Why are we doing eurythmy (at Waldorf education)
Dutch here

At least once a year this question is asked to me, as Eurythmy teacher. I’ve got a lot of small answers, and some big once, that are less suitable, because they’re hardcore anthroposophy. So I always have a difficult time answering this. But here is an attempt.

First some of the little one’s;
– moving is good. As a change for all the sitting we do at school. But, it’s not as free from concentrated learning, like physical education (gymnastics?)
– the different left-right, up-down, quick-slow, straight-curved movements are good for the connections between the two brain halves, which helps with learning.

– as a sort of meditation. Eurythmy is also meditative, and meditation relaxes, makes you think clear and relaxed again.
– to move with the whole group, as a whole, which is good for the coherence in the class.
– as a sort of group-energy massage. As human you’ve got a ‘personal space’, roughly as far as you can reach your arms and a little bit. In this space friends and family are allowed, strangers better keep outside. If you move around each other in eurythmy, you’re massaging this personal space.
– The movements we make are a sort of colour palet; you’re doing movements you’re normally not doing, which gives you more options for movement, which in turn makes you more free in your movements.

– How you move and sit has influence on how you’re feeling. Armen crossed gives a whole different feeling and energy to armen wide open. If you have troubles with opening yourself to others or other ideas, you can practice this by opening your arms a couple of times, multiple times over the week. Vice versa, if you have trouble putting borders, you can practice this by crossing your arms a couple of times. (there is eurythmy therapy based on this)
Eurythmy has a whole range of movements, to practice certain emotions and energy.

More spiritual is about your aura, where your emotions, thoughts and will in float, in and around you. Clairvoyants can see this as colours, shapes, sometimes cloudlike, sometimes shaped and clear. With eurythmy you are shaping this aura. Where there are dark ‘clouds’, or too hard/stuck shapes, that is, habits, thoughts and emotions, eurythmy tries too make the clouds clear, the shapes soft and loose.

That this calls up some resistance within some is completely understandable. As a teacher you have to have patience, be calm and also have humour. What I have heard, this wasn’t always the case (in the past). Eurythmy was very serious thing, almost holy. (Which makes the lessons not always better. certainly with teenagers)

A bit more teacher focused; most school subjects, like geography, history, learning the language, make that the spirit goes into the body (which is good). To balance this, and create more spiritual space for the next lessons, Eurythmy loosens the spirit from the body. Therefor it’s good to alternate between thought lessons and movement lessons, especially eurythmy.

More hardcore anthroposophy as last point; spiritual beings don’t communicate with words, but with energy and emotion’shapes’ (what is in our auras). To put it a bit bluntly; they communicate through eurythmy. To be more precise; eurythmy is a physical attempt to represent the way which spiritual beings communicate.

A bit poetically: Eurythmy is Angle speech.

This is not the way I explain it to the children. Some of the little ones, in other words. En other eurythmy teachers focus on other aspects. (maybe don’t even like my way of telling you). At the same time, Eurythmy is to be done, while it’s hard to put in words. But at least now you have a vague idea why (I think) we’re doing it.

And why I do it? Because for me it’s a warm bath, I experience the spiritual world through eurythmy. And I wish this to everyone.