Well, I was introduced to the 5 Rhythms in a seven-day intensive that I went on, so we were moving about eight hours a day, every day, for a whole week and – I’m very well aware it’s a cliche but – it’s still a fact that it changed my life. So much so that actually I’ve been teaching the 5 Rhythms for the best part of 20 years, ever since. One of the things that I’m very aware of is that most of my students since then only know the 5 Rhythms as an evening class, and what I’ve learnt through teaching it as much as I have is that, even just as an evening class, it is an enormously powerful practice, and that it does people the world of good. They love it, and there’s a reason why they love it, and I always think of it as like a cleaning out of the energy systems – that they’re able, even if it’s just once a week for two and half or three hours, really able to move freely, openly, and that does extraordinary things for people.

But I know that there is more. I know because I experienced it right back at the beginning, and then again and again over the years, my favourite thing was to dance for days on end, and when you go further into the 5 Rhythms the way that I have done in the past, there are layers and layers more – there are so many places to go, that we can’t touch in just two and a half, three hours, when there are every week people who are new, and are needing to go back round the basics. So I really want people to know what else is there.

So the other places that there are to go… there is a deeper exploration of each of the Rhythms, coming to understand where they come from, how they move in the body, what they do as they unfold, just really deeply going inside each Rhythm… and then finding each Rhythm inside. It’s a fractal map so, if you take the first Rhythm, Flowing, you move in that Rhythm, and you start to explore it, all the Rhythms are there again, and you go inside that, they’re there again.

But more than that, there’s also the dimensions of the emotions, and that particularly I believe we can start to unpack, when you have the same people moving together, dropping deeper into the practice together, over a period of time, and there’s the possibility of understanding the energetic of the emotions – getting to know, and feel, and understand how emotions move in your body when you translate it into dance, you get to know it in a whole different way – and one of the most profound things for me was the discovery of the degree of choice that I have about what I feel in any one moment, and I learnt that through the 5 Rhythms. I learnt it by going into feeling, finding it, expressing it, and then… changing it, and we have extraordinarily more choice about what we feel at any one time, and how we can transform uncomfortable, difficult or unwanted feelings into something else that serves us more fully.

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5 Rhythms is an enormously powerful practice – and even just as an evening class, people love it, and benefit greatly from it … and, as Bernadette explains in the video (above), there’s so much more…

Have you ever wondered about our other classes? The course can be difficult to get onto as existing members and the ‘waiting list’ get first shout and then, if space allows, there’s a narrow window for others to dive in – if you are curious read on.

What’s different from Fridays, and why a ‘closed group’? What’s the powerful ‘magic’ that happens some weeks in open drop-in classes that leaves us all sitting in a circle, in Stillness, apparently ‘struck dumb’? Can we choose to go to those places, or is it some kind of lovely accident? And if we can go there, from scratch, in two and a half hours… where else could we go if we kept going…?

‘Rhythm Circle’ is where we gather to connect and support one another to drop deeper in the dance and expand the experience, comprehension and embodiment of the profound 5 Rhythms® map. Where magic happens because we choose it, through deeper individual focus, and active and conscious work with our collective energy. While workshops (particularly when residential) are the most obvious vehicle for this, with the trust and mutual support of a dedicated group, picking up where we left off week after week, we enable this deeper work in weekly classes too.

Since we started in 2014, each term many renew and others join us, mixing continuity and fresh energy. Being part of this group will demand more of you, but equally it will give more back. It will demand your curiosity and your commitment both to your own process and that of the group as you join a collective exploration. The map is rich and profound, the landscape endless and fascinating, the process powerful and deeply healing.

So if you’d like to practice some deeper 5 Rhythms ‘magic’, we set off for new terms in late September, in early January, and after Easter – it may not be Platform 9 3/4, but the journey can be as exciting, unexpected, and literally life-changing. There are always a few spaces each term, so why not join the waiting list? It’s never too late to find out more: watch the video, contact us (via the GET IN TOUCH button), and indeed, speak with any current or recent Rhythm Circle member on a Friday night… once words return…

See you on the dance floor

Much Love
Bernadette, Jon and team xxx

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