I have just finished a fascinating three day course doing the TRE Level 1 Training in London. TRE stands for Tension And Trauma Releasing Exercises and is a system devised by David Berceli who has worked all over the world with trauma victims.
So how did I find myself sitting in a large group of psychologists, psychotherapists, nurses, osteopaths etc and why is this post called the ultimate vibration? Life and the voice has led me on a merry dance and along the way I have learnt that as a singer I have to pay a great deal of attention to the state of my body – after all I am my instrument and to sing I have to create a vibration within it. Inevitably life brings with it stresses and strains, even if you are one of the lucky ones, and we carry the impact of these in our bodies which can then affect our singing.
From the point of view of pure self-interest as a singer I have over the years tried out all sorts of ways of keep my body in good working order and so I have had Alexander lessons, done yoga, tai chi, gone to the gym etc – the list goes on…..However, what has begun to fascinate me more and more is that as I have proceeded along this path I seem to have been intuitively accelerating the speed at which my body vibrates. Chi Gong and something called Brain Respiration exercises by Ilchi Lee (Korean) introduced me to the idea of slapping and shaking my body which raised its vibration (to get the chi moving)and I noticed how uplifted and more vital it made me feel. At one of the gyms I had access to at one of my teaching jobs I started to use a vibrator plate and that certainly got my molecules shaking and as a result took away the stress of sitting on a piano stool all day teaching long hours. I also acquired a Rebounder at home to bounce up and down on and something called a Zen Chi Massage Machine which makes your body move like a fish. This year I got interested in Gabrielle Roth’s wonderful system of 5Rhythms dancing and now go regularly and once again I noticed the euphoria after “shaking my mojo” for several hours. Book-wise this year I somehow or other found myself reading Bradford Keeney’s amazing book “Shaking Medicine” and that in turn led me to read David Berceli’s “The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process”. Phew!!!!!!!
This all seems a rather convoluted explanation of how I came to be at the workshop this weekend but that journey was important for me because as soon as we started the exercises it made utter sense for me to allow my body to enter a state of uncontrolled shake and that is what Berceli’s work is all about. The body has a natural ability to shake away even the worst traumas that occur if we allow it. It happens in the animal kingdom but somehow or other human beings have been taught over the centuries that this natural mechanism somehow denotes a state of madness or even demonic possession. We are terrified of it and will do anything to stop it happening. Berceli works at the coal-face with trauma victims in war-zones and disaster areas but his system has also been taken up by athletes and others like myself involved in performing skills. One of the key issues for me as a singer is that allowing the body to shake freely brings you in contact with the diaphragm where we can hold so much tension. People on the course spontaneously cried or laughed when the shaking reached their diaphragms. It was also amazing to allow the body to do its own wild and ecstatic dance and observe it with your conscious mind. It certainly teaches you to be in the present moment so there are mental and spiritual elements to this work. This seems to be the end of a long search for me for the ultimate vibration – to let go and let the body shake of its own accord, allowing rather than doing.
I am now interested to see how it integrates into my life and I intend to practise it regularly. I will be keeping a journal and at this stage of training I hope to try out the system of exercises with friends and family. The subject has much more depth than this very brief introduction but I hope it has made you curious and you can find out more about it on the internet as well as Berceli’s books, DVD’s and clips on YouTube. I am going to sign off now with a big thank you to Steve, Riccardo, and Deva, our wonderful supervisors and to the amazing people with whom I shared some very special moments and from whom I learned so much.
