A New Circle

Today I was treated to another chance to facilitate a drum circle with HealthRhythms.

A librarian colleague and two of her social worker friends and I got together at the high school where my wife works to drum and discuss the method. What a great place the school was! Nobody around to bother with our drumming and even the classroom we squatted had chairs set up in a circle.

Surprise, surprise...each time I do this with a group, I feel nervousness, anxiety, worry about "will I get it right?". Afterwards, of course, I feel good about the experience. The more I practice this method, the more confident I will be in explaining the background, running the protocol, and learning to facilitate the rhythm of the group. I'm in uncharted territory, here, but I am learning to be open to the experience of what will happen next.

Today's group (Monika, Deborah, and Chris) had some recreational drumming experience already, and were using drumming with their social service clients. This makes me think that Mankato would be a good base to explore HealthRhythms. It could be a helpful adjunct to social workers and social service agencies, long term care facilities, and other health care places in the area. I'm finding that there are plenty of people who march to the beat of their own drummer here in Mankato!

The flow of the session went surprisingly well. I didn't worry about sticking exactly to "the script", but went with basics--the wellness exercises (I love that part), the say your name and play your name, shaker share, the drumming entrainment, and the final wellness exercise. At times I felt like I was "losing control" of the group, as if I had to live up to some prescribed method. I realized that this was a learning session, and that the two social workers were teaching me a little bit what they know from doing drumming sessions with their clients. They are even going to incorporate the name and shaker games in their work, as well as use some of the research and protocol material from the manual.

Overall, they were very interested in this, and was even invited to their drum sessions with their clients with severe mental disabilities. I wish that I was still living in Mankato to be able to follow up with this more. It seems like they are trying to get a more long-lasting, coordinated drum group together, but no one has time to do it. Could I help them out with this in the future?

I really need to practice this more with people like Monika, Deborah, and Chris. We'll see, maybe I can set something up with them for a weekend when I'm in Mankato.