Bodyvoice

Breath is fundamentally connected to everything that happens in our inner and outer worlds. Developing an awareness of breath and the capacity to allow breath to come and go has much to offer for our physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

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About Your Practitioners

Dr John Howard is an accredited Middendorf breathwork and Body Voice Practitioner.
He completed the 3½-year professional training at the Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience in Berkeley, California, in April 2007. His PhD thesis, ‘Breathing embodiment: a study of Middendorf breathwork’ can be accessed online. Your comments and responses are welcome - please email them to john@bodyvoice.com.au.

John is associate director of the Body Voice Centre in Footscray, a sessional teacher of voice and performance at Victoria University, and at the Footscray Community Arts Centre. He is a keen singer and choir conductor, and an active member of Community Music Victoria.

Helen Sharp is accredited to teach the fundamentals of Middendorf breathwork practice.
She has completed the first 2 years of professional training in Berkeley. Helen is artistic director of the Body Voice Centre, founded in 1994 in what had been the Footscray Squash Centre. She has taught in many different tertiary and community contexts in Australia and overseas. She is currently enrolled in a PhD by research at Victoria University.

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Group breathwork sessions

Group workshops include breath and movement sequences, vowel space work, and work with pressure points. They encompass both formal structured breath movement sequences and free-form breath movement improvisations. The work is oriented to increasing breath and body awareness.

'Meeting the breath’: half-day workshops are offered from 1 pm to 5 pm on the third or fourth Saturday of each month and are a great starting point for those interesed in experiencing how, in a practice of Middendorf breathwork, breath that is allowed to come and go on its own can be encountered through presence and bodily sensation. Middendorf breathwork is complex and multilayered but it is possible to begin to develop one’s own practice from the outset.

Bookings and further details: email breath@bodyvoice.com.au

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Individual breathwork sessions

Individual sessions include hands-on work where the client lies on the breath table sensing the movement of breath in their body while the practitioner makes ‘offers’ to the client’s breath – through presence, touch, stretches, compressions – intended to enhance their experience of breath. This process is known as ‘breath dialogue’. It is a dialogue conducted not in words but rather through sensing the movement of breath.

Individual sessions of one hour are available by appointment on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and early evenings – email breath@bodyvoice.com.au. Sessions are conducted at the Body Voice Centre in Footscray.

Both the individual and the group sessions work in the same direction – towards a greater awareness of breath and body, towards ease and lightness, and towards an increased sense of wholeness. The work can be invigorating and fun as well as subtly complex, profound and life-changing.

Over time the practice of the experience of breath permeates the everyday detail of life. People can develop their own conscious breath practice out of the group and individual work.

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Individual body voice sessions

Body voice work draws on a range of physical, theatrical and vocal traditions as well as Middendorf breathwork to strengthen the interconnections of body, breath and voice. Body voice work is suitable for any adult wanting to become more comfortable with their voice in all life settings including social and work-related ones.

A series of four to six weekly or fortnightly sessions is usually recommended to give time and space for the work to take effect.

Sessions of one hour are available by appointment on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and evenings – email john@bodyvoice.com.au. Sessions are conducted at the Body Voice Centre in Footscray.