Somatic · International (50+ teachers worldwide)
Conscious-movement meditation teacher training developed by senior teachers from the 5Rhythms lineage. Three-year program training facilitators in dance-as-meditation, embodied inquiry, and group facilitation.
Open Floor International is the conscious-movement meditation lineage developed by senior teachers from the 5Rhythms tradition who broke from that lineage in 2014 to establish a separate framework. Founders include Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzman, Andrea Juhan, Jennifer Frank, Vincent Martinez-Grieco, and others, all of whom held senior teaching status in 5Rhythms before the split. Open Floor positions itself as both a movement practice and a contemporary meditation methodology, with the dance floor functioning as the meditative ground rather than the seated cushion. The practice rests on what the lineage calls the Open Floor Movement Practice and the four core resources of grounding, centering, body, and connect. Sessions are guided through music and verbal direction by trained teachers, with participants moving freely on the floor in patterns that move between solo, partnered, and group attention. The framing is explicitly meditation: the work is sustained moving awareness rather than choreography or performance. Open Floor draws on Gestalt psychology, somatic awareness traditions, and contemporary movement therapy alongside the lineage's roots in 5Rhythms. The teacher training is a three-year program building substantial movement and teaching competence. Roughly six hundred contact hours are required across residential intensives, online study, supervised practice teaching, and continued personal practice. Cohorts are international, with training offered in the US, UK, Europe, and increasingly Asia. Approximately fifty Certified Open Floor Teachers serve in the global network at the time of writing, with cohorts adding new teachers each year. Tuition runs roughly USD 6,000 to 9,000 over the three years, varying by region and currency. The credential is Certified Open Floor Teacher and is recognized within the international Open Floor community and the wider conscious-movement field. Teachers run regular weekly classes, weekend workshops, and longer retreats. The lineage's specific framing distinguishes it from movement-as-fitness or movement-as-therapy approaches; Open Floor positions itself unambiguously as meditation in motion.
The three-year program sequences across movement vocabulary, teaching methodology, and integration. Year one establishes the Open Floor Movement Practice and the four core resources, with substantial personal practice and immersion in the form. Year two develops teaching skills: how to design a class, how to read a room, how to hold space for emotional and somatic material that arises in moving meditation, and how to use music and verbal direction. Year three covers advanced teaching methodology, group facilitation in larger settings, integrating the practice with clinical and therapeutic contexts when appropriate, and the practical work of building a sustainable teaching practice. Reading includes Open Floor lineage publications, somatic-psychology sources, and selected contemplative literature. Personal practice and embodied study are central throughout.
Training combines residential intensives held at retreat centers in the US, UK, and Europe, online cohort sessions, supervised practice teaching with feedback from senior trainers, and continued personal practice. Cohorts are kept small enough for direct mentor relationships. Faculty include the lineage's founding teachers and senior trainers from the global teacher body. Final certification depends on retreat attendance, demonstrated teaching competence, mentor review, and a culminating teaching demonstration.
Graduates earn the Certified Open Floor Teacher credential and run weekly classes, weekend workshops, and longer retreats in their local communities. The credential is recognized within the international Open Floor network and the wider conscious-movement field. It does not authorize clinical therapy; clinicians work within their existing license. Many teachers earn meaningful income from class and workshop fees while continuing the lineage's sustained personal practice.
Applicants need substantial prior Open Floor or 5Rhythms practice and personal experience as participants in classes and workshops. The lineage assumes movement teaching cannot rest on study alone; trainees come with embodied experience of the form. There is no required academic credential. Application includes references and essays.
Open Floor sits within a small family of conscious-movement lineages including 5Rhythms (the parent lineage from which Open Floor split), Soul Motion (developed by Vinn Marti and his collaborators), and Continuum (developed by Emilie Conrad). Open Floor and 5Rhythms remain the largest and most institutionally structured. The two are similar in foundational shape but distinct in framing: Open Floor explicitly positions itself as meditation in motion with substantial somatic-psychology integration, while 5Rhythms retains the more shamanic-vision framing of founder Gabrielle Roth. For practitioners drawn to the meditation-in-motion framing and to the founders' specific approach to teaching, Open Floor is the natural fit.
| Location | International (50+ teachers worldwide) |
| Country | United States |
| Tradition | Somatic |
| Format | In-person, Hybrid |
| Training hours | 600 |
| Duration | 3 years |
| Estimated cost | USD 6,000-9,000 |
| Accreditation | Certified Open Floor Teacher |