So welcome to this session on five rhythms dance.
My name's Tess and I qualified as an accredited five rhythms teacher in 2013.
This is a wonderful practice.
It's a way to meditate,
To work out,
And to get closer to the mystery all at once.
It's a dance practice that has deeply changed my life.
Based around the map of five different rhythms,
Five different ways of moving energy,
Which was created by a wonderful woman called Gabrielle Roth in the 1960s.
In this 20 minute session today,
I'm going to guide you through the five rhythms map and give you a short introduction to the practice.
This really is a movement practice.
So I encourage you to do this somewhere where you can stand,
Where you can dance a little bit,
Where you can really get physical and into your body.
It won't work as well if you sit and listen.
Don't worry,
There are no steps to learn here and nothing that you need to get right.
Really our practice is coming in closer to ourselves,
Coming in closer to our own body and to the wisdom that lives within us.
So shake out any nervousness and call up your curiosity and begin to yawn and stretch and reach out and set yourself in motion.
And I'll guide us through.
The first of the five rhythms is that of flow.
It's a receptive place.
We listen into our inner experience.
We drop out of the mind and into the body.
So begin with deepening your breath and softening your shoulders.
Relaxing your jaw and just bringing some movement into the top of your body.
Wiggle your shoulder blades.
Wiggle your fingertips.
Shake out your arms and your hands and begin to move your spine.
In flow we receive ourselves.
We let in what is.
So as you move your spine,
Check in,
See how you are and then begin to move your hips a little.
Almost like you have a tail you could wag.
And then begin to relax.
Then bring your attention to your thighs and to your knees,
The shock absorber of the body.
Take little steps and warm up your ankles and then feel your feet on whatever surface you're dancing on.
You can step sideways and backwards and forwards.
Coming in a little closer to yourself.
We're not just working out,
We're working in.
Listening in.
Dropping in.
Taking our attention out of our mind and into the way that it feels to move in our body.
Getting grounded.
You can follow what feels good here.
And then we notice the beats coming in.
This second rhythm,
The rhythm of staccato.
In staccato we begin to express ourselves.
In flow we've dropped in and received ourselves.
We've let life in and in staccato we let our life force out.
So let your movements be outwards.
Push out with your arms.
Step out with your legs.
Shimmy and shake your hips.
Reach out,
Step down.
Practice taking up physical space.
Letting the beat call you forth into the world.
Letting it move you forward.
You can focus more on your out-breath here.
See if you can align your breath with your movement.
Breathing out,
Stepping out.
Finding expression.
Letting it be fun.
I'm getting a little funky.
And as the beat and the tempo increases,
We practice shaking some things out.
In the rhythm of chaos,
We practice shedding what doesn't serve.
We let go of our head.
Let go of the tension.
We've been holding.
Let go of our to-do list.
We let our body shimmy and shake.
We let it drop.
Chaos is at the rhythm of letting go.
We drop into the flash,
Into the movement,
Into the present.
We let the beat and the bass call us forth.
Ah,
Here I am.
Alive,
Well,
Dancing,
Moving.
Cultivating my own aliveness.
Let yourself move in random movements.
Let it be uncoordinated.
Let yourself be shaken up and stirred.
We cannot control everything,
So we practice letting go.
Give yourself permission to get 10% more self-expressed here.
Give yourself permission to get 10% wilder here.
Like some sort of primal prayer.
Let yourself drop whatever you've been holding.
Find your way into your flesh.
Yeah,
There we go.
Don't just dance,
But let yourself be danced.
Unleash the dancer within you.
And if it feels awkward,
Dance that too.
Tell the truth about what you're moving with.
If you're shy,
Dance shy.
If you're furious,
Dance furious.
If you're confused,
Dance confused.
But whatever you do,
Dance it.
And give it breath.
Yes,
There we go.
You got this.
And at some point,
The wave breaks.
The music crescendos.
And we slip into the fourth rhythm of lyrical.
In lyrical,
We let go of the letting go of chaos.
We let some lightness in.
We let it be just as it is.
Often you'll find after a big release,
After you've shed and shaken some things,
We feel lighter.
Like the goodness we feel after crying.
It's the same with a dance.
When we've shed something,
We lighten up.
So let your feet travel off the spot here.
Follow your fingertips through your room.
Reach your arms up and out.
And as you do so,
You'll make space in your rib cage.
Expand out into a life around you.
Let your own life force move a little more.
You do not have to stay locked down.
Drink in the sweet sensations of lightness.
Lyrical can be the rhythm of joy.
See if you can move with some delight.
Really give your life force permission to come out however it wants to move you today.
Come in close and celebrate what is.
And keep the practice going.
Just because the beat lessens doesn't mean that you get to stop following yourself.
Stay close to your body,
To your movements,
To your breath.
To the delight of dancing.
One of the beautiful things about five rhythms is it doesn't matter if you like the music or not.
You just move what's being true to you.
It's an authenticity practice.
Where we get real about the human experience.
It's somewhere between a physical practice and an act of prayer.
We move with what is.
We let it move through us.
We let it touch us.
We let ourselves be touched by our own life.
Invite your heart in to dance with you here.
Let yourself be moved.
And we turn into the fifth rhythm.
The rhythm of stillness.
This is the sweet spot at the end of the five rhythms wave.
The place where it all lands.
Where we find ourselves left a little more calm,
A little more centered,
And a lot more deeply tuned in to ourselves.
Do not space out here.
Keep traveling inwards into your inner landscape.
Into your inner world.
Practice being present in movement.
And for the next minute or so,
Just drink in to the rhythm of stillness.
Imagine quietly what it's like to move with yourself.
To be dancing on this day.
How is it to be you right now?
What do you need to notice,
To see,
And to sense here?
Give yourself the gift of your own attention.
And as this practice comes towards a close,
Feel your feet on the ground again.
Feel the way that your body is breathing.
Scan down from your head to your feet.
And notice what 20 minutes dance practice does.
It's pretty profound what this practice can do.
So I thank you for your willingness to try this practice out.
And I invite you to dance with me again sometime.
There are other tracks up here on Insight Timer you can dive into.
And many wonderful teachers all over the world.
It's a very intensive training to train in this practice.
And I know that it's deeply transformational.
It brings great embodied wisdom.
So please come back and join me again.
Come dance.
Go forth.
Find your way.
Put on some music in your kitchen.
Keep moving.
Keep grooving.
And I very much hope to cross paths with you again.
And I wish you a delightful day.
Thank you for dancing with me.
