Dance of Awareness
Last year I decided to bring my body back to dance. I was eager to move and take shapes; shapes which start to emerge from a still awareness and receptive core.
My personal yoga practice has been changing at quite fast pace and quite dramatically too. I hardly do the traditional yoga postures, instead I commence by laying down and allow the body to express itself; finding impulses, breath and pulsations, I follow every single decision the body wishes to express. I start to curl, uncurl, undulate and spiral in all directions arriving at places I have never been. It is like I am somehow birthing myself again, or like awakening from a long deep sleep. After 30 minutes or so movements become more expressive they began to evoke emotions until I end up shaking, dancing, jumping, or even growling… and then I’m ready to embody a yoga posture or an asana or even to do Pilates, whatever my body needs in the moment. But first I need to arrive back to my body, deconstructing myself, my ideas of myself, to find a more authentic me again during the process.
Searching Google I found something called Dance of Awareness, which is a group movement practice similar in structure with 5 Rhythms but following a developmental wave, which takes you to early movements experiences from pre-birth to around 5 years old. It has five main streams of influence: Dance Movement Psychotherapy; Authentic Movement, Neo-Reichian body-centred psychotherapy; Five Rhythms dance, and the experiential exploration of awareness itself.
The DoA cycle – sensing, grounding, expressing, releasing, connecting and completing – follows an energetic wave, charging and discharging over the course of the session.
When I did the DoA workshop, I have to be honest; I really didn’t like it at firsT. It made me confront myself unflinchingly; all of my likes and dislikes, my preconceptions, assumptions, perceptions, misperceptions, and the inevitable feeling of where the body and mind split.
When you enter in to the Dance of Awareness room you enter in a very permissive space, the facilitators helping you out to come back to a state of open awareness, making you feel safe and supported. By the second time, I was in. I was understand a little of this and a little of that of my Self, and finally I got it; love yourself as it is, let it move, let it happen… it is safe, it is ok, this is the time. I loved it, finally I was free I could express myself with support and safety.
Now this is part of me. Dance of Awareness is extremely good for my physical and mental health. In November last year I received my certification to facilitate this practice.
I’ve just held my first groups in London, finishing a three Friday evening workshop and it was a truly incredible experience. I had 12 participants all beautiful beings, ready to try something new. The outcome was transformational, as is always is. It is something about the DoA cycles, it feels so natural that the experience is very refreshing, like a warm shower clearing up your system, leaving it ready to be receptive and in balance again.
If you are interested in Dance of Awareness in London please contact me, as I am for the moment the only facilitator.
If you want to know more in depth what is all about as it has so much theory background click to the link below, will send you to the web page of the creators of Dance of Awareness, Tim Brown, a body psychotherapist and Clare Osbond, who is a dance movement therapist.
