AN INTENSIVE, 30 HOUR ADVANCED TRAINING PROGRAM
A deep dive into Open Floor movement practice with our highly experienced and talented teaching team, Open Floor Immersions offer intensive personal practice and a deeper understanding of its relevance to daily life.
The Immersions are also an opportunity to meet and connect with a community of like minded movers.
COMMON GROUND
Physical Embodiment & the Practice of Solitude
An Exploration of Life Through Movement for Personal Healing, Professional Growth, and Community Building
Join our highly experienced and talented teaching team for a deep dive into Open Floor movement practice. This 6-day immersion is an opportunity for intensive personal practice and a deeper understanding of its relevance to daily life.
From teachers of other modalities, coaches, educators, community leaders and mental health practitioners to the simply curious and passionate, our mission is to welcome anyone who wishes to taste, learn and explore the Open Floor curriculum and use this work to change lives in their communities...
This immersion will explore:
- The miracle of how our bodies are crafted
- The magic of how they move
- The curiosity in looking at places we may not know inside ourselves
- The wonder at the different ways we perceive the world (sensations, emotions, imagination and a sense of being called)
- The mystery as we reflect on these questions is at the heart and soul of this body based immersion
Meet the Faculty
Geordie Jahner Ph.D
Open Floor Teacher & Training Faculty
Liat Lev-Sokal
Open Floor Teacher & Mentor
“I was aware of the profound affect dance has on me mentally, emotionally and spiritually however the experience gave all of this a language. The resources available worked their magic on my body and my nervous system. It is a magnificent, lifelong practice which gives us a whole range of ways of moving. Not only that, it is a powerful tool for self-expression, and its effects are transformative, both in the moment, and with lasting effect.”
— Simone Favelle, Victoria, Australia
Essential Information
Our application process is rigorous so that we can ensure readiness, and make sure the group has integrity and diversity as a whole.
How it works
- When you click to start your application you will be taken to a payment page on a third party site (Teachable).
- After you have paid the $30 application fee*, you will be redirected to an online application form back on the Open Floor website.
- Once you submit your application, OFI staff and faculty will review it, following up any references.
- You will receive confirmation of your participation within 2 weeks.
* The application fee is non-refundable and will be applied towards the full price upon acceptance.
PLEASE NOTE
Open Floor Teachers and Working Members do not need to apply, please email us directly for information on how to register to this Immersion.
- 50 hours of instructed study in conscious dance practices*
- At least 15 of those hours must be Open Floor Movement Practice
*Conscious Dance Practices: Open Floor, Soul Motion, 5Rhythms™, Movement Medicine, Freedom Dance, Azul, Tamalpa Life/Art Process, Continuum, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies. Let us know in your application if there’s another conscious dance practice you have studied that you would like us to consider.
The cost of this Immersion is: $850 (excludes travel & accommodation)
Includes a $30 non-refundable application fee, which will be applied towards the full price upon acceptance.
- Open Floor Teachers: USD $425 / £316 / €375 / AUD $580 / NZD$ 608 (no application required, please email us directly)
- Open Floor Working Members: $383 (no application required, please email us directly)
- This immersion is included in the price of the training for those enrolled on our Teacher Track
We recognize that currencies in Australasia are weaker against the USD. Please do not hesitate to apply for a discount or partial scholarship.
FINANCIAL AID SCHOLARSHIP FUND
Open Floor realizes that the current world situation affects everyone differently, and we are committed to making our programs available to the people who want to attend, regardless of socioeconomic status. The Scholarship Fund has been established to help those in need. If finances will keep you from attending, we encourage you to apply.
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION SCHOLARSHIP FUND
OFI gives scholarships to increase the diversity of OFI students and teachers as a first step in becoming a move inclusive movement. Priority is given to applicants who belong to racial, religious, cultural, sexual identity, geographic, and ability groups that have traditionally been underrepresented populations in the field of mindful movement and conscious dance. To qualify for the scholarship, prospective students demonstrate a commitment to diversity as it relates to their interest in mindful movement for personal healing, professional growth, and community building.
We are actively working to make our trainings more attractive to people who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), LBGQT+, gender fluid, differently abled, and people living in less wealthy regions, by lowering the price to encourage participation. If you identify as or serve such a population, we would like to hear from you! There is no need to prove financial need.
You can apply for either fund with a separate application process once you have been accepted on the Ground Floor Lab.
Open to professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds, our Advanced Programs are ideal if you are looking to gain new skills to integrate embodiment across disciplines such as, but not limited to, healthcare, social services, business, education, and the arts.
THIS ADVANCED TRAINING PROGRAM DISTILLS AN APPROACH TO INTEGRATE INTO A VARIETY OF MODALITIES SUCH AS:
• Teachers and facilitators of embodiment, mindful movement and conscious dance
• Movement and Dance Movement Therapists
• Coaches
• Physicians (MD, DO, ND, DC & others) & Physician Assistants
• Nurses & Nurse Practitioners
• Psychotherapists, Psychologists, Counsellors
• Emergency Medical Personnel
• Meditation & Mindfulness Teachers
• Massage Therapists & Body Workers
• Complementary & Alternative Medicine Professionals
• Community Leaders
• Educators
• Social Workers
5enue: Findhorn Ecovillage
Mana Retreat Centre, Coromandel, New Zealand
For more information visit: manaretreat.com
Travel:
Mana Retreat Centre is in the north island of New Zealand, approximately 2.5 hours from Auckland City. There are limited facilities for transport to the centre. For more information click here.
Accommodation:
This is a residential retreat. Meals and accommodation are provided by Mana. Alternatively, you may choose to stay offsite where you travel to and from the centre each day for classes.
More information about accommodation costs and bookings will be available soon.
If you stay in accommodation offsite you might be anywhere from a 10 to 15 minute drive from the venue.
Questions? Please get in touch.
COMING UP
THERE ARE 4 IMMERSIONS OVER 2 YEARS…
1.
2.
3.
4.
PHASE 1 Immersion
COMMON GROUND & PHYSICAL EMBODIMENT
Physical embodiment refers to the process of becoming present, rooted, sensitive, and alive in the body. It is a sense of being at home in one’s skin.
In this immersion you will develop a sensate awareness of:
- Being at home in one’s skin
- Beginning with where we are in space, where our body begins and ends
- Breath, sensation, weight, gravity
- Physical movement impulses: how they arise and pass through the body
- Tracking activation and settling in the nervous system, as it is occurring
- Basic anatomical structures and functions – how different body parts feel when we move
- How our muscular and skeletal systems relate to and interact with the other major systems in the body
Coming up…
JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4 2023 – NEW ZEALAND
PHASE 2 Immersion
COMMON SENSE & EMOTIONAL EMBODIMENT
16This immersion focuses on quality of consciousness and emotional intelligence.
Emotional embodiment refers to the process of learning to become wise, resilient and creative in relation to our own and other’s emotions. It refers to our capacity to feel emotion and to remain present and creative in all four domains of relationship (alone, with a partner, in a group, and in relation to spirit).
In this immersion you will develop insights and skills to become emotionally embodied. You will:
- Have a physical language for your emotions, and can move creatively with them
- Be able to allow feelings in, out and through the body
- Witness emotion as it passes in and through your nervous system, and able to track emotion as energy-in-motion in your own body and in others
- Be comfortable with the full range of emotional impulses and mindfully choose to nourish and express an emotion, be with it, or calm it down
- Know how to match what is present on the outside with what is occurring inside you
Coming up…
SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2023 – NEW ZEALAND
PHASE 3 Immersion
COMMON KNOWLEDGE & THE EMBODIED MIND
This immersion focuses on mindfulness and imaginative, creative cognition.
The activity of the brain, and its contribution to our ability to be mindful creatures, is a complex choreography of our neurophysiology and consciousness. When we are embodied and consciously practice movement, we increase our capacity for mindfulness in every cell of our body. This mindfulness in turn supports our receptivity to, and the integration of, our imaginative, visual, artistic, linguistic and logical capacities.
An embodied mind is more than a functioning brain. When we speak of “mind” on the Open Floor it includes insight, thought, cognition, mindfulness, logic, body brain, brain functioning, imagination, intuition, dreams, visualization, and memory.
In this immersion you will come away with insights and skills to have a fully embodied mind. This includes:
- Having an integrated, felt sense of the brain’s interpretations, interactions, and interplay with consciousness
- A mind that is creative, intuitive, imaginative, inventive, insightful, mindful, articulate, discerning, clear, aware, and astute
- A mind that is open to the vastness of knowledge, intuition, and imagination, while still connected to body and heart
- Being able to dance the energy and texture of thoughts, images from nature, dreams, mythology, and archetypes
- The ability to focus on a sensation, a movement, a person, a space, and to be receptive to the vastness of the mind beyond our own immediate perceptions — to create space for insights
- Creating bridges between learning about the body, the emotions, and the mind in books and videos, etc. and bringing that knowledge into the movement and the experience of the body
- Having a mind that knows how to use intention
Coming up…
FEBRUARY 22-28, 2024 – NEW ZEALAND
PHASE 4 Immersion
COMMON GOOD & THE EMBODIED SOUL
This immersion focuses on our capacity to be Awake to Essence and Unbounded Presence.
Embodied soul refers to our capacity to be at one with our deepest sense of self, with each other, and the larger field, our surrounding environment, the natural world, and something so much greater – the vastness of existence.
In this immersion you will use your movement practice to:
- Practice being present in the moment without agenda or plan
- Cultivate comfort and faith in movement and dwelling in the unknown
- Explore, embody and integrate layers of the self much deeper than personality, to include our connection to the largest sense of Self
- Uncover our dreams and destinies, our sense of meaning and purpose
- Find the unique gifts we were born to bring to our communities
- Experience our full membership in the more-than-human world
- Attune to, and listen for, embodied soulfulness in ourselves, in others, and in the collective
- Investigate what it is to be inspired by Spirit, to be resourced and informed by a larger/largest perspective
- Offer yourself freely and openly to Life so that it can move and express itself creatively/uniquely through us as embodied Soul
Coming up…
SEPTEMBER 10-16 2024, – NEW ZEALAND
