Rhik Samadder tries … silent disco meditation: ‘A man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree’

A dance-based ‘soul journey’ – in the middle of Clapham Common? While I stream with sweat and onlookers laugh, I can’t stop worrying about what I’m having for dinner

I’m shaking my pelvis with brio, when a goldendoodle ambles up. Don’t you poo, I think. Then again, doing what comes naturally is the point of today. My friend Beth has invited me to try 5Rhythms: a silent disco movement meditation class on Clapham Common. I didn’t understand any of those words, but said yes­, because this column has turned my life into a second-tier Jim Carrey film­. Now I’m in deep with the hippies. To my left, a man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree. A nearby game of touch rugby has paused so its players can laugh at us. This is my nightmare.

5Rhythms was developed in the 1970s by Gabrielle Roth, a New York theatre artist, but moved mainstream in the last 15 years, adopted by the wellness crowd. The practice involves dancing to five distinct moods of music, in a specific sequence known as the wave, which corresponds to different aspects of the self. The resulting “soul journey” is designed to unlock unlimited creativity and wholeness in the psyche of the dancer. Assuming they buy into the new-age framework, that is. My own personal five rhythms are lazy, dissatisfied, hungry, laughing and a freeform malaise I refer to as Kenneth.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3xQJjeq

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