PRESENCE PRACTICE™

Presence Practice™

Presence Practice™ is a methodology created by Lyndsay Hailey designed to help you experience, recognize, and return to the present moment. We hear all the time that we should “be present,” but how do we actually get there? And how do we stay present while interacting with other people?

Combining improvisation and acting techniques with Kundalini yoga, breathwork, meditation, movement, and awareness practices, Lyndsay guides participants out of the thinking mind and into an embodied experience of presence.

So what actually happens in a Presence Practice™ workshop?

Lyndsay guides the group through a Kundalini kriya using breath and movement to move stuck energy—aka “your blocks”—to create space for something new. Lyndsay provides the space for you to release without understanding a thing! She hopes you don’t understand what’s stuck, that you don’t analyze where it came from, and that you release whatever the hell it is without retelling the story.

From there, she guides you into Presence Practice™ with partner eye gazing techniques, chi-raising movements, breath, and awareness exercises. Once that portal of love and magic is busting at the seams, she guides you into connecting with your community through listening, improv exercises, and group exercises designed to expand our awareness beyond the individual and into the group. We practice holding flow with one another in community—listening without anticipating, responding to what is actually happening, and experiencing what becomes possible when a room full of people is truly present together.
And from there, we play.

Presence Practice™ grows out of a contradiction Lyndsay notices in traditional improv training: performers are taught countless rules to remember while simultaneously being told that the secret to great improvisation is to get out of their heads. Presence Practice™ turns that model upside down. Instead of starting with the rules, we start with the present moment. When you learn to stay there, many of the fundamentals of great improvisation begin to happen naturally.

You don’t need to be a performer to participate. Improv is a consciousness tool. The same skills that create connected improvisation—deep listening, responding rather than anticipating, staying connected to yourself while engaging with others, and finding your way back when your mind takes over—translate directly into relationships, creative work, professional life, and everyday interactions. Each three-hour workshop is a complete experience and can be taken on its own. No previous improv or Presence Practice™ experience is necessary. Attending all three days back-to-back allows for a deeper embodiment of the practice, with each workshop intentionally building upon the one before it to create a complete Presence Practice intensive. You will move from accessing and maintaining presence, to recognizing when we’ve slipped into the mind and finding our way back, to bringing that presence into deeper play, character, listening, observation, and scene work.

If your schedule allows, Lyndsay highly recommends joining us for the full three-day experience.

Prepare to move what’s stuck without needing to understand a thing. Come ready to breathe, move, listen, play, connect, laugh, and surprise yourself.

Please wear comfortable clothing and bring water.