I’m Ted, 23 years old, and I first discovered ‘New Style’ Rebirthing Breathwork through David Parker, ( here on the right of this pic ) a Breathworker with 30 years experience, after he suggested I try breath work and I trust his sound judgement so I decided to come to an individual 3 hour session and give it a go.
But from someone who has been diagnosed bi-polar (rapid-cycling) for 7 years and suffered many ins and outs of depression, medication, therapists and institutions, at first I was sceptical and I also find communicating with people and systems somewhat of a task due to my Aspergers (High-Functioning) syndrome, diagnosed in my teenage years. I was not convinced that breathing would really have that much of an impact on me. I had done meditation and Bikram yoga which both centre heavily around breathing and mostly the outcomes of these activities had been a headache or general exhaustion.
Most importantly I have found Rebirthing breath work to be the most effective form of therapy in helping me through tough patches of depression. And if we consider that I have been through many a psychiatric professional, various institutions and 13 different medications over 6 years I think you can agree that this is somewhat of a profound discovery.
What Breathwork does is it gets you past your intellectual barriers and complicated head based reasoning and puts you into your body. It reaches deep into your soul and gives it a good massage and a shake. What this allows you to do is become unstuck. One of my biggest difficulties with depression is getting stuck. Either in a hole or a loop or a sticky pool of mud. Regardless of the work I have done the day before I wake up the next day in the same pool of shit I started in the day before. This winter I experienced this cycle for an excruciating 4 months and I am still not entirely free of it. However, when I have attend a breath work session it has always shifted something. I can’t always put my finger on what but I can feel that within me something has moved. This in turn has helped to remove me partially if not entirely out of my loop/whole/pool of mud in the space of a few hours.
This is incredible!
Never before could anything get me out of these ruts. Only recreational drugs or extreme life situations ever had any effect; and these two options come with negative longterm consequences whereas breath work does not. Price wise it is even reasonable. Especially compared to other alternative therapies and private medical care. For me I have found accessing therapies through the NHS extremely traumatic and the end result was that I was left on drugs without monitoring or any sort of talking/holistic therapies. Rebirthing breath work has begun a process in me. And I will continue to use it as therapeutic tool for as long as it serves me. I have huge gratitude for David and the assistants who help him in URBAN LIFECLASS group sessions, for showing me breath work and allowing me some release and progress from depression. This is how Breathwork makes me feel : Refreshed, ALIVE, Energised and FREE . . .
by Ted Rogers : Dancer/Performer/Writer/Artist/ Blogger/Poet/Model/Stylist
To provide some context, the beginning of the year had been busy for me. January had brought with it a lot of performance gigs; February had seen me direct two shows, as well as mounting my own production, Prevail, with my theatre company, Plain Paper Productions; and in March I turned 24 and seemed to spend a large chunk of the month celebrating (and drinking…lots of drinking!). So that by the time the end of March rolled around, I barely realised that I hadn’t got any work lined up and my bank balance had been worryingly depleted thanks to all the aforementioned “celebrating”. I didn’t know what to do – all I knew was that I needed to work.
I’ve done breathwork for nearly three years now and have worked closely with David Parker and the rest of the UrbanLIFECLASS team. Through working with them I have learnt to “trust in the universe” – a phrase that sounds very spiritual but is really just common sense. I’ve learnt over time that worrying about the future too much isn’t conducive to anything and can stop you from focusing on the here and now. 
In the space of one afternoon I went from having nothing lined up to having two jobs – one for the day and one for the night. 
Robert Beck is a freelance director and queer performer living and working in London. His recent show ‘Prevail’ was part of Camden LGBT Forum’s History Month programme and is produced by his company Plain Paper Productions. As well as this, he is a drag performer and has appeared at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, The Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club, and various pubs and bars around London. 
Rebirth Your Life 