Alex Svoboda

A new playlist, Sundays online and EMDR with Alex -

A new playlist, Sundays online and EMDR I am taking a year-long break from teaching freedomDANCE, but I am around and I am very much involved. First of all, I organise our Sunday freedomDANCE at Home sessions together with Diana. It's my opportunity to practise at home as well! Secondly, I am available for conscious dance teaching superv...

An April edition of freedomDANCE Monthly is out!

The Sky Within is the name of this playlist. I played this music at one of Sunday freedomDANCE at Home sessions. My recent favourite. Hope you enjoy it too!

The Sky Within 'In the inner sky, in the inner world, freedom is the highest value -- everything else is secondary, even blissfulness, ecstasy. There are thousands of flowers, uncountable, but they all become possible in the climate of freedom.' -- Osho A live recording from Sunday freedomDANCE at Home on 31 March...

In case you haven't seen/listened, here's a link to my Best of 2023:

freedomDANCE Best of 2023 A live recording from Sunday freedomDANCE at Home on 24 December 2023. www.freedom-dance.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlexSvobodaPersonal Instagram:

The Best of 2023 is out on Mixcloud!
Have a listen, dance and let me know what you feel and think.

freedomDANCE Best of 2023 A live recording from Sunday freedomDANCE at Home on 24 December 2023. www.freedom-dance.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlexSvobodaPersonal Instagram:

We dance every Sunday… each at home and yet together.
According to those who join, it’s a place where magic happens. Someone said at the end of the class: ‘I lost my heart and I found it again here.’ Someone else thanked for the softness of the music that doesn’t push into excessive intensity.
What would be a good reason for you to join us? Or, perhaps, there’s no reason, only a calling?
9 to 10 am (uk) every Sunday.

I am so much looking forward to being back in Sundace, Turkey, this May with a very special retreat called BLISS.

I am designing something soft and moving, accessible and deep to celebrating 10 years of my love affair with Sundance.

Click here to book: https://www.meetup.com/freedomdance/events/291353179/ . Please do so by 1 April as the price will go up after that.

Contact organisers to get a full information package, including different ways to pay: Georgi Budo Risse, +41 77 242 99 99, [email protected], Nino, ‭+43 664 3853418 (WhatsApp), [email protected] .

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Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine is now in its second year, with so many lives lost, so many people uprooted and so many families separated…

I would like to send any profits from this week’s online class to Ukrainian Sisters, a grass-root initiative that helps women with children who have suffered from the war. My dear colleague Olesya Kovalskaya is one of the people driving this effort. Olesya herself was separated from her little daughter for weeks and had to flee Odessa, leaving so much behind…

Ukrainian Sisters have already raised around €75k and helped over 500 families. No donation is too small, remember that! If you are coming to the class on 5 March you are helping someone affected by the war. You can donate to Ukrainian Sisters directly by PayPal [email protected].

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Don't miss this online event if you are thinking about teaching conscious dance!

- Try the teacher's hat on!
- Learn which topics are covered in freedomDANCE teacher training.
- Hear all about potential challenges and rewards of the training path.

The cost is £33 and it's counted towards the cost of our training should you decide to proceed with it.

Click on this link in order to book: https://www.meetup.com/freedomdance/events/291158255/.

Any questions? Ask Tatiana Elinson.

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Sunday dancing with a purpose continues! All profits from the 26 February class will be sent to help Andrei Grigoriev who needs money to pay for his rehabilitation after a horrific fall that left his spine broken in six places.

Andrei was one of the first graduates of freedomDANCE teacher training back in 2015. We danced a lot together and we even came to Gabrielle Roth's workshop together in New York. His recovery has been next to miraculous, and now he is hoping to walk again. Let's help Andrei and let's hope that he can dance with us as well!

Please join the class or/and send any funds to Andrei directly via PayPal - andreigriga.

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Life Line is an in-depth course where we get to know our personal history in a new way - through conscious movement. We do this in order to understand where on the line of life we ​​are at the moment, to salute what we have lived through and to prepare ourselves for what lies ahead.

Embarking on this extremely personal exploration, we will meet with the universal human archetypes: mother, father, child - to take a bird-eye look at our current situation, in order to see the main motives and basic patterns behind the details.

We will also draw on our most trusted tool, the freedomDANCE cycle. Opening. Transformation. Freedom. These three words will take on a new meaning as we apply them to our lives.

Opening is our childhood. At this stage, we receive a lot from outside and open a lot for ourselves.

Transformation is a fundamental feature of life, which becomes especially pronounced from the adolescence and includes numerous metamorphoses which we go through later in our lives.

If Transformation is a process of becoming mature on many levels, then Freedom is maturity itself. This is the time when we expand, share, and give effortlessly.

Let's dance with attention and dedication. So that we can live with awareness and grace.

You need to have at least 20 hours of freedomDANCE experience in order to participate. If you have doubts or ideas about meeting this requirement please talk to us. We will help you.

The course is approved for the purposes of freedomDANCE teacher training and professional development (Level 3, Life Line category).

Dance with me!

!!! NEW !!! - 21-22 January - Vienna - Taste of Live - a workshop exploring different tastes and elements through movement.

!!! NEW !!! - 24, 31 January and 7 February, 6:30 to 9 pm - Cambridge - My Dear Body... - a series of classes focusing on talking to our body.

!!! NEW !!! 28-29 January, 4-5 and 11-12 February - Online - Life Line - an in-depth exploration of personal history through movement.

Please click through the Instagram profile link or check our website www.freedom-dance.com for details and contact the organisers.

Image: A still from a selfie video - dancing at home earlier this year in Leeds.

Click through the profile link to book. See you at your home dance floor!
Contact if you have any questions.

Dear Friends,

It's almost time to celebrate Christmas and New Year!

In fact, we can celebrate Christmas together at the Christmas edition of Sunday freedomDANCE at Home on 25 December, 9 to 10 am (UK).

Click through the profile link to register. Maybe even given this class as a gift to friends and dance together, wherever you are in the world!
If you have any questions, please contact Diana: +7 952 378 30 55 (WhatsApp/ Telegram), [email protected].



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Cirali, a beautiful village in the south of Turkey, is a place where I feel at home, happy and free. I’ve been coming here most of the years since 2012.
I didn’t teach here though since 2012… until this year! We just finished a teacher training module here. I am going to use the equipment I brought with me and offer a short class to say goodbye to this place before I leave.
There are plans to come back here in 2023… of course! We thought it was a perfect location for our teacher training and we’ll have more trading modules here. Watch this space and apply early!

Dance with me!

- 14 to 19 October - Sundance, Turkey - JUICE - a retreat focusing on sexuality, relationships and creativity.

!NEW! - 19-20, 26-27 November and 3-4 December - online - Here I Am - a six-session intensive.

!NEW! -14 January - Online - Lifting the Curtain, a lab for everyone interested in becoming a freedomDANCE teacher, 9:00 to 12:00 am (UK).

Please click on the profile link or check our website www.freedom-dance.com for details and contact the organisers.

Images: A still from a video filed at Patara Beach, Turkey, that I am working on.

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So grateful to everyone who buys my books!

I don't know who you are in most cases, and yet I'd love you to know how much it means to me. Particularly now, when I am writing the next one.

It'll be a freedomDANCE book of light, a testament to the hope and possibilities that come with awareness and action through our practice. In the meantime, there is still the book of darkness available, along with two freedomDANCE training manuals.
Click through the profile link to get any of them. Or, just search for Alex Svoboda on your country's amazon website.

Namaste.

Image: One of illustrations by from my book, In the Rays of Black.

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Here I Am
a freedomDANCE six-day intensive

Online 9:00 – 12:00 (UK)
19-20, 26-27 November, 4-5 December

Being seen is one of those things that we most want and are most scared of.

That is where we are going with Here I Am.
We are going to be seen!
Seen by a partner.
Seen by the whole group of fellow travellers on this journey of self-discovery, creativity and healing.

Here I am.
Just as I am.
No masks.
No armour.
Just a human soul in a moving body.
Just a dancer.

We will move.
We will connect.
We will support each other.
We will play and find pleasure in beautiful surroundings.
We will nourish our bodies and spirits.

Prerequisites:
– 20 hours of practice, including a two-day workshop.

Cost (for six sessions): £119 if paid before 31 October
£139 thereafter

Making dance meditation and conscious movement accessible is an important part of freedomDANCE’s mission. That’s why freedomDANCE Fund offers scholarships to those who are sincerely dedicated to the practice and contributing to building our dancing community but unable to pay in full. You need to ask the Fund to support you at least three weeks ahead of the event that you are interested in. https://freedom-dance.com/ru/about/freedom-dance-foundation-3

For more details please contact Diana, our organiser:
[email protected]; +7 952 378 3055 (WhatsApp).

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Dance with me!

NEW!!! - 21 August, 9 to 10 am (UK) - Online - freedomDANCE at Home

NEW!!! - 26 August - Cambridge - freedomDANCE @ Cambsdance Friday Nights

4 September - Online - Lifting the Curtain, a lab for everyone interested in becoming a freedomDANCE teacher, 9:00 to 12:00 pm (UK).

- 25 to 30 September - Patara Beach, Turkey - Vacation (co-facilitating with Bodie Hunt) - a retreat for gay men.

- 14 to 19 October - Sundance, Turkey - JUICE - a retreat focusing on sexuality, relationships and creativity.

Please check our website www.freedom-dance.com for details and contact the organisers.

Images: Stills from a video of myself dancing at home last Sunday 🙂

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This online class is my response to requests that heard in various countries and cities where I went with workshops when I started teaching: Give us something so that we can practice when you are gone! Now it’s possible!!! Let’s practice freedomDANCE at home on Sunday morning!!! Click through the link on the profile to book.
If you have any questions contact Diana: +7 (952) 378 3055, [email protected]

HOW DOES IT WORK?

We use Zoom, and you will need to have it installed on your computer, iPad or mobile phone. It's best to use a computer to engage more fully. Ideally, you'd want to connect your computer to a sound system or a speaker; this will give you a better sound to dance to.

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO JOIN?

Step 1 - Pay here: https://meetu.ps/e/LhSFH/259rw/i
Step 2 - We will send a Zoom link to your email that you provide when you pay.

WHAT IS THE COST?
£9

CLASS DESCRIPTION

Join this class to have a taste of freedom and take that sensation into your life!

• Freedom to move your body without learned steps or routines;

• Freedom to let go of comparisons, judgments and criticisms;

• Freedom to be yourself and connect with others.

Each time, your dance is your unique experience. And yet, it is done in a great company. You get lots of permission to do what’s true for you and enough support be reassured and relaxed.

Our class is a shared journey through a dance cycle of Opening, Transformation and Freedom:

· First, we open our bodies to move with breath, weight, space and each other;

· Then, we let our dance develop and transform, releasing old patterns and finding new ways to move and relate to ourselves and others;

· Finally, there is time to integrate our experience and feel the freedom to grow our dance and share it with others and space.


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This workshop is a safe space for exploring our creative life-force energy through conscious movement. This energy which expresses itself, among other things, through sexuality, is a juice that flows through each of us. Finally, here is an advanced freedomDANCE retreat that really focuses on these theme.

We will do everything possible to ensure that you feel safe exploring topics that are often highly personal and sensitive:

- We will take time to get to know each other through dance and create an atmosphere of trust;

- We will be in a company of people who share familiarity with conscious movement (hence, the pre-requisites);

- We will be guided by a highly experienced facilitator.

Dance can't exist without life-force energy. Furthermore, dance often activates sexuality! All those things that we usually censor out manifest themselves when we are dancing. Dancing gives us the highest degree of self-expression, authenticity and intimacy. Sometimes this energy takes over us, highjacks our brains. What does it all mean? What do I do with this creative-sexual energy that arises on the dance floor? What can be done with it so that enriches our experience and helps us grow? The same energy is a catalyst in our relationships outside the dance floor. How much do we know about attraction, contact and ultimate intimacy? Do we know what activates this energy? What is acceptable for us, what serves us and what doesn't? How can we express our sexual preferences so that our partner 'gets it'?

PRE-REQUISITES This retreat is classified as 18 hours of Level 3 (JUICE category) and has been approved as part of freedomDANCE teacher training. You need to have 20 hours of prior freedomDANCE practice in order to participate. Please do speak to us if you are not sure and we will help you to fulfil this requirement.

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Dance with me!

- 29 July - Cambridge - freedomDANCE @ Cambsdance Friday Nights

- 7 August, 9 to 10 am (UK) - Online - freedomDANCE at Home
4 September - Online - Lifting the Curtain, a lab for everyone interested in becoming a freedomDANCE teacher, 9:00 to 12:00 pm (UK).

- 25 to 30 September - Patara Beach, Turkey - Vacation (co-facilitating with Bodie Hunt) - a retreat for gay men.

- 14 to 19 October - Sundance, Turkey - JUICE (co-facilitating with Julia Malik) - a retreat focusing on sexuality, relationships and creativity.

Please check our website www.freedom-dance.com for details and contact the organisers.

Photo from Atsitsa Skyros Holidays centre by Carolyn Stenhouse.

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Dance to wake up!

During my recent studies of transpersonal psychology, we were looking at the characteristics of 'awakening experiences.' They included:

- positive affective states
- intensified perception
- altered time perception
- a sense of connection
- compassion
- deeper knowing
- inner quietness

I could have described my experience on the dance floor in exactly the same terms!

Then, there was also an example of an awakening experience that happened during Morris dancing. One of the dancers was saying that it felt as if the group of six dancers became one. And, again, it's such frequent occurrence in ‘well-danced’ freedomDANCE groups, particularly as we are moving from Transformation into Freedom.

We move very actively around and between each other and travel through the space without ever bumping into each other. My dancers often report that they are surprised that this kind of synchronicity, connection, and oneness is even possible. And being my old sentimental me, I often have tears in my eyes witnessing this harmony and beauty as a teacher.

Perhaps, the word ‘awakening’ is not the best description. But then, I remember a poem by the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko (1845):

It's terrible to lie in chains,

To rot in dungeon deep,

But it's still worse, when you are free

To sleep and sleep and sleep
-
 And then forever close your eyes

And leave not even a trace,

So that the fact you lived or died

No whit of difference makes!

Dancing is indeed something that wakes you up. I know that for sure!

Images: Morris dancing photographed by Gareth Iwan Jones, a still from a freedomDANCE video, self-portrait by Taras Shevchenko.

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Before my right hip started to give up, dancing was a pure joy for me. As if I was a fish who had to spend most of the time on earth and then was released into water, my natural habitat, for a couple of hours… Maybe there was some discomfort, resistance, distracting thoughts... they definitely did not occupy more than 5 per cent of the class duration.

The way I practice now is very different. It's not unusual that am struggling with something for 90 per cent of the time. I need to pay very close attention to my hip and how it’s affected by my movements. With that come all sorts of thoughts and emotions about my limitations and what I have lost as a dancer. It sounds quite sad, right? Suffering while practicing what I offer to others as a liberating experience. Well, there are always those 10 per cent of the time when all the resistances, all the suffering and even all the thoughts themselves fall away... and then I am free.

Moments of this freedom typically come in Transformation already. I found a new way of releasing that is safe for my hip. It's mostly shaking. I can relax there. A real miracle, however, happens when we move into Freedom. It feels as if I am lifted up, as if I don’t have any weight, as if I am carried around by the air. What happens is very subtle and almost incomprehensible. Yet it’s real. I can expand and move across the space. All without causing any distress for my hip. I am sure my weight remains the same. Yet, on the energetic level, there’s lightness and even emptiness inside of me that allow this kind of movement to happen.

Believe me, those 10 per cent of the class time are worth the hard work and the struggle!

Why would I recommend to come to our Lifting the Curtain lab?

First of all, it’s a unique opportunity to experience both sides of our practice - not only as a participant but also as a teacher! We get the most positive feedback about this aspect of the lab. It turns out to be a very revealing experience that often produces unexpected insights and creates greater clarity about what teaching freedomDANCE may involve.

Come along even if you have already decided that you are going to train with us. These labs give us space to talk through all the practicalities of what it takes to certify. Doing a training as not as easy and carefree as coming to one of our classes or workshops. It takes a lot of discipline and commitment to train as a freedomDANCE teacher and it’s best to know in advance what the exact requirements are.

Also, the money that you pay for the lab is counted towards the cost of the training module. We make this offer because we want you to be fully informed about the training before you commit time, money and other resources to it. Please do take advantage of this opportunity that is available only every couple of months.

The next training is on 18 June 2022, 9 am to 12 noon (UK). Get in touch with Tatiana Elinson if you have any questions.