Student Comments

To Whom It May Concern

I would like to recommend a Rosen workshop from the viewpoint of someone simply wanting to learn about Rosen and what it offers for self-awareness.

I attended the Rosen workshop in Fayetteville asperhaps the only person who was not a professional in the body work, nursing, social work or psychological counseling fields.   I'm a law librarian, for heaven's sake!   Nevertheless, it was a great weekend. Let me tell you why.

Our session started out with an open meeting of interested people Friday evening when about 30 people came to a lovely retreat center atop a mountain, an oasis in the city of Fayetteville. The evening session included a varied group, including families of those who had signed up for the entire weekend workshop, and others who just wanted to learn more about this very gentle mind-body work. We had a brief hands-on-shoulders Rosen experience, a talk about the Rosen method, and then a man from the audience volunteered to be a Rosen recipient, although I believe he had had no experience whatsoever with the method. At the close of his 45 minute demo session, a remarkable physical response of two large breaths, his abdomen raising high, was what still sticks with me about that evening. It intrigued me to learn more, and that's exactly what the next two days were all about.

About a third of the group that came Friday evening participated in the next two full days of Rosen instruction and practicum. We started each day with a delightful, refreshing Rosen Movement which helped break the ice among strangers (most of us didn't know each other), and relax everyone. The movement is more dance than aerobic, with fun ways of experiencing movement with one other, or with the group included in the routine. Some of the movement was on mats, but most was while standing or moving. As one person said, it was "playful" and helped her connect with her inner child.

The two-day workshop was an ideal mix of instruction from our charming Santa Fe teacher who had such a beautiful way about her - charismatic, open, sunny and kind.  She taught by example and by stimulating and encouraging discovery on ones own. Yes, there were "lectures" of a sort, but primarily, with her guidance, we learned by watching her and by experimenting with Rosen touch under her guidance, assisted by another instructor from Houston and an intern from Fayetteville. The three were a cooperative team, and their obvious belief in the method inspired us, their students. Both Saturday and Sunday we had a sharing circle which was very powerful because the accepting atmosphere set by the instructors put everyone at such ease that people voluntarily shared both deeply personal hurts and joys. I was so struck with how each woman in the class had a major burden to bear that seemed to me so overwhelming that I was filled with a compassion and a new realization that each person is touched by life's experiences in such profound ways that it is an honor to be brought into their inner life in a way Rosen work can inspire. It is an honor, but also a responsibility. The Rosen instructors lay ground rules for the sharing time that facilitated our openness to participate. Then throughout the later Rosen practicum sessions our partners, who were chosen because we did not know them, had a deeper knowledge of our life's challenges, and brought that knowledge to bear in the Rosen work.

I recommend the Rosen method workshops for any in the healing and helping fields who want an introduction to this soft and gentle body/mind work. But I especially can recommend it to all those others out there who may not see an immediate application for Rosen in their everyday lives, but are open to learning and sharing with others in a new and beautiful way.

Louise Lindsey, JD, MLS, SLIS
Associate Director, Mabee Legal Information Center