What we’re about
Open Floor dance and movement practice offers a dynamic, creative tool kit of resources to move through life, fully embodied. We use the universal language of dance and mindfulness for self discovery, connection and healing.
Through a combination of structured exercises, verbal guidance, open periods of dance/movement, and supportive music, Shelley guides and encourages students through the various phases of the Movement Cycle. We start with Open Attention. Take time to arrive. Warm up and prepare the body for movement. Then we Enter the body, enter a theme and the present moment. Next we Explore, broadening, deepening, expanding and moving with Core Movement Resources. Lastly we Settle…digest, integrate. This helps re-map the nervous system and allows new embodied pathways to be encoded.
Since the beginning of time, human beings have gathered to dance. Mindful movement is surging all over the planet because it's good for us. People who dance regularly have keener minds, greater emotional intelligence, and a calmer presence. Connection, compassion, and communities grow. In this challenging world, common sense tells us to spend time dancing. The ripple effect is inescapable. One dance can change someone's day, one act of kindness can inspire a whole community. Students often leave a session able to bring a more generous presence out into the world.
Our facilitator, Shelley, trained and graduated as an Open Floor International teacher and 'therapist-in-motion' from 2015-2016. She is a somatic psychotherapist and massage practitioner who LOVES to dance, be embodied, and play in the field of awareness practice. She specializes in supporting people to integrate traumatic and missed experiences. On the Open Floor, she draws from her training in Therapy in Motion, as well as her longterm study in Gestalt Practice and her somatic studies in NeuroAffective Touch, Natural Processing (somatic EMDR), Continuum, CranioSacral Therapy, Qi Gong, Yoga, Breathwork, and Anatomy/Physiology. Shelley also loves creative process, astrology, and integration of dreamwork, psyche, and holotropic states, so there’s plenty of room for your imaginal/soul play on the open floor in Morro Bay ~*~