are tensile materials common to living organisms that function to maintain the body’s structure. They are also vibrating materials, and therefore a substrate resonant to the space, similar to a tuning fork. For example, the skin sensation that makes you shudder the moment you enter an ominous place could be how we register an abnormality sensed through changes in tension in the entire body. Many massage therapists and manual therapists make it their mission to soften any stiffness in the body, yet we must take care to not relax tissues below the level of healthy tonus. For instance, suspensory ligaments in the thoracic cavity create space between the heart/lungs and the inner aspect of the ribs by forming a network of moderate tension. In the abdominal cavity, muscles like the transverse abdominis, forming the abdominal wall, help maintain space for the internal organs through appropriate tension. Suitable tone is vital in the most elemental sense of that word. One of the features of cancer cells is that they have abnormally low tension.
What can we use as a reference for suitable tone? The best baseline, as somatic practitioners, is to embody this healthy tension within ourselves. Cadaver study can guide us in understanding organ relationships, but not tensions because cells and tissues in cadaver specimens have typically been “fixed” with formalin or another solution. Even without a fixing agent – say instead there’s freezing and thawing – ice crystals formed during freezing damage cell membranes so that cellular components leak, again deviating from the state of living cells.
A closer reference for cellular tension is to touch tissues in animals immediately after their death. Yet this misses another aspect. As we know, fascia is embedded thoroughly in all tissues, so what we sense touching tissues is primarily tension in the extracellular matrix, not a direct sensing of cellular tension. When I worked at a Japanese biotech company, I was able to touch cells, in units of dozens of grams, that had been processed with collagenase and keratinase to remove the extracellular matrix. Although I was touching through gloves, I still got a direct sensation of the cellular tension etched in my hands; I would describe it as being soft like crème brûlée, yet resilient.
Resonating Tensegrity® Model
I was introduced to the Resonating Tensegrity® Model (RTM)3 in 2022 and was struck by how it successfully combines structural strength and flexibility. The RTM was designed by Yasushi Kajikawa, who Buckminster Fuller acknowledged as his co-researcher. The RTM was designed using intricate structural calculations and constructed with lightweight, low-stretch carbon fiber as the tensional material. High-speed films of the model falling onto surfaces demonstrated an ability to instantly absorb and disperse the impact. Had rubber been used as the tensional material, it would easily collapse under load as rubber has higher elasticity and less strength. Further, a model with rubber as the tensional material cannot explain the strength of living cells. The cells of the soles of our feet do not collapse under the load of our body weight due to the strength of the cytoskeleton. Cells are lightweight and flexible, yet have some degree of rigidity, so they operate similarly to the RTM, which has the same characteristics. As shown in Figure 1, the RTM maintains its structure even under a significant load.
The Effect of Resonating Tensegrity on the Body
When you hold an RTM, you sense an exquisite balance of compression and tension materials that gives an ideal reference for the feeling of suitable tone discussed earlier. The RTM is thus a useful tool for clients. If a client feels unstable standing after table work, having them hold an RTM gives an immediate reference for interoception of appropriate tension, bringing stabilization to optimal tension. (RTM models are available through attending a Synergetics Institute workshop; email info@synergetics.jp). I also remember a case where the client’s session process seemed to continue without a natural shift towards closure; when given an RTM model to hold, there was a reorientation and the reaction cycle completed. I’ve also experimented with using an RTM to contact parts of the body where clients report discomfort in the later stage of a session; this seems to reduce or eliminate the discomfort.
As the practitioner, if we maintain suitable tone through our bodies we are, in a sense, functioning as an RTM. In this state, we can breathe deeply and exhale fully. And the client’s body can come into resonance with this state, gaining a sense of safety and security and comfort in their breath. This is a starting point for inducing coherence.
The RTM and True Pelvic Tensegrity
Taking resonating tensegrity as a reference for a desirable quality of tonus, I posit this model for the body, organized around the hara. The extremities are relaxed, and there’s a gathered sensation of grounding in the hara, allowing a relaxed standing posture. Hara interoception and development allows our center of gravity to be in settled ‘resonating tensegrity’.
The RTM model is spherical, and there is no spherical structure within the pelvis. In Figure 2, I illustrate what I call true pelvic tensegrity (TPT), where we imagine the inner wall of the true pelvis, including the pelvic floor, as a hemisphere. It seems that spherical or hemispherical shapes both work for resonating tensegrity. Kajikawa’s research shows that the RTM structure remains stable under force even when the model is reshaped as a hemisphere, and regardless of whether that hemisphere is oriented upward or downward (see Figure 3).
A New Center, or a New Understanding?
In the pelvic model, the center of TPT is located slightly superior to the pubic symphysis, a bit lower than the dantian location two to three finger-widths’ inferior to the umbilicus. From the perspective of bodily tensegrity, this may be the “core” of the body’s center of gravity.
Now let’s consider this model of TPT as we feel it through interoception. In terms of somatic sensation, the center of TPT feels like the center of gravity, not overly concentrated with sensation. Some degree of tension is felt in the body surface and extremities. As the practitioner, when you stand you wait for these somatic cues to arise spontaneously – this is crucial. They are not generated intentionally. As you come into TPT, you should feel neutral and grounded, there is quiet without stimulation – the place where no winds blow (think of the eye of a hurricane or typhoon). From this place, our orientation is not on how to work, but on determining the position of ma from which we will work.
I next want to discuss further this center point of TPT (Figure 2), and how we find a parallel understanding of this important location, lower than the dantian, in the work of Yumiko Otomo. In her book Taishin-ten Breath Method - Yu Method (Otomo 2013), she discusses what she calls taishin-ten (体心点), or the body-mind point. She describes this point as being located at a level just above the pubic symphysis, but deep within the pelvis, and suggests that activating this point can help align both body and mind. Using the Bi-Digital O-Ring Test4, Tadamasa Otomo, MD (Otomo’s husband) found that activation of the taishin-ten point is associated with higher levels of acetylcholine – which relates to memory, cognitive function, and learning – as well as higher telomere levels – indicating healthy cell division. Otomo notes that the taishin-ten point is not named in either modern or traditional medicine. It is not an organ, acupuncture point, or the dantian. She suggests methods for activating it through bodywork and breath and emphasizes the importance of clearly visualizing the location.
In my evolving process, this lower location is now where I place my awareness when I work with belly center interoception and ma. When I’m standing in a position with good ma, I find that my awareness naturally gathers toward this TPT center point, and at the same time, there are clear somatic sensations like chi energy radiating outward. This is changing my experience and understanding of what happens with the practitioner as the field is being conditioned for yielding work, as I have depicted in Figure 4. The image on the left represents my earlier experience, where there was a gathering in the abdomen and spreading into the surrounding space. Now, with awareness at the center of the TPT (equivalent location to the taishin-ten point), I sense a cool sensation in the abdomen with sensations gathering at this lower point, and I also feel a sort of surface tension at my body edges; this is depicted in the image at right. As I have outlined in this paper, the shift happened for me over time, and with evolving understanding and embodiment of tensegrity. (I invite you to test both locations in your own experience, the traditional hara/dantian and the TPT center.)
My thinking at this point is that the TPT center is different from the dantian but part of the hara domain. (I also think the TPT location may be related to age, that in our youth the center of gravity is higher’, and that as we grow the center descends. With both physical maturity and the development of one’s somatic consciousness, the functioning would be from the TPT center.) Whichever one you tune into as practitioner would govern how the process and context of the session would proceed. My sense is that the TPT center allows a more titrated process for the client (see Case Cee below), and thus a more effective and safe session.
This may be beneficial to practitioners as I have heard that in some healing modalities when students are instructed to expand their perception beyond the horizon, it can provoke anxiety – perhaps from their spatial awareness expanding too far. In yielding work, I prioritize practitioners feeling safe and secure before engaging in touch. If expanding spatial awareness to a great extent results in anxiety, it is not beneficial to adopt. Instead, I recommend that practitioners focus on feeling a light tension throughout the entire body surface, as depicted on the right side in Figure 4.
sessions. This is the initial position with ma in the room (where one returns between interventions) and the centering process. My initial experience is shown on the left, while my current experience, which incorporates the understanding of TPT as a center below the traditional hara/dantian, is shown on the right.
Case Studies
Now that we have the groundwork for understanding, and perhaps some understanding of the role of the TPT center, I will introduce some case studies of clients in my practice. All of these studies use the material we discussed above.
A Hiker Who Experienced a Leg Fracture
This client fractured her left fibula and tibia as she was descending a mountain. Subsequent to that injury, she has had chronic low back pain. During sessions, when I was positioned based on ma, I would often see spontaneous movements elicited even with no contact, and self-adjustment progressed. In the Fourth and Tenth Hours, sessions were mostly such; contact did not seem necessary for the process to occur. The client’s Ten Series was completed in one month.
If you are used to thinking Rolfing SI sessions require manual interventions, it may be a surprise to see how effective the work can be when we include ma and the field. The effectiveness is seen in the before-and-after photos from the series, shown in Figures 5A and 5B, and also in the client’s reporting. The client depicted said, “[before receiving the sessions] I used to think that if any pain arose, I needed to choose some method to fix it! However, I have come to the point where I can think, ‘Let’s leave it to my body and see how it goes.’” Five months after completing her series she commented, “The more I climb mountains, the more I feel my legs gaining strength. Last year, when I couldn’t even move after arriving at the mountain hut, now that feels like a distant past life.”
A Ranking Sumo Wrestler
This client was a sumo wrestler who had been on a losing streak for five consecutive tournaments, but reached a turning point in his performance after his ten sessions. Sumo wrestlers’ bodies are subject to accumulated physical impact through daily training. As this client’s Rolfing sessions progressed, his body became more capable of absorbing and dissipating the impact, leading to improved sleep and rest. The sessions explicitly led him to feel its tension as an indicator of suitable tone. The RTM thus served as a reference for imagery of his entire incorporated resonating tensegrity, applying the RTM in lieu of my hand or having him hold the physical model body absorbing and dissipating impact. As you’ll remember from earlier in this article, the RTM has a resilient condition that can withstand heavy loads; bringing the body into resonance with this state is clearly of benefit to anyone involved in a contact sport. If we think of the Principles of Rolfing SI (Sultan and Hack 2021), resonating tensegrity may be the ultimate expression of the adaptability principle.
A Rolfer
In Rolfing training, instructors warn about overworking a client as they can become “cooked” – which shows up as a tendency to feeling disoriented when getting off the table, with a sense of instability and confusion in the vestibular system that inhibits balance. The Rolfer in this case study, who we will call “Cee,” experienced this a number of times in her Basic Training in Europe, and was given various interventions by the instructor to bring her back to stability, including (1) coordination of eye and neck movement; (2) the practitioner holding the client’s pelvis and cueing for a sense of finding the pelvis and feeling the lower extremities hanging from the pelvis; (3) bracing and swaying from side to side while standing on one leg; and (4) crawling (primitive contralateral movement). These worked, depending on the level of disorientation. Even with these tools to help clients recover, it adds time to the session as one must allow the client to regain stability. For this reason, practitioners should pay careful attention to the pacing, quantity, and quality of their interventions, in general and specifically when one finds a client who is particularly sensitive. It’s generally interventions that are intense or strong, or too fast that tip the client into being cooked, and there may be some who have a predisposition in this direction.
Cee posited that her tendency to instability might trace back to a surgery on her left eye. She also learned that people who have had inner ear trouble may be prone to being easily “cooked” in Rolfing sessions. When intervening in a body system that is exquisitely balanced in compensation around a sensory weakness, it would seem particularly careful intervention is required to ensure their equilibrium is not disrupted.
When Cee attended my workshop on the ‘art of yielding’, she felt slightly disoriented after receiving work from another participant. This prompted my curiosity about how to work safely with sensitive individuals to avoid triggering the “cooked” experience. I observed that there are certain qualities of silence and calm derived from the interrelationship between the practitioner’s standing position and the client’s bodily response to interventions. Even if the practitioner chooses a position of good ma (i.e., one that feels neutral and comfortable), the client’s process in the yielding session may sometimes progress more rapidly than anticipated. What I speculate is that perhaps some parts of the body change more quickly and others more slowly, leading to an uneven overall result. The greater the difference, the longer it may take to integrate the changes. This speaks again to moderating our work so that it can be assimilated and effective. There may exist a threshold beyond which the body struggles to digest and reorganize itself. Individuals prone to getting cooked are more likely to become disoriented when the changes induced by the intervention exceed this threshold level.
I worked with Cee in the class, demonstrating a purely hands-off intervention. From my first (base) position in the room, I attended to TPT centering in my own body and maintaining proper tone of the surface layers of my body – what I illustrated with the image on the right of Figure 4. In Figure 6 you can see the before and after photos from this session. Cee reported much greater mental stability and spontaneous orientation, compared to the disoriented experience of all other sessions. She noted sensory awareness of her skin tonus, which helped her define her boundaries. Again, there was no touch involved; changes occurred through resonance.
My conclusion is that perception of our skin boundary, which depends on appropriate tone, may be closely associated with orientation and proprioception, providing a sense of position. This approach of using TPT and awareness of one’s own skin tonus in a resonant field may have potential for making our work more digestible to vulnerable individuals, so as not to provoke getting cooked or disoriented. It also suggests value because it promotes a sense of safety and stability. To be open to receiving interventions, the client’s body needs to have a sense of safe surroundings, otherwise it will be on alert and ready for the defensive stance of fight, flight, or freeze. This alternate state of sensing safety is polar opposite, and gives an openness conducive to self-regulation and recovery. And, it is important for the practitioner to recognize when a lack of tight defensive tonus at the body boundary is not relaxed tonus, but rather the body in a collapsed state. Receiving interventions that are not appropriate when the body is in a collapsed state, without resistance, can be dangerous for the organism. This fits with a saying attributed to Rolf: no situation exists in a human that a psychologist would diagnose as a feeling of insecurity or inadequacy unless it is accompanied by a physical situation that bears witness to the fact that the gravitational support is inadequate. I believe appropriate tone, including a sense of skin boundary, may be related.
So, we are looking for a healthy skin tonus, neither defended nor collapsed, and an accompanying sense of safety, as the ground for our interventions to have beneficial and effective impact. Any discomfort or resistance in response to our interventions is reason to pause and consider why the client’s body is indicating that it will not accept the intervention. We may be at an unsuitable location, or it may be an inappropriate time, or the body may not yet be prepared to accept intervention, or the intervention may be unnecessary at present. The body should have sufficient tension to respond effectively when needed while also allowing the surface to function effectively as a body boundary that gives a sense of safety and security.
Expanded Potential for This Work
Effect of the Conditioned Field on a Third Party
In my Rolf Movement workshops, I often observed that participants who were feeling unwell and did not actively participate but merely lay down in the room experienced an improvement in their condition. An experiment was designed to examine whether the conditioned field induced by the practitioner’s state, which resonated with the client’s body, had the power to facilitate integration for a third party who was not intentionally held in the therapeutic setup. While I worked as the practitioner (A) with a client (B), I set up a massage table a ways off to the side, and a third person, lets call them Dai, indicated by position (C), lay down on it (see Figure 7). I took before and after photos of Dai; although Dai was never the focus of the practitioner’s intention, the photos show improved left-right balance and an overall upward lift. This suggests that conditioned fields can affect even bodies that have no direct therapeutic relationship to the work being done.
Potential for Remote Work
Interestingly, I’ve found that the approach we are discussing here applies to remote work; the resonance of a conditioned field is not limited by time and space. I’ve been offering remote sessions and group work since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2022, I had an opportunity to teach a class to fourteen students in Santa Cruz, California, while I remained in Tokyo, Japan, and connected via Zoom (see Figure 8). I assigned roles to the students, designating some as practitioners and others as clients. I first did a demonstration with one practitioner and their model client. I instructed the practitioner to find the place where they felt at ease, comfortable, and in touch with the sensation of TPT-centering. While they found suitable positions with good ma, I was able to monitor the sensation of TPT centering in my own body through somatic resonance, as if I were them. This allowed me to guide the practitioner through my own interoception. When they landed on the right spot, I could sense my hara settling down and becoming quieter. Moreover, most of the participants noticed the significance of the right positioning within the room and the sense that it established a safe environment. As is typical in this work, when the practitioner found their first position of good ma, we saw some processing initiated in the model client’s body. After this demonstration, participants were able to pair up and each work effectively with the material.
Similarly, in remote sessions, mocked up in Figure 9, the work happens in the same way, just in two locations. I will have my client resting on a table or bed in their home, which I am able to see via Zoom. I then condition the field with TPT centering through interoception, and explore various positions (A, A’, B, C) in my own location to find the right ma. In terms of my internal experience, the session works the same as if we were in a common location. Likewise, clients also report that they sense differences based on the locations the remote practitioner tests in looking for the right ma.
While I do not have a scientific explanation for these remote phenomena, it seems that remote work and remote teaching function well provided the practitioner is tuning into the TPT center and sensing the field.
Effect on Oxidative Stress
Here is an area where I have been able to delve into measuring empirically. I worked with Yasuhiro Shimotsuura, MD to see the effect of Rolfing sessions using TPT centering and ma on eight-hydroxy-2’ -deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) – a biomarker that is useful for assessing the risk of various cancers and degenerative diseases (Valavanidis et al. 2009).
In our study (Tahata and Shimotsuura 2021), clients’ 8-OHdG levels were measured, mostly after the Rolfing series, using the Bi-Digital O-Ring test (BDORT) and photographic records of the Rolfing processes. The Bi-Digital O-Ring Test (BDORT) can be characterized as a form of applied kinesiology, and the measurements were done by Dr. Shimotsuura who is highly skilled in this modality (qualified as an ORT-Md, 7-dan level). The Rolfing sessions utilized yielding, TPT centering, and ma (see Figure 10). In ten of twelve participants, we found reduced 8-OHdG levels at the end of the series, suggesting that such work may be helpful in reducing oxidative stress.
Because BDORT is not orthodox medicine, I also wanted to know more directly and empirically about the effect of the Rolfing sessions. I did this through measurements of 8-OHdG levels in one client’s urine and assessed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Figure 11 shows a sample of data from this participant. Her initial 8-OHdG level was high although she regularly took antioxidant supplements. After three sessions, her chronic neck pain was gone, but 8-OHdG was still at a high level. Through the Fourth to Seventh Hour sessions, which focus on core structures, the 8-OHdG level in her urine decreased to an ideal low level of 2.3 μg/gCr. Her experience of these sessions included trauma discharge and finding a sense of boundaries and core. It is thus interesting to speculate whether the test results were also an indicator of integration.
Similarly, we were able to gather additional data from one person who attended the author’s three-day workshop ‘the art of yield with ma’ that utilized TPT centering and ma. With this individual, we used an outsourced ELISA5 to measure 8-OHdG levels in urine. Each day the participant exchanged sessions in the workshop, taking the role of both practitioner and client. The sessions did not include manipulative touch and mostly involved the practitioner finding their initial position of good ma and witnessing the client from there. As seen in Figure 11, this individual had a high level of 8-OHdG in the urine before attending the workshop, low levels in two of the three days of the workshop, and a low level forty days later. The materials accompanying the test stated that the average concentration of 8-OHdG is 7.6 μg/gCr. A value less than 4.2 μg/gCr is considered low and associated with low risk of lifestyle-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes, dementia, and so on. The intervention by the practitioner in practicum almost spent the entire time witnessing the client from the first standing position with good ma. These did not contain manipulative touch.
These are early studies, but it is interesting to see indications of a possible inverse correlation between levels of oxidative stress and levels of integration. Given that we generally found indication of 8-OHdG dropping to low levels, we can speculate that Rolfing sessions that utilize TPT centering and ma may in some way reduce oxidative stress and thereby support overall health and reduced risk of lifestyle-related diseases.
Final Pieces
Our cells are constantly renewing themselves. It has been found that under mechanical stimuli from the extracellular matrix, mesodermal stem cells (derived from the mesoderm) can differentiate not only into tissues of the mesodermal lineage (e.g., bones and blood vessels in the adult body) but also into cells of the ectodermal (e.g., skin and central nervous system) and endodermal (e.g., visceral) lineages. In other words, it has become clear that by altering the stiffness of the substrate that stem cells interact with, differentiation can be induced without the addition of specific liquid differentiation-inducing factors from the external environment. This signifies that the mechanical properties of the environment surrounding cells – that is, the extracellular matrix or fascia – play a crucial role in determining the ‘fate’ of cells.
With the exception of certain cases like blood cells, normal cells require interaction with the extracellular matrix as a scaffold for proliferation, survival, and differentiation. In contrast, cancer cells grow uncontrollably without depending on this interaction. It has been found that cancer cells are generally softer than normal cells. Altering the stiffness of the cell membrane supported by the cytoskeleton affects the motility of cancer cells. Data has shown that it can inhibit cancer invasion and metastasis (Tsujita et al. 2021).
These findings remind us – somatic practitioners – of the importance of establishing connection throughout a client’s entire body, enhancing interactions between tissues and cells, and bringing about a healthy and suitable tone to be educated by hands or ma. Having an appropriate tonus throughout the entire body leads to the establishment of boundaries with strength on the body’s surface. The presence of well-defined structural boundaries in the body, coupled with resilient functionality, has the potential to enhance proprioception and contribute to mental and structural stability, as we saw earlier in the case study about Cee.
Conclusion
Interoceptive sensing of TPT centering and ma is a perceptual element used to condition the field for effective integrative work. We feel that Rolfing sessions from this orientation allow a spontaneous arising of processing in the client’s body while supporting suitable pacing and precise titration. For the Rolfing field, I feel it is potentially groundbreaking to have a method that keeps highly sensitive students from being overworked (“cooked”) during sessions, as surely such disoriented states are counter to our goals of embodiment and integration.
Effective work through this methodology of TPT centering and ma requires practitioner development. Rather than learning techniques, we have to develop subtle interoception so that we can sense TPT centering in the region of the hara, develop grounding, and use interoception to recognize locations of good ma. These are the preconditions to condition the field for transformation. The reward is a way of working that is peaceful and meditative, one that allows an organic arising of necessary processes and frees us from the burden of believing we need strong interventions to make transformation happen.
Acknowledgements
My perceptual awareness of space has been cultivated by studying with my mentor, Carol Agneessens, who has also given me opportunities to teach my work to students in the United States, recently the remote workshop in 2022 and an in-person workshop in 2023. Yojiro Katayama, founder of Migamama Seitai, a modality of Japanese bodywork, gave me clues to explore the dynamic perception of space in our collaborative workshops. Further exploration and application came through the Resonating Tensegrity Models designed by Masashi Kajikawa, president of the Synergetics Institute (https://synergetics.jp), who inspired development and deepening of my somatic practice. I am thankful also to Dr. Otomo, who presented Taishin-ten in a seminar on the Bi-Digital O-Ring Test.
Announcement – Upcoming Rolfing Advanced Training in Tokyo, Japan
Advanced Rolfing Instructor Ray McCall and Certified Advanced Rolfer, Rolf Movement Instructor Hiroyoshi Tahata will be teaching an Advanced Rolfing Training in Tokyo, Japan October 8 to 25, 2024, and January 14 to 31, 2025. For more information, contact the organizer, Toshikazu Gamaike, at info@rolfing-jinen.com, or Hiroyoshi Tahata at ws@yielding.work. The late Hokaku Jeffrey Maitland, PhD (1943-2023), one of our Advanced Rolfing Instructors, often emphasized the importance of the energetic taxonomy of Rolfing SI. This class will be a great opportunity to dive into this domain while earning your Advanced Rolfing certification.
Endnotes
1. Dancer and choreographer, Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) was the first to use the term kinesphere, which means the range of movement of a person. In other words, it refers to the range within which arms, legs, etc. can reach. In the terminology used by the Rolf Movement faculty, kinesphere is the area of space into which a person can reach with their hands or feet while maintaining one fixed point of support. Kinesphere also describes the shape of the attentional field that surrounds the body. This could be called the ‘perceptual kinesphere’. Also, we have a ‘cultural kinesphere’ that includes social domains, climate factors, gender norms, and other influences.
2. Some thinkers say there are three dantian – the upper dantian (上丹田), middle dantian (中丹田), and lower dantian (下丹田), with the lower one being the one generally considered “dantian” when only one is named, and the one roughly equivalent to the hara. Hara refers to both location and sensing in the gut. I believe that by discussing and recognizing the hara as a centering point, practitioners can connect with their instinctive intuition.
3. Patent JP4991230B2, Y. Kajikawa, 2006–2026.
4. You can read about the Bi-Digital O-Ring Test (Patent US5188107A, OMURA,Y.1977-2023) at www.bdort.org/.
5. Using the Oxidative Stress Test Rust Check from Healthcare Systems Co., Ltd.
Hiroyoshi Tahata has worked as a Rolfer since 1998. He joined the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute® faculty in 2009. As a Rolf Movement Instructor, he brings to this work a depth of creativity and understanding that integrates the principles of structure and function through a gentle and non-invasive approach to transformation. His background in biochemistry clearly bridges the inquiry between science and art. Hiro’s work is grounded through experience and enriched by a thriving practice. His unique approach promotes profound experience and physical geometric balance. He and Yojiro Katayama advocate spatial somatology as a new way of perceiving the body. You can read more about the Art of Yield (or Yielding) at https://yielding.work.
References
Agneessens, Carol and Hiro Tahata. 2012. Yielding. Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® 40(1):10-16.
Otomo, Y. 2013. 体心点呼吸法-湧式 (available in Japanese only; the title translates as Taishin-ten Breath Method - Yu Method). Jiyusha. ISBN 978-4-88503-225-7).
Sultan, Jan H. and Lina Amy Hack. 2021. The Rolfing SI Principles of Intervention: An integrated concept. Structure, Function Integration 49(3):16-24.
Sverdrup, Ninia. 2006. “Ma and the four dimensional concept of reality in today’s Tokyo.” Available from https://niniasverdrup.com/ma-and-the-four-dimensional-concept-of-reality-in-todays-tokyo/.
Tahata, H. and Y. Shimotsuura. 2021. What is the significance to enhance adaptability of human structure to gravity through Rolfing process in the diagnosis of Bi-digital O-Ring test? In “Abstracts of the 36th annual international symposium on acupuncture, electrotherapeutics, and latest advancements.” Acupuncture and Electro Therapeutics Research 46(1):1–97.
Tahata, H. 2018. Working with ma. Structural Integration 46(1):44-51.
Tsujita, Kazuya, Reiko Satow, Shinobu Asada, Yoshikazu Nakamura, Luis Arnes, Keisuke Sako, Yasuyuki Fujita, Kiyoko Fukami, and Toshiki Itoh. 2021. Homeostatic membrane tension constrains cancer cell dissemination by counteracting BAR protein assembly. Nature Communications 12:5930.
Valavanidis, A., T Vlachogianni, and C. Fiotakis. 2009. 8-hydroxy-2’ -deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG): A critical biomarker of oxidative stress and carcinogenesis. Journal of Environmental Science and Health Part C – Environmental Carcinogenesis and Ecotoxicology Reviews 27:120–39.
Keywords
gravity; ma; geopathic stress; Rolfing SI; kinesphere; relational positioning; hara; center of gravity; yielding; interoception; fascia; cytoskeleton; tensional forces; attunement; tensegrity; suitable tone; pelvis; case study; remote work; oxidative stress. ■
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