Healing Dancers

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Comment by Sulis (Sara Firman) on April 12, 2009 at 4:59pm

Please see this post about a Basic Healing Dance training with Inika in May - even if you are unable to attend you'll find some interesting background information plus testimonials to inspire.

Comment by Christian Muller on January 18, 2009 at 10:10pm

Laura,
It is good to hear about your explorations with aquatic contact. It is fun to play like we are dolphins or mermaids! I love the old Esther Williams movies, too. I guess I'm just a water freak. If anyone has any suggestions of good water movies please let me know.

I had a thought yesterday that dreams are a glimpse of water communicating with our sub-conciousness. In a dream, reality is fluid and morphic. Faces, voices, personalities, and ego are floated in the water of a dream, swirling and flowing to a deeper rhythm. And the voice of water whispers to our sleeping senses.

Comment by Laura Srygley on January 18, 2009 at 11:22am

Hi Christian,
I have 4 people who get together regularly and dance in the water. My pool is pretty small, about 14 ft round, so we decided 4 was enough. They are all high level contact dancers, and had never done dance in the water, and loved it instantly. Only one had experienced any aquatic bodywork.
I've only just started it recently, so haven't had anyone contact me who's not experienced in dance or water, so that would be a different experience. The first 'class' I led like a class, we did some water games, a meditation, etc. one of our games just spontaneously led into our dance, and we went for about an hour and a half. Now we just get together and play and experiment. It's a lot of fun, and lots of levels to explore.
Inika's the one to ask more, she is the queen of aquatic dance i think, right Inika? she inspired me with her classes and gave me some ideas...
thanks for sharing those photos! My dance friends who are also artists will love them. We are planning to make a video of our dance. Keep in touch, i'd love to hear what your experiences are with it.

Comment by Christian Muller on January 17, 2009 at 8:20pm

Laura,
Thanks for your input. I viewed your website and saw that you are offering aquatic contact. I would love to hear more about this from you. I was a contact dancer in the past and also did aquatic contact a limited number of times. Just yesterday I did aquatic contact with a very high level contact dancer who has done aquatic contact performance before. Check out "half machine aquarium" to see this. Anyway it was fabulous! I mentioned to her that we should teach a class or workshop for the contact community. It is way different than contact on land, and with multiple people there is an added safety factor. Tell me more when you have a chance.

Comment by Laura Srygley on January 17, 2009 at 7:59pm

I have played with tibetan bowls in the water too, using 3 bowls of different sizes with rubber mallets/ the different sizes create different vibrations. It's fun to play with different bowls over different areas in the body, all at the same time or one at a time. I had a woman recently bring her toning device (?) I don't know what they are called(tuning forks?), anyway, on land they vibrate throught the body but they seemed to quickly stop vibrating when they hit the water. The bowls don't do that, they are wonderful!

Comment by Sulis (Sara Firman) on January 15, 2009 at 7:56am

Oh, I'd love to experience this in water! Last year, I went to a workshop where there was someone with a set of seven crystal singing bowls which he played single-handedly in the most amazing way. Then he invited people to sit inside the bowls' circle. I was reluctant at first since I have always responded to these kinds of sound vibrations with bodywaves and was not sure if that would be OK with the observers. But I did it anyway, and it was so beautiful to feel my body join with the bowls. The waves were continuous until I chose to leave the circle and this felt very healing.

Comment by Christian Muller on January 14, 2009 at 7:21pm

Inika,
Very beautiful, using the bowls to create underwater sonic vibrations. I will try. I have just been toning in the water but I want to purchase an underwater speaker to experiment with. I have been looking at an amazing book called "Water Sound Images". It has stunning images of reflected light from sound vibrating water. the text is equally as rich. Here is a passage "If all form and shape is coagulated music, aged gestures of liquid sound, is not the whole world like an echo of these primordial sounds. Would not all shapes and bodies of nature actually be, in the deepest sense, resonance bodies, each one permeated and tuned to a special moment of these sounds, a note, an interval, a tone, a word, a cadence, a melody?"
Such is the world of water and sound where water is the matrix of life and sound and light are the creative impulse.
Water blessings to all,
Christian

Comment by Inika on January 14, 2009 at 12:05pm

Hi Sulis and Christian,
I have been playing with a Tibetan bowl in the water using a rubber mallet. If you submerge it and use it close to the body the sound moving through the water resonates with the bones. It can be targeted to different areas of the body. There was one time I used it with a woman who had cervical misalignment and had pretty severe pain. After a few minutes she was pain-free. It also can bring up old (maybe ancient) traumas since we often store those in our bones. If I contact that I usually bring the bowl out to the periphery; hands, feet to ground and resource.

Since experiencing swimming with dolphins and feeling their sonar in my heart, I have been searching for sound therapy similar to that. I did experience liquid sound and liked it, but was looking for the sound that moved and penetrated my body. The bowls in water really do it for me.

I first experienced the bowls at Harbin where a man named RaRa was playing with them in the water. I was doing an underwater session and with my client's permission he used the bowls near her as she was moved through the water. She said afterwards she had an experience of her body expanding out into the universe. It was very cool!
Blessings!
Inika

Comment by Sulis (Sara Firman) on January 14, 2009 at 8:05am

Regards embryonic devlopment in relation to aquatic bodywork there is the great work of David Sawyer (Prenatal Journey). You can see a discussion that related to this on Bridget's blog here.

Comment by Sulis (Sara Firman) on January 14, 2009 at 7:58am

Would love to dialog more about sound in water also - I just added a post to my own blog on this topic (Water and Sound). Christian has also written about this on his website (see below). I have been lucky to experience Liquid Sound and think there ought to be a US venue (the original is in Germany).

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