Learning My Way Back to Myself

Yesterday morning, a client came to see me from Yamagata.

In the afternoon, I saw someone who lives in Hawaii.

She visits me once a year, timing her appointment with her return to Japan.

Both had previously attended my training program.

Because we already shared a common language about the body, the conversation flowed naturally.

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When I think about it, people come to see me from many different parts of Japan.

One client travels almost every month from Kitami, Hokkaido.

He arrives so routinely that I sometimes forget how far he has come.

But Kitami is by no means close to Tokyo.

He takes a plane, gives up his time, and makes the journey every month.

When I stop to think about it, I am deeply grateful.

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Hawaii.

Los Angeles.

Vienna.

The United Kingdom.

Some people visit when they temporarily return to Japan from overseas.

There was also a time when the director of a French language school in Omotesando was pleased with my work and began referring the school’s students to me, one after another.

One person introduces another.

A single encounter opens the way to a relationship with someone I have never met.

Perhaps this is what we mean by connection.

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These days, I use almost no tools in my sessions.

I touch the body with my fingers or the palm of my hand.

Sometimes, that is all I do.

Yet there are moments when a body responds so strongly that even I am surprised.

It does not feel as though I am making something happen.

It seems more as if the person’s body has noticed something and begun responding on its own.

No matter how many times I witness it, it remains mysterious.

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It took me a long time to arrive here.

When I first began working with the body, I had little confidence in my own approach.

I experienced many different treatments.

I went to chiropractors, bodyworkers, and massage therapists.

Whenever I heard about someone teaching a new way of understanding the body, I went to meet them.

What should I use?

Which method was correct?

I think I was always searching outside myself for the answer.

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That does not mean I have stopped learning.

There is still so much I do not know.

But reproducing someone else’s method is different from deepening one’s own path.

I take what I have learned and allow it to pass through my own body.

I test it in actual sessions.

I let go of what is unnecessary.

Then I look more deeply at what remains.

For now, I believe that cycle is enough.

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Diego and Aldana, world champions of Argentine tango, are also pursuing a dance that only they can create.

They are not trying to reproduce someone else’s dancing.

Their own bodies.

The relationship between them.

The way they hear and interpret the music.

They continue to explore all of it as deeply as they can.

Perhaps becoming a professional is not about learning to do the same thing as everyone else.

It is about discovering how deeply you can develop what only you can do.

That is where a professional’s way of being begins to appear.

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KaradaNaoru is not a public form of expression in the way tango is.

Still, in some sense, I consider it an art.

No two bodies are the same.

Even the same person is different today from who they were yesterday.

Repeating a fixed procedure does not produce the same result every time.

I feel the body in front of me and choose what is needed in that moment.

Something emerges between the person giving the session and the person receiving it.

In that respect, it is a little like tango.

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People are naturally drawn to claims such as:

“This is good for you.”

“This works.”

Therapeutic methods.

Diets.

Nutrition.

Supplements.

New tools and techniques all have an easily understood appeal.

There is nothing inherently wrong with them.

But I think it is dangerous to place complete faith in any one of them.

What is good for someone else may not necessarily be good for you.

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What should I use?

What should I do?

Before those questions, there is another:

How do I want to be?

I think it is important not to lose sight of that.

Rather than accepting an external answer exactly as it is, we need to discover whether it is truly necessary for us.

Feel it through your own body.

See it with your own eyes.

Make your own judgment.

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I once believed my work would improve by adding more things.

Now, I see it a little differently.

Remove what is unnecessary.

Let go of borrowed answers.

Then face the body in front of you.

What remains after the tools have been put aside?

I believe it is the way of being of the person offering the session.