Ye-ow. As I sit down to write this, my thigh muscles are screaming. Last night, for a sweaty hour and a half I was twirling, swaying, reaching, wiggling, shaking, flapping, and moving my body into every kind of arc, angle, figure-of-eight and heap-on-the-floor configuration.
I was ecstatic dancing. This can be a strenuous cardio workout, and has all the associated upsides: the feel-good fix of endorphins, getting fitter, toning up and losing weight. One ecstatic dance teacher, Christian de Sousa, discovered just how fit he was from all the dancing when on a two-hour mountain run with a marathon-addicted friend. "I was actually leaving him behind," de Souza says.
There's no significant study of the physical pluses of ecstatic dancing, so I hooked myself up to a heart rate monitor for the duration of my workout. My gadget told me that I spent 54 minutes out of 1 hour and 35 minutes at a heart rate that will improve my endurance and aerobic fitness. I burned up 334 calories - equivalent to 100g of Jelly Babies.
Sadly, ecstatic dancing suffers an image problem. Mention it to the uninitiated and they'll picture eye-rolling, flushed, pseudo-orgasmic people with quivering bodies and arms aloft, Woodstock-style. But ecstasy in this context relates to a trance-like mental state. Some ecstatic dancers are disillusioned clubbers. "They want to carry on getting the rave high but leave the drugs behind," says Richard Clare, a 26-year-old ecstatic dancer.
"Trance is not just some mystical experience, which belongs to special people, it belongs to human beings who are prepared and willing to dance themselves into that state", says Ya' Acov Darling Khan, co-founder of the School of Movement Medicine in Devon.
Khan describes trance as discovering that you've got second, third, fourth, and fifth gears of perception when you've been ambling along in first. This is analogous to the science behind trance: that our conscious modus operandi is mostly beta, (cognitive, problem-solving) brain waves, but we can tune into our alpha (focused, aware) waves and delta and theta (creative, transcendent) waves.
Communities have danced ritual celebrations since time immemorial, but in the west we have made dance into a form of entertainment. However, in recent times "psychotherapeutic" dance therapy has been made available on the NHS, depending on your primary care trust, as part of art therapy for people with mental health problems, particularly schizophrenia. A study cited on the American Cancer Society website infers that dance and movement therapy can help with all kinds of emotional problems, especially boosting body image and self-esteem while reducing anxiety, isolation and depression.
Ecstatic dance has similar therapeutic effects, although often couched in more spiritual terms. It encompasses everything from large global movements such as 5 Rhythms and Biodanza to local drum'n'dance meet-ups, so there is no governing association. You may find 5 Rhythms is a good place to start. Its creator, Gabrielle Roth, began as a dance teacher and has studied and disseminated ecstatic dance for over 50 years. There are now more than 250 certified 5 Rhythms teachers worldwide, and countless offshoots.
"Dance is an art form and movement is a life form," Roth says. She observed patterns in the way people moved and 5 Rhythms was conceived. The rhythms form a natural wave, building up through gentle "flow"; jagged "staccato" rhythm; peaking in the head-rolling frenzy of "chaos"; and then drawing you deeper into self-expression with "lyrical" beats; and finally meditative "stillness". The different rhythms allow us to "put the entire psyche into motion. That is to say we need to be physically fluid, emotionally fluid, mentally fluid, and not locked into positions and beliefs and theories," says Gabrielle.
I decide I'd be hard pressed to be as awkward and ungainly as Mark in the Rainbow Rhythms episode of Peep Show, so I try a couple of 5 Rhythms classes. There are about 60 people in each class. Nervously, I stretch and warm my muscles. As the rhythms take off, I shake off my shyness. We dance by ourselves, with partners, and at the centre of a circle, where I whirl like a dervish, swoop and leap. My body is expressing itself - it's utter abandonment and a complete high. As Roth says, "there's no dogma in the dance".
I also go to a new ecstatic dance group with a percussion band called Urubu. The improvised drumming creates a deep release in me: in one session I weep silently while comforted by a fellow dancer. As we embrace each other in a perspiration-soaked hug, it doesn't matter who wears what, who smells like what, or how we dance. Ecstasy is the best leveller. "You recognise the life that's moving through you and feels good", says Khan. "It's the same life as whoever's standing next to you, whether they're a complete stranger or your best friend."
It is no surprise that people make lasting connections that go beyond the dance scene, given the intensity of the experience and the way people engage with each other without the distractions of alcohol, drugs, or even speech. Friendships form, sometimes even romances. Dancers come from all kinds of backgrounds, they are all ages, and there is an equal mix of men and women.
Dancing yourself into a trance can also give you a new perspective on your role in a global society. Roth has recently set up a charity, 5 Rhythms Reach Out, for marginalised people in Cambodia and Thailand. She believes that change must come from within, and ecstatic dance can be a catalyst: "You're just in a position of being inside of and completely connected to the bigger picture. It's a very real state of being."
Other ecstatic workouts
Yogi Bhajan brought Kundalini yoga to the UK in the 70s. It uses repeated postures called "kriyas" to unfurl latent energy from the base of your spine to the top of your head, creating altered consciousness.
The practice of Tantra contains some solo sutras, which are exercises with breath that are intended to heal by releasing negative emotions and root us in an awareness of our body. Can be very ecstatic!
Find an ecstatic dance group near you
gabrielleroth.com has a list of 5 Rhythms teachers, including some in most major UK cities.
schoolofmovementmedicine.com is a Devon-based school for healing dance practices.
admt.org.uk has a list of Masters-qualified Dance Movement Therapy practitioners in the UK.
acalltodance.com is the website of London's most popular 5 Rhythms teacher, Sue Rickards. It also lists some other London ecstatic dance classes.
meetup.com is a useful resource for finding ecstatic dance sessions in your area. Otherwise, try Googling.
