I should state from the outset that I'm no expert on this stuff!

If you really want to find out about it I'd suggest you read Gabrielle Roth's book Maps to ecstasy: teachings of an urban shaman. In the UK this is published by Mandala, ISBN 1-85274-086-8. Or for a practical, try her video The Wave (the copy I was lent was purchased from Kindred Spirit magazine, other than that I can't help with where you can buy it, sorry - you could try Amazon).

In autumn 1995 I went through a period when at every turn people kept bringing Gabrielle Roth up in conversation, flyers for workshops came through the letterbox, I got lent the book mentioned above etc. Not one to ignore the universe when it's giving me such unsubtle hints, I started to dance waves several times a week. For a while, I didn't do it quite so often due to an injury, but then I have met up with a group of people who got together once a fortnight as a peer group to dance a prolonged wave. I seemed to do the music selection quite often so for a while I was dancing more at home, trying stuff out. Unfortunately in the last couple of years I've all but stopped dancing waves, largely due to an operation the aftermath of which prevented me from doing it for a longer-than-expected period, during which the peer group folded.

However, wave dancing is wonderful, and I'd recommend that you give it a try!

As I understand it, you just try to let go into the music and follow how your body feels. You don't have to dance a certain way (though I found that bearing in mind each of the five rhythms helped me get a feel for the whole thing early on). You can release all sorts of junk and it's really good for centring yourself and getting in touch with your emotions, particularly ones you've being ignoring.

In 1995-6 I was part of an ongoing men's group with Everyman. We were due to have a meeting where we explored our creativity and one of the men suggested I make a wave tape for the occasion. So I dusted off the synths etc and after much fiddling came up with the stuff of which you can find snippets sampled below. This isn't commercial (you can't buy it), nor is this a commercial (I'm not trying to sell it!). I just thought it'd be nice to include some samples (one for each of the five rhythms). If you really want to give it a whirl (and let's face it 13-second snippets aren't going to get you very far if you do), I'd invest in one of Gabrielle Roth's tapes. Initiation is a good starter. Or try the aforementioned video, or Endless wave, which has instructions!

The samples are all in distinctly lo-fi mono .au format (or should be - let me know if they cause trouble with your sound player). Atari users please note that GEMjing doesn't like these samples, but LPS.TTP works OK.

Chris Hastie has set up a five rhythms site with more information on it, including links to some workshop details, a forum, music etc.

Other sites of interest: