Date/Time
Date(s) – 27 Apr 2018 until 29 Apr 2018
8:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Location
The Studio
Category(ies)
INFO –
Dates: 27th – 29th April 2018
Venue The Studio
39 Whippingham Rd, Brighton
Times Friday 27th: 8pm – 10pm
(Emma Robert’s Sole Prayers 5Rhythms class)*
Saturday & Sunday: 28th & 29th: 11.00 – 5.30pm.
(Doors 10.30 – 6pm)
Cost: £120 full price / £100 early bird (pay in full before 30th March.)
Come with a friend for £90 each.
*Friday night class is an additional £12 cash on the door
Non refundable £40 deposit confirms your place.
Booking blackman.r (at) gmail.com
+44(0)7899952999
20 people max
ABOUT –
This weekend workshop is a chance to explore, in a relaxed and encouraging environment, how we might better support ourselves to recover, integrate and repair.
Many of us have heard about Fight or Flight. Maybe even Freeze, Collapse – the instinctive ways in which our organism reacts to stress. But fewer know about Rest, Digest, Repair. This function is biology’s natural antidote to the stress response. But few of us know much about it. Or we don’t allow ourselves to hang out in it long enough to get practiced at it. The parasympathetic nervous system – when it is working well – is our ‘off line’ mode, our repair function and our natural antidote to the hyper stimulation of the stress response. So how do we encourage it to do its thing more happily and effectively?
From childhood, a lot of attention is placed on how much or how well we are achieving. In an adrenalised, ambitious state, we are goal-focused and achievement-oriented. We are in an alert, problem solving state of consciousness; focused on a specific deadline, a destination, a punch line, getting ahead, getting high etc etc. This isn’t inherently bad, but it isn’t sustainable. Our culture rewards an adrenalised, sympathetic nervous system state of operating, but it is only half the picture. Biologically, this function is designed for short bursts of intense activity, not for sustained periods of endurance. Yet somehow we expect ourselves to carry on and carry on indefinitely.
Collapse isn’t the answer, completing a task isn’t the answer, nor is catharsis. A glass of wine at the end of the day, temporarily depresses the whole nervous system, so we feel a numbing of symptoms, but nothing is repaired and we feel low and foggy the next day. So how do we develop better habits around resting, repairing and integration?
This weekend, we will dive deeply into some processes that encourage our parasympathetic nervous systems to come alive. There will be opportunities to share our experiences, learn from each other and at the end of the weekend, you’ll have some practices you can take into your life to help you more effectively and profoundly, chill out.
We begin on the Friday evening with Emma Roberts’ Sole Prayers 5 Rhythms Class at The Studio. 5 Rhythms is an opportunity to follow the body and let go of language for a few hours. As an entry point to our weekend, it is a chance to notice how we are and unravel from our working week.
On Saturday and Sunday we will explore:
• softening the gaze and field vision – a forgotten tool
• breath – belly breathing – the anatomy of breath
• embodied voice and voice as medicine
• letting go of having to hold ourselves up – befriending the floor
• movement as meditation
• contact and touch as a listening tool – how do we invite contact that is in support?
• how do we add resonance, depth and breadth to sensory information and feeling?
• imagination and play – wonder as a healing tool
• experiencing an ending – the space at the end of the exhale.
For further reading on this phenomenon, check out this great article on Harvard Business Review about how properly recharging is more important than endurance.
Please note that this work is therapeutic, but not therapy itself. Our work is trauma sensitive, however this workshop is not a replacement for trauma therapy. If you have any concerns about whether you may be suitable for this work, or if you are working with a diagnosis of (C)PTSD of any kind, please get in touch for recommendations.
ABOUT THE FACILITATORS –
Rachel Blackman (Saturday and Sunday workshop)
Rachel works with the body as a theatre maker, creative consultant, somatic educator and therapist. She has facilitated groups in a therapeutic, creative and transformational context for many years.
She runs a thriving body work practice, Vibrant Body from her clinic in Brighton. She is the creator of Applying The Skills of the Actor, a body of work offering presence skills to people for use in public and private life. She works nationally and internationally as a Somatic Educator and is co-lead trainer for the Embodied Facilitator Course run by Integration Training and helps facilitate leadership workshops offered by DPA. Rachel is passionate about offering people tools to bring them home to their bodies and into full expression.
Rachel trained as an actor and improviser and produces original physical theatre works as Stillpoint. These include a multi award winning collection of solo performances, Tryptich: Three Attempts at Love (2011) and duet, Moon Project (2013). All featuring Emma Roberts as movement director.
Rachel’s most recent piece, The Sparkling Darkness (2018), is a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Foz Foster and explores our relationship to deep water.
Recent collaborative highlights have included, as an actor, Playing Jo Berry in The Bombing of the Grand Hotel (2015); as a director, working with artist Talia Randall on her Roundhouse commission, Bloodlines (2016) and as a devisor, adapting Phillip Morgans book, The Hours into theatrical form (2018).
You are probably most likely to have seen her (with out hair but with big muscles) as Chara in The Matrix – Revolutions (2004), but these days she prefers a quieter life.
She also hosts a regular true story telling night called Herd with Long Run Works’ Leah Dennison.
Emma Roberts and Shaping The Invisible (5 Rhythms class on Friday night)
Emma is a 5 Rhythms teacher, theatre maker, movement and drama therapist and deep enquirer into life’s ever unfolding mysteries. Emma’s facilitation style draws on years of experience as a movement therapist, artist and 5 Rhythms teacher, working internationally. Her work is primarily focused on allowing you to enter more deeply into your own unfolding embodied experience.
Rachel and Emma have collaborated on many projects for over a decade and share a deep understanding and trust in each other’s work. They have been developing a practice exploring the relationship between supportive touch and free moment, with Alexander Teacher Korina Biggs for nearly three years.
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.
