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Drum Circle Facilitation
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Orange County CA Area Drum Circle Facilitation for Special Events, Teambuilding, and the Workplace Updated: Jan. 26, 2018
We come to your business or off site location and put on a mind-blowing experience for you and your group. Our drumming events & workshops are perfect for corporate retreats, conventions, icebreakers, training seminars, and corporate outreach. We have worked with many area organizations over the last 10 years. Drum circles aid team building, employee health, wellness, chronic illness, confidence, and youth development. We put on drum circles for groups as few as 5, up to 300 attendees, and incorporate djembe drums, doumbeks, congas, bongos, bells, shakers, sound shapes, and other world percussion instruments. Below is a break down of the many ways we use drumming. Drumming Events & Workshops
1. Team-Building Corporate, Sports Teams, Organizations, Community, and Family
2. Company Events & Conventions Team building, Leadership, and Change Management for Corporate Clients, plus Corporate & Community outreach, and Community Organizations
Drumming is used in Company Fitness & Wellness Programs, Stress Reduction, Change Management, and Personal Development; also within Health Organizations, Community Organizations, and Families
4. Health & Wellness Programs Drumming is used in Wellness, Fitness, Weight Loss, Senior Living, Senior Centers, and in Stress Reduction Programs; used as Adjunct Therapy in the management of Chronic Illness including: Cancer, Diabetes, Neurological disorders, Movement Disorders, and Cardiovascular Health; Behavioral & Mental Health: Drug & Alcohol Addiction, Addiction Disorders, Schizophrenia, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorders (SPDs), and PTSD.
5. Spiritual Ceremonies & Journeys Support & connection during Spiritual Ceremonies, Bereavement Ceremonies: for Organizations, Churches, Community groups, and Families
6. Sustainability, Eco, Nature Festivals Use Drumming to Connect & Enhance your Nature or Eco Event: Companies, Groups, Community Organizations, Nature Events, and Families
Drumming Enlightens a variety of Social, Outreach, and Entertainment Events
Drum Circle Facilitation Pricing
Facilitation w/ Instruments 60-90 Min. Group Size 10-50 $15.00 - $25.00 per person Facilitation w/ Instruments 60-90 Min. More than 50 Contact us Instructional Workshop/Speaking Group size 10-50 $15.00 - $40.00 per person Minimum Fee/group size $250.00 Drum Performances Contact us
*Non-profit, educational, and community arts programs receive a 25% discount. Contact us for pricing and availability via email.
To reserve a "drumming event or workshop," please print, fill out, and send us the completed Drum Circle Facilitation Services Client & Deposit Agreement below. You may pay and/or make a DEPOSIT using our PayPal link below. Contact us by email to make other payment arrangements: contact[at]dollecommunications[dot]com . If you need to speak with me, send me an email with your phone number and I will call you. As of February 28, 2018, I no longer have my separate home office telephone. "Drum Circle Facilitation Services Client & Deposit Agreement"
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Contact Us for Additional Information Thank you
Drum Circles for Employee Wellness and Corporate Teambuilding
In sales settings, customer and co-worker connections can be even more critical. In a show room, for instance, a great amount of attention is paid to body language, as well as the verbal message. Both speaker & listener will pay significant attention to body language and vocal intonations, or what we term, "rhythmic code." It's a give and take. The following describes how a drum circle was used as non-verbal communications building tool in a customer sales setting in an auto dealership. This auto dealership, like many others do, had a policy detailing how sales staff are to take turns on new approaching customers. Here is how a drum circle was used to improve their customer/salesperson relations.
Many customers reported being starred down by over-anxious sales
staff, which made them uncomfortable and unwilling to hold substantive dialogue After the completion of six drum circle workshops, the sales staff became more aware of their body language and the team concept. They were more confident and exuded welcoming non-verbal communication, as well as the same in verbal interaction. Even when it was not their customer, they knew how their body language could support each sale - and how this process in turn helped their own sales. The above example illustrates the importance of proper body language in customer sales communications. As you play drum rhythms with your body, you learn to sharpen your non-verbal communication and team building skills. Your body transmits what you are thinking. And your body language in large part determines whether customers will like you, trust you, and buy from you - and how you will be received by co-workers. Go to the full web page on Drum Circles for Employee Wellness & Workplace
What is a Drum Circle "To succeed in life, you must be engaged in what is happening around you, and develop strategies to help your mind and body stay focused on whatever you are doing, despite the many distractions at work, at school, and at play." Stephen Dolle
Group
drumming is a platform where participants interact with the rhythms of your
brain to engage their mind and body to
Widely termed drum circles, it is an age old practice offering new insights today into team building and communications, which can activate key rhythms of your brain. The rhythms of your brain are a collage of many different auditory, visual, and touch sensory patterns which hold the key to specific interactions between the brain and body. Some are learned, while others are innate. These patterns are widely how our minds communicate with our bodies, with others, and with the world around us. The more you know about these patterns, the more happy and healthy you will be in life.
The science in support of these applications revolves around how we are
designed with, and surrounded by, thousands of
In their simplest form, rhythms are mathematical
patterns. But
to a pulsing heart, they are sophisticated codes of communication, thought,
movement, and cues for voluntary action. Along with centers of our primal brain,
and the body's sensory system to touch, time, and space, rhythmic patterns signal the brain when and how to initiate
actions like
walking, talking, and moving our extremities.
Our awareness and attentiveness to rhythm also affords us a better understanding of time and space, and enables us to perform athletics and coordinated team sports such as football. This makes audible rhythms a perfect training and syncopation tool for team sports. Early humans heavily relied upon purposeful rhythmic hand, body, and audible gestures. Once humans began speaking and living communally, thought to be between 7000 and 25,000 BC, we slowly began loosing our innate skills at understanding body rhythm as language. This is likely why we are so fascinated with music and sports today.
Group drumming, drum circles, or simply "drumming," refers to the modern practice of organized group play of (mostly) hand percussion instruments for the purpose of communal enjoyment, enhancing communications, health & wellness, and a wide array of other causes. Drumming is much more integrated into our modern living than you would expect.
The role of rhythm in our daily lives changes as we age. As our necessary survival skills continues to evolve, there is continued optimizing of rhythm's role in our lives. Factors like age, health, neurological development, geography, and quality of life also impact our ability to optimize our understanding of "rhythm codes." These codes influence our physical health, bodily coordination, intellectual capacity (comprehension, voluntary thought, action), and inter-personal communication (i.e. work, community, family). It is critical that we maintain our rhythm skills to remain competitive, healthy, and properly connected to those around us. Regrettably, our increasing reliance on electronic communications and technology may NOT permit sufficient exposure to needed communication rhythms. While technology offers many advantages, it is yet to replace live human interaction. We still require human rhythm codes. They make up the subtle vibrations and sometimes overt body movements we glean from each other. Whether this could occur through remote and/or telepathic communications, is unclear - but certainly possible based on what we know about the universe.
Stephen Dolle shared his drumming methods in a special keynote at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, in 2011 as part of the university's STEAM3 music education series. Power Point presentation on SlideShare.net: "Engage the Rhythms of your Brain"
Drum Circles help Communications & Timing in Football Humans and animals (to varying degrees) are effected by sound. Sound affects our brains & bodies in both positive and negative ways, depending on the type, loudness, and patterning. Sound (and music) has favorable health benefits as described in the earlier work with the "Mozart Effect." But sound can also have harmful effects, and in football, it is being used in harmful ways to disrupt on-field communications and the cognitive focus of players. The U.S. military for many years has used chants, drums, and recorded sounds during training to help syncopate on-field operations and communications. Football play is similar in that on-field timing, syncopation, and communication is critical for proper execution of play. The physiology of play & movement can be described in terms of "proprioception," or the memory of muscle movement. There are also cognitive factors to consider for play execution. And high decibel crowd noise during NFL games today is interfering with on-field communications and cognitive reasoning before and during the plays. Drum and drum circle workshop training has enumerable team building applications in college and NFL football. They include: assembling the best matched players on a squad, skills training, play preparation and syncopation, team communications, unity, proper psyche, and pregame preparation to mention a few. A drum circle workshop then offers four specific benefits: improving non-verbal communication, strengthen player intellect and sense of time and space (athleticism), strengthen player and coach attentiveness around them, and help build team unity and spirit. Football programs employ a variety of cadence training and off-field methods to achieve team syncopation. Undoubtedly, what sets each apart are their tools, preparation, and discipline. We offer an array of applications and programs for football, basketball, baseball, and other sports. We describe a method for how drum & percussion instruments can be utilized as non-audible timing & on-field communications tools in the absence of verbal communication, and how rhythmic progressions can be used to help overcome the cognitive & sensory challenges posed by high decibel crowd noise. Visit full web page on Drum Circles for Football
We've had very favorable results in our drumming with basketball, and with basketball alone. As therapies, they aid movement disorders, mindfulness, and cognitive challenges. With basketball programs, the drumming drills and methods help ball handling, team rhythm, shooting, and on court communications. Drumming with basketball also makes for an excellent health & fitness program. We authored a very in-depth blog on basketball and drumming for basketball in our June 4, 2015, blog, and we highly encourage you to read it if you have time. Stephen shares some mindfulness and personal healing moments, as well as his brain and body fitness drills in basketball. He has lived with the disorder, hydrocephalus, since 1992. The drumming with basketball web page is linked above, and the full basketball blog is linked below. Basketball on DolleCommunications Blog
Drum Circles for Health and Wellness
Drum and rhythm training helps the individual to better use his/her body as
an extension of cognitive thought to cue movement. By relieving some of the
cognitive load on the brain, you effectively become smarter. Our drum circles
facilitation
methods teach participants to better conceptualize rhythmic patterns, and carry
out progressions in extended formats, far more than one could count using the
ordinary counting skill of the brain. This method awakens not so often areas of
the "primal brain." Along with the body's sense of time and space, our brains
track precise rhythmic patterns and communicate these signals to the As we age, and similarly after brain injury or
onset of certain neurological disorders, precise voluntary control of physical
movement becomes compromised. A myriad of physical therapy and balance training
methods are used to re-teach and strengthen key centers
Some drum training methods can be done individually at home, others in group settings. The objective is to teach each participant to initiate actions like walking, talking, and eating with less voluntary thought - moving to a rhythm, using time structure and awareness of the body. We often ask participants to select a fun rhythm they can effortlessly play or tap. The facilitator then selects the upbeat or downbeat to cue the desired activity. Cues can be carried out through "tapping" the hand or fingers for everyday activities.
Stephen Dolle on Laguna Woods TV Channel 6 Dec. 2017: Interview on Drumming for the Brain
We had helped an individual with balance and walking skills after a brain injury. He
had difficulty navigating his way around a small living quarters. We taught
rhythm patterns to match steps and turns he commonly made in his A senior center had been conducting a weekly step class to help patrons maintain their walking and balance skills. They had been playing music of various beat patterns. We came in with a tan tan and large djembe drum, and taught them a simple step pattern to keep to a beat we created. Then we gave them a simple jingle to remember the rhythm - to practice and use as they walked about at their residence. Go to full web page on Drumming for Wellness
Large Drum Circle Venues
The drum circle sites pictured here reveal a few of the ways drumming can be applied to large groups of people. Pictured are an area amphitheatre, Aliso Beach State Park in Laguna Beach, the Grand Ballroom at the Hilton Hotel in Newport Beach, and a convention hall in Toronto.
As humans, we have a multitude of brain wave
patterns and physical body rhythms which we use in non-verbal communication,
physical movement, and physical survival. Our earlier ancestors were more in
tune to these "rhythms" as they were far more involved in hunting and physical
work and body
communications than we are today. With the industrial revolution of the last 150
years bringing about major shifts in our use of physical labor and person to
person body communications, people in the West are becoming increasingly
distanced from our more "rhythmic" beginnings.
Drum Circles & Event Photos
Drumming for Orange County Area Organizations: Attendees at a local temple drumming. Right, Stephen poses w/ the program coordinator.
Participants enjoy drumming at the OC Young On-Set Parkinson's Conference, Newport Beach
Travel Fit Club & Costa Mesa Senior Center
Orange County Health & Wellness Organizations: High Hopes Head Injury Center of Orange County New Directions for Women, Costa Mesa - Drug & Alcohol Treatment FacilitySpinal Cord Injury Association of Orange County & OC Goodwill Center UCI Susan Samueli Integrative Medicine Center, Women's Wellness Day 2010 Below, Stephen Dolle speaks & facilitates a drumming workshop on wellness in Newport beach as part of Women's Wellness Day.
Orange County Area Community Outreach Events: Drumming for Fitness
Sobeca Concert at The Camp, Costa Mesa, CA
Friendship Shelter, Laguna Beach, CA Valley High School & High School, Inc., Santa Ana, CA Santa Ana Artist Village
Orange County Area Youth Programs: YMCA After School Programs, Santa Ana Summer Drumming Program, Girls Inc. of Orange County Girls Inc. Drumming Program: Course Description (PDF) High School, Inc. & Valley High School in Santa Ana, CA
Orange County Area Eco-Festivals: Surf 24 Event, Huntington Beach, CA
Green Valentine Festival, Laguna Beach Green Go Enterprises Eco-Festival Earth Hour, Laguna Beach (photo below)
Drumming for Animals & Nature: Drumming for Snow - and it snowed! (Kaelin Ski Store, photo below) Drumming with Horses - private ranch
Private Home & Families Drum Circles: No Photo - Jack's 50th Birthday Party "I just wanted to thank you again for the highlight of the evening. Your drum circle touched many people and they discovered something about their passions they never knew they had ." L. Bicer
to Schedule your next Drum Circle!
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