Waves
In the Waves map, the foundation and basis of the 5Rhythms® practice, which is taught by all certified teachers in classes and workshops, the physical practice is the main. We begin to feel the experiences of our moving body and how the sensations move through our body. We listen to the movement in all our body-parts, and we encounter each time, again and again the power and abounding possibilities of the wave of the five rhythms. By doing this, we become more and more aware of the qualities present in each of the rhythms, and how they come through and in our bodies in movement. Through all this, we discover our feet and stop holding our breath.
FLOWING, STACCATO, CHAOS, LYRICAL, STILLNESS
I (Edo) have found again the flexibility in my body through a few thousand hours of Waves, I have opened up movement everywhere in my body, and made many discoveries that help me to be more free in my life. I quickly discovered that I feel most at home in the lyrical rhythm, and I can't imagine ever stopping this movement practice. The regular practice of the wave gives me a reference point, so that I can get a sense of where I am with my energy, and listen to the messages that my body wants to convey me.
Through dancing thousands of waves, I’ve (Nancy) come to more acceptance of myself and what’s happening for me at different times as I’ve met myself in different aspects, my processes, my stories, my essential being with its qualities and the ways the life-force moves in me and with me. More space has opened up inside me with the sense of more and more possibilities. Also, my 5R movement practice has led to more resilience in me and more ability to receive myself and other people exactly as they are, without conditions or expectations. I still get surprised and amazed at what the landscapes of myself in each rhythm show me and bring to my attention in my 5R practice.
Shadows
The shadows map gives me (Nancy) more consciousness and freedom and actually more humour with myself and the ongoing particular journey of me. When I notice inertia or resistance in flowing, I can give myself a big breath and some kind patience and begin to see what this resistance wants to say physically and suddenly I’m moving and getting fascinated with it and feeling more aliveness and ease going through different parts of my body; yes the flowing is starting to happen, even if it’s in an unexpected way.
When there’s tension and rigidity in my staccato, the magic of deepening my breath comes in again and sometimes exaggerating the tension on purpose for a couple of seconds and then, keeping the movement clear, letting the fire of my staccato, in a small flame down, say, my arm, melt that tension, without losing that focussed energy.
When my chaos is like confusion in my head or way out of control, I notice it and don’t add an extra layer of giving myself a hard time about it, add a lot of breath, and gently start to become more present in my feet, my belly and my whole body and, it depends, I sometimes make the movements and shakings smaller or slower for a while or I come down a little lower and really feel the ground underneath me as I let the movements be as big as they need to be.
When I see that I’m spaced out and have a plastic smile fixed on my face in lyrical, sometimes I exaggerate it, making those artificial puppet-like movements, whilst bestowing extra breath on myself, then, I might allow myself to do really small, protected movements and be quite internal in my dance for a while, then usually the fully embodied lyrical starts to come through (this is very individual and different for each person).
In stillness, if there is numbness, nothing in and nothing out, like a stone, I become very tender with that hardened feeling and give soft, gentle, generous breath; I allow the numbness to tell me what it wants to and also, usually begin to notice that, actually not all of me is numb, I notice the parts which are more warm and alive and find their movement, so that, in time, I come to a more connected stillness space in my dance; there can be a “click” where there’s a sense of no longer anything “needing” to be changed and I’m in a rich, vibrant harvest of being, held in the lap of the glowing abounding tree of stillness (or that spacious, endless web of ether).