I first experienced Open Floor in 2000, when it was an exercise developed and facilitated by Andrea Juhan for Gabrielle’s ego workshop – Mirrors. Andrea facilitated with her signature gentle clarity and within seconds the process revealed a deeply limiting, habitual and unconscious pattern I had been using since my teens. The awareness that the exercise brought is something I have continued to work with for three decades.

At the time Andrea was core faculty for the Moving Centre School, alongside Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzman, and Susannah and Ya’Acov Darling Khan. This was before the Moving Centre became 5Rhythms Global and Susannah and Ya’Acov founded Movement Medicine. After Gabrielle’s death, Andrea, Kathy, Lori and others developed Open Floor into a movement practice in its own right and while it maintains the power to compassionately and swiftly reveal clear and useful truths, it has expanded into a distinct and thorough curriculum.

I experienced my first workshop in Open Floor movement practice in Edinburgh in 2019. Fittingly, this was also with Andrea. I now have extensive experience of the practice and considerable knowledge of the curriculum, including two Ground Floor Labs and two Immersions. I expected to join the 2027 teacher training but my heart surprised me by pulling me towards Systemic Constellations instead. I am nonetheless deeply influenced by Open Floor and regularly draw from and build on both the curriculum and the movement scores (exercises).