About Me
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Summary
I've been facilitating and teaching conscious dances for 5 years in Devon more recently Stroud. I am a qualified counsellor, an affiliated tutor at the Isbourne Centre in Cheltehnham and an Open Floor dance teacher since June 2017. Discovering 5Rhythms over 15 years ago in London was a life changing experience. I had finally found a space that welcomed all of me and encouraged me to express what I was feeling in dance, and equally importantly I met a community of like-minded people that I had no idea even existed, and I am incredibly grateful to be a part of it. Back then I had no idea that 5Rhythms and conscious dance would be a catalyst that propelled me into a voyage of self discovery and spiritual awakening that included Tantra and is still ongoing…. From the first 5Rhythms dance I was hooked and within a month I wanted to teach it. On the journey to that goal I discovered that I wanted to teach people how to dance, or rather I wanted to create a space that gave permission for dancers to feel free enough to find their own dance and recover their hearts, their fire and their souls in the process. So in 2006, I dived into a deeper 5Rhythms exploration by training for a year with Susannah Darling Khan in Devon. This course was the impetus I needed to leave the rat race of London and move to Devon. When I discovered The Work That Reconnects in 2007, I knew this was another important piece of my soul work. And I always knew I’d be teaching it as a dance. Since then I have become a facilitator of this work and run Earth Beats at Buddhafield in 2013 and in 2015 incorporating elements of the Work That Reconnects spiral. Doing a counseling training felt a natural step so that I would be able to hold a dance space with integrity. Inspired by the work of Susannah Darling Khan and Gabrielle Roth (the founder of 5Rhythms), I found a counseling training that included Gestalt therapy and gained a Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling from Heartwood Institute of Counselling and Psychotherapy in 2010. Fritz Perls the founder of Gestalt therapy was involved in the early days of 5Rhythms at in Esalen in California when he Gabrielle met there. I worked as a counsellor with teenagers and young adults at Checkpoint, a drop in centre for young people for over two years gaining a huge amount of experience and training. Then I worked at the Totnes Natural Health Centre and at Plymouth University. Having relocated I now offer 121 dance sessions for personal and spiritual development and counselling sessions in private practice in Stroud, Wotton-Under-Edge and in Bristol. A car crash trauma and interest in the bodies cellular memory led me into a training on Stress & Trauma Resolution, followed by a 2-year long ongoing training in Somatic Trauma Therapy, with Babette Rothschild (renowned trauma specialist and author of The Body Remembers). The body-awareness and bodywork techniques I learned bridged the gap between sitting therapy and movement work. Dance and movement continue to be a major influence in my life. I have spent over 15 years dancing and training in 5Rhythms (5R) and more recently Open Floor International with many wonderful teachers including Jo Hardy, Sue Rickards, Cathy Ryan, Sarah Davies and the teachers who were the core faculty of Gabrielle Roth's 5Rhythms teacher training: Jonathan Horan, Andrea Juhan, Kathy Altman and Lori Saltzman. The latter three have now set up their own organisation called Open Floor International with Vic Cooper. I’ve also taken Movement Medicine workshops with Susannah and Ya’Acov Darling Khan, done environmental movement work with Helen Poynor, and embodied presence and movement with Colin Harrison and Joanna Watters. I continue to explore new teachers offering new and traditional flavours of dance and I learned Tango for a year, which is all about surrender and presence. My passion for Tantra has recently led me to train as a Tantric Practitioner and I will be starting Fire Dancing Tantra sessions very soon. Watch this space. I am grateful to all my teachers and everything they taught me. This moving body of experience feeds into my dance and movement work and my personal practice. I am very happy to have recently qualified as an Open Floor teacher. Open Floor is a natural evolution of 5Rhythms translated for the times we live in. It stands on the shoulders of Gabrielle Roth and her vision and the body of work she gave us. As I see it, Open Floor ripped up the 5R map and gave me more freedom on the dance floor, new ways of moving and a much more expansive movement vocabulary than I knew was possible after dancing for 15 years. I'd love to offer this possibility to you too. It also offers invaluable resources for expanding our range of experience and skills in relating. Earth Beats came out of this melting pot. This dance aims to give participants an experience of landing in their bodies belonging in their communities and interconnection with the earth as a foundation and doorway to empowerment and living the magnificence of their true potential. (See Home page). I offer individual sessions in dance and movement, tantra, counselling, psychic readings and body readings in Wotton-Under-Edge, Bristol and Stroud. Call 07960 235 442 or email cliona@earthbeats.co.uk for information and appointments. |
Qualifications & Training
Over Fifteen Years practice and training in Conscious Dance 5Rhythms: 16 years - at least 2000 hours Waves, 17 days Heartbeat, 17 days Cycles, 6 days God Sex and the Body and 12 days Mirrors. Open Floor: 3 Years - Open Floor International teacher training April 2015 - June 2017 - 27 Days. Encounter work - 8 days, Ground Floor Lab professional training (Sept 2014) - 10 days. Various Open Floor workshops - 17.5 days: Wild prayer, Concerto (Bare Bones, Anchored in the Unknown, Libido, What a Shame, Human's Being). Seven Years training & practice of The Work That Reconnects 3 Day Weekend workshop, Sharpham, 2007 3 Day Council of All Beings, Landmatters, 2007 7 Day Facilitator Training, East Sussex, 2007 3 Day Facilitator Training, Monkton Wild, 2008 3 Day weekend Facilitator Training with Joanna & Fran Macy, Bath 2008 6 Week long Active Hope Group, 2014 Facilitated and co-facilitated many Work That Reconnects workshops for Inner Transition - 2007, Heartwood Counsellors - 2008, and Buddhafield - 2010. Teaching Earth Beats at Buddhafield 2013 & 2015. Seven Years Counselling Training & Practice Level 2 & 3 Certificate in Counselling Skills, 2007 & 2008, CPCAB Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling, 2010, CPCAB Levels 1, 2 and 3 in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2009, ICAP Somatic Trauma Therapy 12 day Training with Babette Rothschild 2010-2013 Working with young people and students for 2 Years at Checkpoint in Torquay and 1 Year at Plymouth University. Working with adults in private practice in Totnes and Ashburton for 2 years. 5 Years Tantric Training and Experience 3 years Soul Mate Training with Ma Ananda Sarita and Geho 2002-2005. 121 practice 5 years. Level 1 Sexual Spiritual Shamanic Experience with ISTA, the International School of Temple Arts, May 2017. 3 month Sexual Spiritual Shamanic Practitioner Training with ISTA, June 2017-Sept 2017 ongoing. Fire Dancing Tantra beginning August 2017. Watch This Space and Earth Beats Facebook group |