'Do not fear mistakes. There are none.' 

~ Miles Davis 

What's All This About Then?

And How it Works

This is a space to come and be with your less comfortable, messy places. Be kinder to the 'oh shit' moments and loosen the shackles of taking yourself a bit too seriously. Here you can let go of thinking you need to know everything and you can feel free not to be on your A-game.

This is a space to come and remember that as well as caring about the world and wanting to be good at stuff and a decent person, it might be also helpful to see the funny (and maybe tragic) side of things. Just how damn hard have you been working to be impressive (productive / important / successful bla bla bla)? Hell, it might even be possible to enjoy our failings in this one brief gift of a life.

6 x 90 minute workshops over 7 weeks (with a rest week in the middle) plus homework projects for the keen beans.

Dates & Times of live workshops
Tuesdays 4.30pm - 6.00pm UK / 11.30 - 1pm Eastern.
2 Sept
9 Sept
16 Sept
REST WEEK
30 Sept
7 Oct
14 Oct

For those in tricky time zones, doing the course via the recordings is absolutely an option. There will be extra sharing circles added to support you. Likely UK mornings live.

You have full agency to go as deep or on-the-surface as you wish. This isn't therapy, but it might save you some money on some. It will most definitely be stress busting. There will be a lot of laughter and maybe even some much longed for tears. You might even see bit of that snotty laughing crying that Rachel sometimes finds herself doing at the end of good films.

Course curriculum

    1. Beginning Well and Where to find everything

    2. The Surprising Benefits of Being Willing to Feel Ridiculous

    1. Sharing Stories related to your Theme

    2. Story Swap Game - Ours Is Also Everyone's

    1. Role Playing Game - Dysfunctional Families

    2. Art Making Game - choose the form you have least confidence with

    1. If Your Evil Twin was a Character they might be...

    2. Asking Your Evil Twin for Life Advice

    1. Offering Shame back to the Earth to be Composted.

    2. Writing an Ode to your Failure (Or Epitaph)

    1. Irreverence: Gallows Humour, Schadenfreude and Gutter Mouth

    2. Gentle Acts of Civil Disobedience (A Homework Project)

About this course

  • 6 x 90 min live workshops
  • Life-time access to materials
  • Extra facilitated sharing spaces

'You will feel ridiculous and ridiculousness is good for you. 

To feel ridiculous and sensitive is a part of freedom.'

~ Philipe Gaullier

Why This Work

And why now?

Because the only way we learn anything is by trying something we've never tried before and being a bit crap at is at first. Then we try some stuff out and practice and get a bit better at it if we are lucky. But even then, none of us really know what the hell we are doing. We are just following something that we are drawn by and trying to work it out as we go along. Even in our expertise we are still improvising. Making it up as we go along. It just looks much more sophisticated from the outside.

So we fall into the trap - as adults - of feeling like we need to look like we know what we are doing. Presenting the illusion of this 'arrived' 'finished' or 'good' thing. Rather than being with the mess that we frequently are - or always are when we are trying something different.

Every single creature in the universe is iterating. Every - single - thing - trying things out, failing, trying something else, failing again, trying something else. Iteration is the nature of Nature herself, so why are we any different? Let's make it a conscious practice. Let's have a go at that together in a safe and friendly atmosphere so we can all get more robust with it.

Also because supremacy is gaining traction again and it doesn't have a very good sense of humour. Fundamentalism and self righteousness is not very good at seeing the funny side. Or the human side for that matter.

So let's cultivate the kind of humour that allows us to be soft with ourselves and human sized with each other. That humility that allows us to be with the awkward things. So, kindness to the things you might have been able to do a bit better. Blessings on the places it is uncomfortable to go in ourselves. let us go there with more kindness.

Is This Course For Me?

And what will I get out if it?

This course might be for you if you find yourself taking life too seriously, being a tyrant with yourself, or longing to loosen the icy grip of perfectionism from around your neck. It might also be for you if you are looking for ways to work out what aspects of your edgier material is feeling ready to be mulched into some kind of creative output or expression and which still needs to be kept tucked away.

This course might not be for you if the idea of finding the funny (or tragic) side of some of your less impressive moments in a workshop context fills you with horror. If this is the case for you, much respect. Deep bow and no shade. This may simply not be the right course for you right now.

You will come away from this course:
* Having had a numerous chuckles and some deep belly laughs with some new compadres.
* With more empathy and tolerance for yourself and others who are also in this human situation.
* Feeling less alone.
* With some starting points for further creative adventure.
* Accessing more of a bridge into shadow and more capacity to be with it.
* More places to draw on in yourself for your life, work and being.

Investment

Here are some options for signing up. We've kept the price moderate on purpose because many ordinary folks aren't rolling in it at the moment. If you are in financial dire-straits and none-the-less determined to prioritise enhancing your capacity for feeling ridiculous, please get in touch.

About your Facilitator

Rachel Blackman is your facilitator and host. She is a somatic educator which means she teaches people how to work with the natural intelligence of our embodied condition. She does that as a coach, a trainer and as a Feldenkrais Practitioner. Rachel is also theatre maker and she first trained and worked as an actor, back before you were probably even out of nappies. Certainly well before cancel culture was a thing.

You might remember her as Charra in Matrix Revolutions where she was sporting large muscles and a double barrelled bazooka and (spoiler alert) met an untimely end in the least successful film of the original trilogy.

Her latest theatre show: 'You Aren't Doing It Wrong If No One Knows What You Are Doing' is a solo performance about failure, feeling like an idiot and music - which obviously relates to all this.

She once put some frozen dog food on the stove to thaw, then left the house for the day. Got a mile down the road. Noticed a fire engine driving past with its siren on. Thought 'shit, the dog food!! I hope that's not for me!!' Ran home.
Reader, the fire engine was for Rachel.
A group of firefighters were out the front of her building, all the residents evacuated standing on the front lawn looking pissed off. The front door of Rachel's flat, kicked in, by a burly and not entirely unattractive fireman. The whole place only moments away from going up in smoke.

What about you?

Photo credits: 

Lamp face: Hugh Fox 

Exploding Rocket: Tim Mossholder

Stuck Body: Elva Blumfelde

Robot Family: Erik Krull 

'It has Always Been My Desire...' David Shrigley

Ice cream face: Adrian Solomon

Precarious headstand: Nathan McBride 

Puddle jump: Annie Spratt

Plant face: Shad