The fastest way to still the mind is to move the body, apparently – as this reluctant Vogue staffer finds out…
As the slow beat of the music starts to flow throughout the hall, I can feel my heart sink into my rhythmically challenged feet. I cannot believe I have to dance – unchoreographed and with zero social lubricant – among a group of strangers for two hours. Two. Hours. When this idea came up in the Vogue editorial meeting, I was unanimously selected as guinea pig since I am the last person to willingly take part in anything described as either “group,” “dance,” or “therapy.” So telling me I have to go to “group dance therapy” is like dispatching a vegetarian to a steak house. And not a Michelin star one, either. One with a kids’ play area.
The small hall in Al Quoz in Dubai is atmospherically lit with candles and string lights. Lina Nahhas runs this weekly 5Rhythms class, a “movement practice” where you’re encouraged to completely let go and listen to what your body wants to do. At this point my body desperately wants to drive my car home, with or without me. I have no idea what’s coming. Will I be expected to have some kind of spiritual communion? Will there be chanting? Will I – gasp – have to connect with other people? As the music gets going, our group of about 20 disparate dancers starts moving around, freestyle. We’re quite the sight: there’s me, trying not to stomp around like a geriatric buffalo that’s just been kicked in the shin; a couple of beautiful nymphs reveling in their youth; a man in jeans who I suspect might be even more awkward about this than me; a charming old hippie reliving his glory days on Koh Phangan; and a further variety of ages, shapes, and sizes. The full human spectrum is here, as Nahhas starts leading us into a warm-up to the upbeat tune of Florence and the Machine. I diligently await instruction. I am the child of an engineer; I prefer and expect structure, organization, order. On a good day, my friends call me a control freak. On a bad day, I don’t have friends. But the warm-up is just that – about 30 minutes of free dancing any way you want. I’m stiff from an intense session at Barry’s Bootcamp (see: instruction and order) and decide to use this time to shake out any muscle tension so I at least look purposeful, even if I feel anything but. “If you find someone you’re drawn to, go to them,” Nahhas intones. Please don’t let anyone be drawn to me, I think.
Warm-up done, Nahhas talks us through the 5Rhythms philosophy. Petite and toned, with all the elastic potential energy of a spring, she is reassuringly un-hippie-like, a former corporate cog who discovered 5Rhythms 10 years ago and has been teaching it for the last five. Created by American dancer Gabrielle Roth in the 1970s, the “movement meditation practice” draws on ancient shamanistic and Eastern philosophy, as well as Gestalt therapy and Jungian healing. Fundamental to it is the idea that everything is energy and moves in waves and rhythms.
The five rhythms are flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness; each consecutive wave building up to a crescendo, followed by release and calm. “Every time I dance, I meet a different layer of myself that’s hidden by routine and the daily niceties of life that take over your soul,” she explains. “5Rhythms sheds those layers and you get to decide in the dance – without even thinking, your body does it for you – what you want to keep in your system and what you want to cleanse. When I say ‘dance,’ people think they have to learn steps, that they must’ve danced before, that they can’t do a clumsy dance, that it has to be pretty… But once they try it, they realize it’s none of that; it’s about freedom and letting go of limitations.”
The music starts again and I wonder how, after 30 minutes of aimlessly dancing around a hall, I’m going to do this for another hour or so. It’s tricky to disconnect from your body and let it do its thing without falling into well-oiled patterns of movement – in my case, ill-conceived dance moves from the Nineties interspersed with what can only be described as an exorcism. Yet I find myself moving through a cycle of feeling profoundly uncomfortable to almost zoned out. It lasts for about an hour before the stresses of my life come crashing back into my mind, clamoring for attention. I find it difficult to get back into the zone so marvel instead at the miracle of having switched off my brain for 60 minutes, something I usually only achieve by mainlining trashy TV. As we near the end of the session – a moment of stillness lying down – one woman stays writhing on the floor long after we’ve all gotten up. I start to worry that she’s having some kind of fit. Surely no one has such a deep spiritual awakening on a hardwood floor to the melancholy sounds of Jeff Buckley on a random Tuesday night. Or maybe I’m doing it wrong.
“5Rhythms has changed my life in many ways,” Nahhas tells me afterwards. “Even on a small level, just by working on myself, I’m more present to the people around me. I know myself much better, I’m much more alive and soulful in the way I live. It’s allowed me to accept all the facets of who I am and what it is to be human; the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Feelings and getting in touch with them are never on my menu, so what I appreciate about 5Rhythms is that it’s refreshingly free of “earth goddesses” and “good vibrations.” “It’s a misconception that we’re all going to sit around holding hands,” Nahhas laughs. “That there’s this hippie, spiritual aspect to it that people think is going to be uncomfortable or awkward. I don’t hold my classes that way. It’s usually 50/50 men and women, which gives a wonderful balance for people to just come and really sweat it out with full freedom and expression. But beyond the philosophy of 5Rhythms, it’s also just absolutely and utterly fun. There’s nothing to learn, there’s no drama, no pressure. You come in, you dance, you sweat, you leave. You go have a good meal and go to bed feeling phenomenal, ecstatic, and released.” And despite all my cynical misgivings beforehand, that night I do, indeed, sleep deeply and without anxiety dreams. Maybe there’s something to this “letting go” business, after all.
