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PLAY WITH PRESENCE
Connect with the energy of Now
Freeformers play with our sense of connection using movement, voice and touch to bring us intensely alive to the present moment. This can lead us to experience our situation in fresh and exciting new ways, and open possibilities of greater flexibility in our ways of being.
How does it work?
Freeforming exercises our animal ability to resonate with the emotional and physical states of those around us. Practitioners mutually attune to each other’s psychophysical process - “I sense, that you sense, that I sense…”
This connective awareness leads to shifting perspectives and a playful opening to possibilities as they spontaneously emerge. Freeforming challenges and expands the emotional, physical and creative abilities of practitioners to connect in the here and now.
Freeforming was devised by Peri Mackintosh a psychotherapist, movement artist and musician. He has over 30 years experience of facilitating relational, embodied mindfulness practices for mental health and well being. He developed Freeforming to harness the potential of connective awareness through integrating elements of Gestalt therapy, Zen, Aikido and the improvisatory arts.
what people say about Freeforming
- Playful freedom; a renewed confidence in my body and being P.B
- It enables me to play with awareness, and sensing. It is creative. It supports me to improvise and trust the process. I just felt very good, very satisfied, nourished and alive from contact. I have a global sense of enjoying the process so very much! It is great fun. It is serious play. I go away feeling really good, having met some lovely people in a very direct way. I know this is what I need because I enjoy it so much. M.T.
- I really enjoyed it …the emphasis on expression, intuition, sensitivity and presence was refreshing. Paradoxically, this dance-like way of training is also of great benefit from martial perspective as it teaches aiki in its purest form, and is a great workout to boot. M.W.
where can I practise?
Edmund Waller Primary School, Waller Road, LONDON SE14 5LY
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Practice times are Tuesdays 6:30-7:30pm
Fees are £25 per calender month payable by standing order, £35 per month cash or cheque, or £10 per session.
Annual insurance £6
Clothing is a loose long trousers and long sleeved tops and bare feet.
Beginners are always welcome.
For further information please call Peri on 07947 369990
August 4, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Practice today was wonderful. Yes, exactly, ”wonder” ”full”.
With a focus on listening. Being active in hearing ”feelingly”, we were able to absorb eachother, and tune in. And for me, a whole world would open in each new moment. Finding form and space TOGETHER is so interesting for me. I like the letting go, the surrender to what’s happening ”now” rather than me trying to make something up or rush on to a new moment before the one we’re in has reached it’s full bloom. It can be frightening to be still, to slow down, breath and be honestly present. But when we do, it is magic, it is peaceful to be so open. Ah yes – as you said Peri – ”It is grace”
July 11, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I love what I have seen here! Beautiful, beautiful, and so much of what I love about aikido. Budo is love! We work the same way but sometimes with hard static grabs, for instance…: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey9x-mh8-jg&feature=related
Thanks for publishing your exciting evolution!
November 3, 2008 at 4:34 pm
So often our human poetics are overlooked. And , even sometimes, they are criticized or ridiculed as ineffective. But it takes an amazing sense of structure to compose the most fluid of poems. Poetics are what connects our spirits and reminds us of our true nature; living vessels of god’s grace.
Freeform aikido looks to be an amazing amalgam of structure and fluidity. And if the 100th monkey theory has any weight, Kimusubi is the direction my dojo’s have been moving in too!
Someday we’ll dance together in the same room. For now, let’s dance together in spirit.
October 1, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Guys this is amazing !!! is pure art !!! unfortunatly im in Mexico, not in UK……. Regards
July 7, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Hi Sebastian
I ll be presenting a day of Freeforming in Mexico in May 2012
http://freeforming.net/tuesday-evenings-weekly-practice/one-day-introduction-saturday-14-may-2011/esalen-institute%C2%AE-embodied-relational-gestalt-advances-in-somatic-practice-and-theory/aagt-2012-puebla-mexico-may-17-20/
all the best
Peri