‘Meeting the breath’: half-day workshops

These half-day group workshops are a starting point for those interested in experiencing how, in a practice of Middendorf breathwork, breath that is allowed to come and go on its own can be encountered through presence and bodily sensation. Middendorf breathwork is complex and multilayered but it is possible to begin to develop one’s own practice from the outset.

The workshops are led by Middendorf practitioner, John Howard.

Half-day group workshops are offered from 1 pm to 4.30 pm on the third Saturday of each month. There are two sessions of about 75 minutes each with a half-hour break for afternoon tea.  The dates for the first quarter of 2012 are:

• Saturday 21 January 1-4.30pm
• Saturday 18 February 1-4.30pm
• Saturday 17 March 1-4.30pm

Cost: These workshops are now conducted on the basis of ‘pay as you feel’. There is a container for payments and receipts available. The workshops were previously $60 full, $45 concession.

Where: Body Voice Centre, 50 Wolverhampton St, Footscray.

Bookings & further details: email info@bodyvoice.com.au

Please advise if you intend to attend so that we can notify you in the unlikely event of needing to cancel a session.

Group workshops usually begin with everyone sitting on flat-topped stools taking some time to place their hands on their torsos and sense the movements of their bodies with their breath as they let it come and go; not trying to make it bigger or smaller, faster or slower, allowing it to be as it is in the moment. There is a shift from the dominance of thinking to that of sensing - perceiving sensations of movement, perhaps also of warmth or coolness, of hardness or softness of bone, muscle, flesh. Experiential breathwork focuses mainly on sensing while also allowing time for reflection and integration through periods of rest.

Much of the work is conducted in three part sequences where there is first a movement or activity, second a time to sense what has changed as a result of the activity, and third a rest. Activities include a wide range of movements, vowel soundings, and work with pressure points. They encompass both structured  movement sequences and free-form breath movement improvisations. The work is oriented to increasing awareness of body and breath.

Read some responses to previous half-day breath workshops here: