{"id":5400,"date":"2024-12-02T08:42:38","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T07:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insight.yoga\/?page_id=5400"},"modified":"2025-05-20T06:20:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T05:20:19","slug":"open-floor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/insight.yoga\/de\/open-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open Floor<\/h3>

Insight Yoga<\/h6><\/div>
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What is Open Floor all about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Open Floor is mindful movement and dance<\/strong>, resourcing us to be fully embodied, grounded, authentic and creative. It was developed about 12 years ago by former 5-Rhythms-teachers who felt that they wanted to have a little more process-focused work that provides people with deeper psychological insights<\/strong> and emotional intelligence<\/strong>. Could it be possible to use a dancefloor to explore and change patters of our lives while being wild, safe and expressive?<\/p>\n

After 25 years in the yoga- and mindfulness-world I had started looking for a fresh approach that included clear and embodied emotional work and avoided spiritual bypassing. I was on a little mission to introduce mindfulness-meditation to the yoga-scene, and realised that sitting in meditation was tough for most students and felt a bit dry to them. I had visited 5-Rhythms and Ecstatic Dance classes since the early 2000s, but they did not offer the level of mindfulness and psycho-spiritual work I was after.<\/p>\n

My first Open Floor workshop, led by two its founders (Kathy Altman and Lori Saltzman), was a revelation for me. The workshop in Byron Bay had about 75 participants, mainly hippies, and was about \u2018Healthy Boundaries\u2019. \u201cGood topic\u201d, I thought, \u201cand good luck with this wild bunch!\u201d Kathy and Lori did not need any luck. I had not seen such level of skilled leadership and teaching expertise in many years. The mixture of focused and playful, wild and mindful, safe and edgy inspired me to no end. No wonder I spent the following five years attending as many workshops and trainings as I could; and then immersed myself in 2.5 years of Open Floor\u2019s teacher training program.<\/p>\n

I now combine Open Floor Dance Explorations with mindfulness and yoga techniques, finding my own remix and approach. Open Floor has no rigid code teachers have to adhere to. There is an invitation for creative expansion and tailoring the gems of this approach to specific needs and audiences. My focus has been on teaching emotional intelligence skills and self-inquiry<\/strong> through that remix. I have opened my teaching style telling people exactly how to meditate, breathe or move to a more creative investigation. Another powerful element is the inevitable interaction on a dance floor that can be skilfully used to do emotional work<\/strong>. The dance floor can become a mirror of how you interact in daily life, and can be used to find more freedom<\/strong> and possibilities instead of being stuck in fixed patterns.<\/p>\n

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Here are some of the foundational ideas behind Open Floor practice:<\/p>\n