Reset and reconnect - dance retreat

Saturday 15th July 2023, Thame, Oxfordshire. Following last years success, we are back with a new and improved one day wellness retreat for dancers. Ever feel nervous to ask someone to dance? Sometime feel self doubt and the inner critic raising up at social events, workshops or in competition? Want to feel like you can let go, express and be playful in your dance, but struggling to feel free enough, or know where to start? Then our dancers retreat is for you. Aimed at West Coast Swing dancers of all levels, though we welcome anyone who want's to move to music in their own way. The day is designed to provide you with a safe and playful space to let go of your fear, kick the inner critic to the curb and centre yourself in your own version of confidence and authenticity. Our hope is that these lessons and healing flow from your dance into your whole being so that you can carry your learning throughout the rest of your day to day life too. Our goal is not just to focus on specific moves or techniques to improve our dance, but to help reset the stories we hold about ourselves and our dancing. Connection starts from within and until we are fully connected to ourselves we can not connect to our partners, the music or the dance. The retreat will be a gentle day to offer space to explore how us to show up in your dancing, how to connect to your inner child and allow ourselves to play within our dance. The day will include: Dance: 2 hours of dance workshops on levelling up your dance to bring play to your movement and your partnership. Wellness 3 hours of wellness/ empowerment workshops on: - Creating confidence - breaking through limiting beliefs - Connecting to self to befriend the inner critic - Optional empowerment glass walk - A meditative sound bath to help heal and release any stored emotions Reki and Massage: There is the option to book a taster Erik or massage session with the wonderful Katie, this is at a small additional fee, please see the main page of the event for more details. Multiple tools, techniques and ideas to practice moving forwards to create unshakable self belief and a workbook to help keep all the thoughts in one place. Fun, Freestyle, connection and community: We will share food together in the evening (please bring your own lunches) and have fun games and and evening dance freestlye party too The retreat will run 11:00 until around 18:00 when we will break to share food in the grounds. We will provide some hot and cold dishes and would encourage you to each bring some food to share (salads, main dishes, breads, fruit cakes etc.) Please bring a list of ingredients for any food you bring for those with dietary requirements. If you have dietary requirements please let us know. There is a small kitchen on site to store and serve the food from. We welcome you to bring any games or musical instruments for the evening. A large part of the day will be inviting playfulness and creativity in, so please bring games and your musicality along. We will have a few things like colouring books, hula hoops, poi etc but welcome all and any additions. There will also be the opportunity to dance in the evening 19:30 till 23:00 for those who wish. Let us know if you’d love to have a chance to DJ too. We want this event to be by the community, for the community (and after the day you’ll have the confidence for sure!) If you only want to attend the freestyle please turn up on the day! To re-iterate, we welcome all levels of dancers from all styles of dance. We ask that you come with an open mind and a heart so that you can take that which is useful to you from the day, discard what is not and be open to allow yourself to add that which is uniquely your own. We actively encourage you to take your learnings back to your wider dance community as we will all grow faster when we grow together. A full schedule and further details will follow, please watch this page. Finally, if the only restriction to you attending the day is finances, please do reach out directly to us. There are many other ways to trade, such as helping with set up and pack down, helping us with a skill you can share etc and we believe that wellness should be accessible for all.