DiRRiD Training

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DiRRiD enhances your life energy

ð brings joy into each day
ð is deeply grounding
ð builds confidence and rhythmical awareness
ð teaches through movements, steps, clapping and singing
ð reduces stress symptoms
ð relates to the body as a source for healing
ð opens up your voice
ð explores drumming as a dance with the whole body

ãTaking rhythm into our lives is an acknowledgment that rhythm is a life giving force. Being in rhythm reawakens inner resources for living. Rhythmical movements and playing the drum bring joy and light into daily life.ä H.H.

DiRRiD means Dance in Rhythm - Rhythm in Dance. It gives opportunities to study layers of musical rhythm and rhythmical movements. In simple and complex ways, participants become more in tune with their bodies and their rhythms. In learning to express rhythm through stepping, clapping, singing syllables, and playing the drum, everyone develops their own active meditation by forming rejuvenating movement journeys through landscapes of rhythm.

The DiRRiD training teaches how to play a drum with sticks in an esthetic and musical context (Mother Drum and Buk or Tschanggo) and how to use the drum for community activities. DiRRiD provides basic rhythmical knowledge for playing the drum consciously and effectively and appropriately for the given event. The rhythm teaching is based on a creative application of the TaKeTiNa system and universal principles of movement such as flow, gravity, expansion, and relaxation. The dance of rhythm is a search, a freeing process, an expression of joy or contemplation, as well as entertainment.

DiRRiD is invigorating, yet calming, relaxing, and centering

ð reduces anxiety and depression
ð sees movement as medicine
ð helps to live or perform different rhythms independently
ð is both simple and challenging
ð builds flexibility and strength in a careful way
ð provides a safe and supportive field for personal expression
ð is ãphysical spiritualityä

For Whom?

Following a long-standing and successful application of DiRRiD by the European Health Care Community, the second U.S. DiRRiD training for people who work with people is currently in the planning stages.

A DiRRiD training is designed for anybody who is called by the combination of rhythm and movement for their personal development and/or professional expansion. It is especially useful for music and dance teachers, therapists, health-care professionals, personal trainers, musicians and dancers, who are interested in the integration of DIRRID into their own work.

With Whom?

Heidrun Hoffmann is a teacher of movement and dance for over 20 years. She is trained in physical exercises for health, dance theater, improvisation, authentic Brazilian Samba, North Indian Kathak, as well as in rhythm therapy, TaKeTiNa and drumming, She is an outstanding and unique performing artist with many years of experience, and began developing DiRRiD in 1986. She is also the author of the Body Oracle (book and cards), a tool for playful exploration of rhythm and dance (more about Heidrun).

Philosophy, Content of Sessions & General Goals

Philosophy

In DiRRiD we acknowledge that rhythm and movement are both healing tools for daily life. Rhythm is life and our bodies are full of rhythm; not only our heartbeat and breath, but also each of our organs carries a certain rhythm. Getting in touch with a variety of rhythm elements has a carrying and healing effect on our whole being. Movement is the vehicle. Dance and movement can prevent many diseases. Through stepping and chanting, clapping or drumming we enhance our awareness and find ground and confidence. Over time we discover the meaning of certain rhythms and movements, and how they apply to our lives. During this training everyone develops a sense for flow and timing. The ability to listen opens up and everyone learns to stand firm with ones own rhythms.

Physical

Through relaxation, breathing exercises, dedication and imagery we get in deeper touch with our bodies. A brief but thorough stretching sequence helps to gain body awareness, flexibility and strength, a sense for alignment and energy flow. Dance archetypes and essences of different dances, such as Samba and Kathak energize the body, teach about flow and help to find movement meditations. Through improvisation, creative expression, and voice activation everyone finds freedom in their movements.

Rhythm

DiRRiD creatively uses the TaKeTiNa system in order to develop a holistic and physical understanding of rhythm in meditation and play. The DiRRiD training provides an understanding of rhythm concepts such as beat/offbeat, double time, triple time, dynamic, and polyrhythm. Rhythmical expressions are based on stepping, clapping and voice, incorporating the usage of clickies, ankle bells, caxixis (hand rattles), and the drum. 

The Drum

The drum has a central function in the DiRRiD work both for providing the base for movements and as a main creative expression. Basic techniques with sticks will lead into understanding different heartbeats and rhythms from all around the world. We start by playing one big bass drum together to provide the heart for rhythmical activities; then everyone grows into dances around the drum forming Mandala Drumming. The added drum of choice, Buk or Tschanggo, will awaken the musician within and strengthen all rhythmical expressions.

Purpose

The goal of DiRRiD is to embody rhythm in order to find personal strength and healing, and to find ways to integrate DiRRiD into life and/or a profession. The usage of The Body Oracle as an individual and group process will help develop the ability to create movement journeys through landscapes of rhythm, which means turning a simple movement and/or rhythm into an experience that provides grounding and physical connectedness.

Format of the DiRRiD Training

Two seven-day training sets per year, starting Saturdays at 5:00pm through the following Saturday at 2:00pm. The mornings are dedicated to the whole DiRRiD work; the afternoons focus on drumming.

An optional third drumming meeting will be offered between the two training sets.

The first year emphasizes personal experience, while the second and third years focus on how to introduce DiRRiD to others.

The recommended process takes three years. After each year each individual can decide on what level to continue.

Rhythm is a powerful life teacher. It takes time to develop an integrated relationship with oneâs own ability to express rhythm, especially when obstacles need to be overcome (perhaps you were told you were unrhythmical, not able to dance or sing). In DiRRiD, often profound reframing takes place that sets a new beginning point in students. DiRRiD supports the place to slow down, to move in depth, and develop clarity in oneâs rhythmical expression.

The allowance for time is a good base to continue diving deeper. Exposure to rhythm activities and dances throughout this time will enrich the integration of DiRRiD. Techniques learned in DiRRiD are of value all life long, no matter what age, providing flexibility and life energy.

General Structure of the DiRRiD Training

After the first year, new members will join the process. Past DiRRiD students may join the group sporadically and may schedule for their teaching demonstration from which the newer students will learn by offering feedback.

The first year focuses on personal experiences with rhythm, finding out about oneâs own body, discovering ways with the drum, getting loose and confident, becoming free, opening up.

After the first two meetings everyone should start their own drum meetings to share and apply the learned concepts. To have a partner or a friend with you in the training often intensifies the learning process, especially for the joy of sharing.

The second year gears towards sharing and learning how to provide a comfortable environment for the DiRRiD work, growing into confidence, gradually moving forward with your own expression, group sharings, creating dances and rhythms.

The third year is the graduation year preparing for further experience of creating and leading sequences of movement journeys, getting and giving feedback. The final teaching demonstration includes a 20-minute concert and a 1 1/2 hour long movement journey through a variety of rhythms that may incorporate any former skills that apply.

General guideline criteria: ability to listen, intention, clarity, energy level (fun, depth, effect).

Practices

Exercises will be given for deepening the process between meetings and preparing for the next step. To practice at least one hour each day, if enjoyed and done out of desire, is recommended. This can be more or less depending upon the assignments for writings and small presentations. Preparation for small presentations such as movement journeys, playing the drum, lectures, and presenting your own work (if applicable) is requested. It is also requested to do further studies of other rhythmical dances in the studentâs hometown to broaden the rhythmical impact.

Requirements for Training

DiRRiD basic equipment: a journal, tape recorder, ankle bells, clickies, caxixis, sticks, a frame drum, The Body Oracle, one or two drums after the first seven-day training set (depending upon which drum is chosen, Buk or Tschanggo.) A reading list will be handed out in the first set.

Voices from the last DiRRiD Training:

ð ãDiRRiD has given me a place to explore parts of myself that had nowhere else to emerge.ä
Holly Blue Hawkins, Author of ãThe Heart of the Circle: A Guide to Drummingä

ð ãI have a deeper relationship to my body, and a deeper sense of myself in the world.ä
Debra Houston, Psychotherapist

ð ãI found profound healing around my family's energetic pattern. I feel more connected to Mother Earth.ä
Deborah Marie Diamond, Spiritual Healer

ð ãI have learned how I connect to the earth, to the space around me, with others.ä
SatI, Hawaiian Massage Therapist

ð ãI feel musical, rhythmic and coordinated for the first time in my life, and I have much more body confidence.ä
Michelle Indianer, Integrative Psychiatrist

First Year

Cycle One:

Dances of the Elemental Powers of Rhythm in: Pulsation, Cycle, Tempo, Offbeat

 

Optional:

Focus on Buk/Tschanggo drumming

 

Cycle Two:

Rhythmical Simultaneity in Dance: The Beauty of Polyrhythm

 

Second & Third Years

Dates in the following two years will be similar. Further themes will focus on: 

Location

Pajaro Dunes, Monterey Bay, California

	The location chosen is the ocean-side retreat of Pajaro Dunes, situated on a wildlife sanctuary at the mouth of the Pajaro River on Monterey Bay, California. In this relaxing vacation atmosphere, it is possible to learn in close connection to nature.
The surrounding area provides plenty of room to roam in a beautiful setting and reflect upon the experiences of the day.

If you are interested in joining the training, please contact us as soon as possible to reserve a space.