Gurdjieff Movements (also known as Sacred Movements)

Conscious and complex forms of movement create awareness and well being.

These sacred dances, often performed to music, have their origins from sufis and ancient hidden monasteries. The movements involve bodily coordination, mental concentration and emotional sensibility. Performing these movements can result in a profound state of silence in the practitioner.

These sacred dances are thought to engender self-awareness in a number of ways:

1. By focusing mental concentration
2. By inspiring one emotionally
3. By breaking habitual patterns (both physically and emotionally)

A correctly performed sacred dance stimulates what is thought of as the Three Centers:

• The Mental Center
• The Emotional Center
• The Physical Center

There are at least 250 sacred dances that have been preserved from Gurdjieff's lineage. Here is a list of some of the sacred dances that I feel qualified to teach:

1. First Obligatory
2. Second Obligatory
3. Third Obligatory
4. Fourth Obligatory
5. Fifth Obligatory
6. Forming Twos
7. Camel Dervish
8. Enneagram Tableaux
9. Swaying Enneagram
10. Multiplication 15
11. Persian Waltz
12. Slow Second
13. Puzzle Box

Gurdjieff believed that humanity was essentially asleep, lost in the unconscious routine of life.

GURDJIEFF SAID OF MANKIND:

A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.

Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave...Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.

Here is a link to wikipedia containing historical information on Gurdjieff's system of sacred movements: Gurdjieff Movements