What if you could learn how to be happier? What if you could practise happiness every day?
Join us on a radical journey to reconnect our minds & bodies, & discover how movement is the unlikely key to unlocking happiness in our stressed-out, unhappy world. Together we will uncover how mindful movement facilitates changes in the brain through neuroplasticity. By moving with awareness & choosing to laugh you can expand your self-image & discover the potential for new ways of being that did not previously seem possible. Kate & Flora will share from their own experience how befriending your body can help you cultivate happiness right now. Not when you have more money, not when your work is done, & not when this crazy pandemic finally ends. It will no longer be an out-of-reach, fantastical goal, but rather a grounded & surprisingly accessible, everyday state. A happier life is waiting for you, exactly as you are.
Flora & Kate have never met in real life. But they bumped into each other on pandemic-Zoom in 2020 & discovered their journeys had run parallel for years. Joy was never a problem for either of them when they were young. As a child, Flora was more than capable of spontaneously rousing a roomful of strangers into singing a song of her choice; & Kate’s ridiculous laugh was so renowned at university that her friend recorded it as a ringtone. But somewhere along the line both of them forgot how to play. Life got epic & crushing health challenges brought them up short. What do you do when life has become a stressful to-do list, every day threatens as an exhausting burden, & you can’t remember the last time you laughed? As movement practitioners Kate & Flora each knew connecting through the body held answers. Research born of necessity led Flora towards Laughter Yoga, & Kate towards the Feldenkrais Method. Now they’re excited to share with you exactly how they rediscovered their happiness.
In this unique workshop experience, Kate & Flora will draw together these two complementary embodiment practices for the first time. You will be guided through a fun journey of playful, practical explorations in which we will:
>> play with how laughter can be practised & brought into our lives by choice.
>> discover ways to actively embrace & embody self-acceptance, gratitude, & fun.
>> find out how you can reduce chronic stress & anxiety by attending to the sensation & experience of moving..
>> learn how mindful movement approaches resonate strongly with new scientific findings about cultivating happiness in our lives.
Join us if you’d like to:
>> learn simple, effective tools & techniques to lift your mood.
>> remember what it feels like to play freely, allowing yourself to be lighthearted, spontaneous, & creative.
>> open the door to laughter & mindful movement as a valuable self-care practice.
>> discover the joy of being fully present in the moment.
>> join a warm, welcoming, inclusive group where you cannot fail
Date: Saturday 20th November
Duration: 2.5 Hours
Time: 15:00 UK | 16:00 CET | 8:00 PST | 11:00 EST
Taught by: Kate Sagovsky & Flora Wellesley Wesley
Language: English
Price: £19 / £22 / £25
Self-select pricing tier according to your income. Please contact us to find out about lower or non-payment options if you are currently unable to work, unemployed, on very low income, reliant on benefits, or these prices are high because you use a different currency.
Who is it for? This workshop is open to both complete beginners & those with more experience of movement practice. Kate & Flora will guide you through the workshop step-by-step & adjust their instructions according to your needs. All you need to take part is an internet connection & a willingness to give it a go. No need to feel happy on arrival.
>> STUDIO SOMA x Laugh Time With Flora
Ben & Kate (Co-Directors of STUDIO SOMA) are absolutely delighted to be able to invite Flora to collaborate on delivering this unique workshop experience. We’re massive fans of Laugh Time With Flora & can’t wait to host this special session here at STUDIO SOMA. Find out a bit more about Flora below. We warmly invite you to come & meet Flora & experience her fantastic & uplifting practice in this unique workshop experience.
FLORA: “Since I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 disorder in 2016, I have been on a quest to identify activities that I can rely on to buoy me. When my mood plummeted during the Spring 2020 lockdown I decided - out of desperation - to try an exercise I’d learned in a London Clown School class a couple of years prior: ‘Laugh continuously for 10 minutes. Consider that real & fake laughter are as good as each other. See where it takes you.’ I took a deep dive into the task & began laughing. The experience was something of an epiphany. I emerged feeling relieved, calm, & enlivened. When I realised I had struck on something that could really help me, I undertook a Laughter Yoga leader training & have now been running regular online laughter classes for over a year. It’s a deliberate act of self-care & self-love. I laugh to feel good, I laugh to have fun - & my sessions create a safe learning & practice space where I can encourage & support others to do the same. Something as seemingly simple as regular laughter has transformed my life, & I believe it has the power to do the same for you.”
FLORA WELLESLEY WESLEY is a dance artist & Laughter Yoga leader who lives in London. Through her facilitation & teaching practice she helps people discover their capability to self-induce laughter & embodied states of happiness. She is passionate about supporting people into more hopeful, sensuous, wonder-filled, & confident relationships with their bodies & themselves. She facilitates laughter, embodiment, dance, & improvisation workshops across community, corporate, & university/conservatoire settings. Flora studied dance & performance at London Contemporary Dance School. During that time an influential educational exchange to California Institute for the Arts stoked her appetite for interdisciplinary experimentation & collaboration. Over the next decade she went on to complement her vocational dance education with courses in Clown Devising & Clown Studies at London Clown School; Living Anatomy at the Craniosacral Therapy Education Trust; & Laughter Yoga at United Mind. Flora has long staged her own solo & ensemble performances alongside dancing & performing in the work of choreographers, theatre directors, visual artists & filmmakers. Since 2015, she has co-directed Nora with dancers Eleanor Sikorski & Stephanie McMann. As a trio they create, perform & tour new pieces made with invited artists. Supported by Sadler’s Wells, DanceEast, & Arts Council England, they have so far worked with dancemakers Eleanor Bauer, Deborah Hay, Liz Aggiss, Simon Tanguy, Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion.
>> Laughter Yoga & The Feldenkrais Method
In this workshop you will have the unique experience of exploring two different somatic movement approaches, each being facilitated by an expert teacher. In this playful two hour journey, you will discover the benefits of both methods & the exciting connections between the two.
WHAT IS LAUGHTER YOGA? Laughter Yoga consists of simple yet powerful deep breathing techniques & playful laughter exercises. It is practised in a relaxed group where we release tension & reconnect with our sense of childlike fun. We know fairly intuitively that laughter is great for our emotional health, but how many of us are actively thinking about making time specifically for laughing, or even cultivating our laughter? You might think that laughter can only happen as a natural reaction to something funny but in fact, just like any other positive habit, laughter can be practised & brought into our lives by choice. Laughter Yoga exercises induce deep, hearty, extended laughter. They are based on the scientific understanding that our bodies cannot differentiate between real & pretend laughter after 10 minutes; we reap similar psychological & physiological benefits from both. Even better, when practising simulated laughter it’s not unusual for it to develop into genuine involuntary laughter. Extended laughter (laughing for ten minutes or more) is actually aerobic exercise - kind of like an internal jog. And just like any other cardio it releases feel-good endorphins that help us relax afterwards. Smiling, laughing & connecting with ourselves & others, even through a screen, is a powerful social bonding exercise that boosts our mood for the rest of the day. Laughter Yoga was started by Dr Madan Kataria in a park in Mumbai in 1995. Within a couple of decades laughter clubs had sprung up in more than a 100 cities around the world. Hope, creativity, & trust are just some of the uplifting emotions typically evoked through the affirmative support that comes with laughing together in a group.
WHAT IS THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD? The Feldenkrais Method offers a way of learning through playful & exploratory movement. In each group class the teacher guides you through different sequences of movement using simple, easy-to-follow, verbal instructions. You are invited to do a certain movement, & then play in different ways with how you are doing it. You are asked to bring your attention to each movement & discover how you could do it slowly & gently with less effort & more ease. You are guided to discover different ways in which the movement could become easier for you. This gives you a chance to find out surprising things about the way in which you are moving – your physical habits. Often when we bring our awareness to our movement in this way, we discover that movements which we believed to be uncomfortable or impossible are in fact available to us, if we just move in a slightly different way. We are able to discover which physical habits are not helping us, & create new ones that allow us to move more freely, or develop & fine-tune particular physical skills. Practicing movement in this way can transform our self-image & radically increase our sense of potential. This method was first created by Moshe Feldenkrais & is now taught around the world, helping millions of people from all walks of life.
