the 5Rhythms maps

Gabrielle Roth’s Medicine MandalaMandala.CDR

The 5Rhythms® work is divided into different stages, all of which are the basis for our very personal practice. They build on each other, analogous to how we unfold ourselves. Each stage of the work has its own essential teaching:

  • Waves – Being/Body
  • Heartbeat – Love/Heart
  • Cycles – Knowledge/Mind
  • Mirrors – Vision/Soul
  • The Silver Desert – Healing/Spirit

 

WAVES

Our dance journey begins with the WAVES: the foundation and basics of the work. There is a spiritual force that inspires our dance and strips us down to our bare souls, allowing us to be the dancer instead of just dancing. This power is released through the 5Rhythms in an energetic language that reveals ourselves in action, whether alone, in pairs, or as a community (Tribe).

FLOWING – STACCATO – CHAOS – LYRICAL – STILLNESS
The focus: the body as a fluid entity
The result: discovering the feet and the flow of breath

HEARTBEAT™

We discover our feelings as energy, as power, as part of being human. Old feelings that are stuck in our bodies, that are locked in our chest begin to release. We familiarize ourselves with them, neither hold on to them nor repress them.


FEAR – ANGER – GRIEF – JOY – COMPASSION
The focus: the spontaneous heart
The result: We feel when we open or close ourselves and what all this has to do with love and how much everyone needs and wants it.

CYCLES™

Cycles is a close, personal look at our own lives: Our birth, our impending death, and everything in between. We make connections, reweave the threads, let go of old hurts and humiliations. We honor the people and events that have shaped us and left us gifts, and we reinvent our selves, becoming someone we truly want to be.

BIRTH – CHILDHOOD – PUBERTY – ADULTHOOD – DEATH
The Focus: Letting Go of the Past and Initiation into Manhood / Womanhood
The result: looking at our own history without being determined by it

MIRRORS™

The Mirrors series (Tribal Mirrors, Mirrors, Naked Soul) makes us realize what Gabrielle Roth called the “first-person characters” and that we all play a whole ensemble of these endlessly recurring roles. We can learn to identify them one by one, name them, embody them, exaggerate them, and then – practice how to stop identifying with them. Even when we are under pressure – we can move towards more authenticity, soulfulness, togetherness, life and freedom.


BE – LOVE – KNOW – SEE – HEAL

SILVER DESERT

BODY – HEART – MIND – SOUL – SPIRIT