What is Healing Dance?

Healing Dance is an holistic, aquatic technique developed by Alexander George in 1993. It consists today of eleven trainings. In eight of these, techniques are taught in which the receiver remains on the surface of the water. The three remaining trainings are subaquatic, featuring a variety of submergings with the receiver wearing a nose clip. The guiding philosophy of the work is...

How does it work?

Healing Dance has many aspects, all based on the healing power of movement. The practitioner establishes an empathetic connection with the receiver and is trained to mirror any incipient kinetic impulses. He establishes a rhythmic field at the beginning of the session through his breath, movement and state of mind. He looks for...

...the rhythm of awareness in each moment that allows the receiver to feel the psychological reverberations of the movement in her being. Movement is understood as medicine and carefully dosed, intermixed with restful pauses in quiet positional sanctuaries to allow for the integration of its effects. The practitioner ‘dances’ the receiver, who has an experience of grace and beauty, sometimes leading to deeper emotional releases. Healing Dance could be understood as silent music, consisting of rhythmic impulses of pressure, touch and movement played upon the body’s proprioceptors. The dance is between the subliminal message within each movement and the receiver’s subconscious mind. That which has slowed down or ceased to move within the psyche is inspired to awaken into playful participation. Thus, the healing comes from within.

Healing Dance’s wide variety of original techniques reflects how water and the body naturally move together. Blocked energies are opened up by more than thirty hydrodynamic waves and spirals, as well as various spatial mandalas in the form of circles, figure 8s and releases, freeing and re-animating the body. Healing Dance takes advantage of the full three-dimensionality of the water with broad dynamic movements. A variety of advanced body mechanics principles such as moving by example, creative imbalance and traveling through the pool help to create not only bigger movements, but also subtler and more sensitive ones. The essence of Healing Dance is flow, freedom and lightness.

How was it developed?

In 1990, while a resident at Harbin Hot Springs in northern California, Alexander George studied WATSU® from its founder, Harold Dull. Following the course he began experimenting and improvising in the Harbin warm pool. Alexander was influenced not only by his professional background in ballet and Trager Work, but also by...

What's a Session like?

Imagine floating in warm water in safe and nurturing arms; being rocked, waved, stretched, massaged and danced by your practitioner. A Healing Dance session starts when you decide to get a session after hearing a friend talk about their experience or seeing in a video the caring presence the practitioner has for their client.

Then you contact a practitioner and talk to them about the work. They will tell you what to bring: a non-glass water bottle, bathing suit and towel. Once you arrive at the pool, you may be given a brief form to fill out regarding any health concerns, including Covid information. You take a shower, washing off any lotions and cleaning well with soap. Don’t forget to rinse your hair beforehand so any chemicals from the pool stay in the pool and not in your hair. Many pools use chlorine or bromine to disinfect, though some pools are using a copper/silver ionizer which has no smell and leaves the water feeling natural.

Your practitioner greets you and if you haven’t filled out a form prior to the session, will ask you about your body: do you have any injuries, sensitivities or boundaries you wish to mention? Have you had any experiences in water that stand out? Anything in particular you would like to work with during the session? They will tell you what will happen in the session and how it will end. Before the start, the practitioner will find the right leg floats for you so your body is well supported and your back stays comfortable. They may guide you through a short meditation in the water while standing in front of you, holding your hands. This allows you to let go of what went on before, inviting you to feel your body and find the present moment. Your practitioner will ask you to squeeze their hands when you are ready to be picked up.

Squeeze: they pick you up; your feet leave the floor of the pool and you lie face-up in the water, your ears below the surface. Your nose and mouth will always be out of the water, unless you have chosen to receive an underwater session. In this case the practitioner will have outfitted you with a nose clip and explained how signaling and reading the breath before each submerging works.

You hear your breath and feel your practitioner’s arms under your head and sacrum. You might notice they are feeling your breath with you and you start to relax. The water becomes the vessel, the container for what arises in the session. It’s like a third partner. You feel free of your body, able to fly with spirit or maybe you just feel an increasing sense of relaxation. It could be you have never been held like this since you were a baby.

We all bring our stories to the session to be healed. Even, sometimes without us being aware of it, our body brings its own stories to a place of three dimensional unwinding, letting go of trapped energy. The practitioner is trained to be present with and support any movement or breath inspired impulse that arises.

Healing Dance is a series of moments: flow, dance, waves, spirals, stretches, quiet spaces--not a set sequence. There are principles that the practitioner follows to create freedom and space in the joints, movement that feels like you and the water becoming one and peaceful sanctuaries. Each water journey is unique.

As the session comes to the end, your practitioner gradually brings you upright with your feet grounded on the floor, your back resting against the wall of the pool. As they move away, you can notice what is in the present moment. Sometimes, this is the most important part of the session, as you integrate the experience into your life. Sharing with your practitioner could be part of this process or you may choose to keep your experience to yourself.