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Introduction to Healing Dance Basic Healing Dance Advanced Healing Dance Healing Dance Above and Below Healing Dance Shape and Space
Click on these links for PDF versions of the Healing Dance® training manuals
Introduction to Healing Dance Written Manual
Basic Healing Dance Written Manual
Advanced Healing Dance Written Manual
Above and Below Written Manual
Shape and Space Written Manual
Excerpts from Lao-Tzu A Short History and Overview of Healing Dance The Healing Dance Trainings Terminology The Technique Body Mechanics Finessing the Head Suggestions for Beginning a Session Movement as Medicine Flow, Movement, Positions and Transitions Lightness, Weightlessness and Sensitivity Rhythm Breath Channeling Principles of Sequence Principles of Improvisation Presence Inika's Warm-up A Conversation with Marja Pijpers and Saskia van Rees Above and Below Shape and Space The Hydrodynamic Body in Passive Motion Introduction The Water Body The Passive Body The Hydrodynamic Body Levering the Body The Sources of Aquatic Movement An Analysis of Ten Foundation Moves |
Healing Dance® is a powerful and beautiful technique developed by Alexander in 1993, incorporating elements of Watsu, WaterDance, Trager Work, and dance. It consists of five trainings, Introduction to Healing Dance, Basic Healing Dance, Advanced Healing Dance and the two underwater trainings—Above and Below and Shape and Space. The Healing Dance is primarily based on wave movements for the entire body, and also includes quiet embraces, releases, tractions, smooth transitions and massage, all woven together in an unending flow. The guiding philosophy of the work is that movement is the "medicine" and in the experience of "received dance" the healing process in the body is activated. Students learn to create the sensation of lightness and flying, to generate a rhythmic field, to find the various "rhythms of awareness" for clients and even to channel movement. Physical and emotional blockages are resolved in the polarity between freedom and security. Advanced body mechanics are taught to create movements of greater subtlety and sensitivity. As the vocabulary of movements expands students become more confident to improvise and better respond to the needs of the client. 
In Basic Healing Dance the entire session takes place above the surface of the water, yet it elicits many of the same responses experienced in a WaterDance session. The giver enjoys the pleasure of her or his own dance, bringing the grace of movement to the receiver. The form follows the natural tendencies of the body moving in water in a variety of waves, circles and figure eight’s with the legs free to experience the sensation of the water flowing past. Positional sanctuaries, releases, creative stretches, and transitions, including the Matador, are part of this level. Students learn the principles of relating and mirroring, moving by example, generating a rhythmic field, and applying advanced body mechanics to be able to travel smoothly across the pool to create "virtual currents". 
Advanced Healing Dance builds on the moves and positions already learned in Basic Healing Dance and adds in spirals, new bodywork and mini-sequences, including Seaweed II for working the upper body, Arabesque for its strong stretches and flying circles, the tender, low key Chagal, and stepwork. Also included in this class are exercises to help students improvise in their work. Ideas for sequencing a Healing Dance session are discussed, and the concept of channeling movement is explored. 
This class is designed to bring the principles of Healing Dance into the underwater experience. Maintaining flow above and below the surface is integral; the material explores how to smooth out the moment of submerging and surfacing. When rhythm, movement shape and body position are pre-set at the surface, the receiver experiences a less radical change at the moment of submerging. The coursework begins taking Watsu’s Basic Moves under water and extends this idea to the whole session, introducing a variety of takedown moves from the repertoire of the Healing Dance. From the feedback of practitioners working with Healing Dance Above and Below we know that it is indeed making going under possible for people previously unable to allow themselves to be submerged. Taking the moves below the surface becomes a fluid dance, bringing the receiver to a place where there is no need of breath and bringing the giver to a joy in movement and presence. This class offers a toolbox of moves that are simple, elegant and intriguing to enrich your experience in the water.
This training is based on material Alexander had developed as early as 1993 and first taught in the US and in Europe as an advanced level of WaterDance. Above and Below consists of a repertoire of moves and an exploration of free flowing improvisation. It is a collection of dives arranged in a more or less viable order, one that could be used outside of class time practice in a real session. In their construction, the dives embody a language with its own grammar and syntax. The key idea in Shape and Space is learning how to create pure, generous movement shapes that speak their embedded messages to the receiver. The movements of Shape and Space are rooted in human developmental movement; in the animal movement of dolphins, sharks, snakes and jellyfishes; in elemental movement patterns seen in flowing water, and in archetypal templates that mirror our relation to spirit. The principle of chaos is also honored in movements of a particular quality and in formless free flow as a liberating, re-patterning counterbalance to the ordered, constructive elements. Shape and Space is for those practitioners who believe in the healing power of movement and want to learn how to dance with their receivers in the water. 
