DOLLE COMMUNICATIONS

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Drum Circles Facilitation in Orange County for Health & Wellness, Neurological Disorders, and Spinal Cord Injury

Add us on Facebook to follow our calendar of drum performances, drum circles, and speaking engagements.  Join our Orange County Drum Circle group on Facebook and MeetUp.com to connect with other Orange County drummers.

Interested in a drum? We are an Authorized Reseller of Freedom Drums Percussion. Check out their line of djembes, doumbeks, and hand percussion available thru Dolle Communications.

We use Freedom Drums products in our workshops and drum circle facilitation. Contact us directly to place an order, or to inquire about a selection.

About Stephen Dolle (facilitator):

Stephen is no stranger to alternative health and wellness. His involvement with nutrition, fitness, exercise therapies, meditation, and mind-body work dates back to the late 1970s. On the modern medical side, he spent 15 years in nuclear medical imaging, including, 10 years running his own company. He authored well over 500 diagnostic procedures, and clinically worked up over 10,000 patients for conditions ranging from cancer to thyroid disease. Since 1992, he has been active in neurological monitoring, brain related research, and music therapy research. He designed and patented related medical technology, has authored numerous scientific health papers, and has advised families in neurological care matters.

Musically, Stephen's experience spans piano, vocals, guitar, and percussion, and he has performed in film and on stage. He coached nine years of youth soccer and baseball, as well as mentored some children. He received his certification in drum circle facilitation from Arthur Hull in March 2006, and has been facilitating at educational, nature, health, community, and family venues. Because of his strong clinical knowledge of cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders, and a lifetime spent in music, he can intuitively apply drum rhythms to help others with health issues.

Stephen delivers keynotes and workshops on the following topics:

A. group drumming for corporate team-building

B. drumming for health & wellness (rhythm & movement)

C. drumming in movement and sensory integration disorders.

Here is a "flier" on the many ways Modern Drumming and Drum Circles are used today.

Below, is our general information Group Drumming slide show entitled, "Team Building & Communications thru Group Drumming: Engaging the Rhythms of your Brain." Please "be patient" as the slide show takes 10 to 20 seconds to load.  If you have difficulty, view using the Adobe Acrobat Reader link. If the Power Point slides do not play automatically, select "slide show" and in the top left corner select "from the beginning." To view options during play, right-click your mouse on your screen and make your selection.

View in Microsoft Power Point versions 1997-2007: Team Building & Communications in Group Drumming

Faster Load Power Point (must have 2007 v. installed): Team Building & Communications in Group Drumming

View Slide Show in Adobe Acrobat Reader: Team Building & Communications in Group Drumming

Drum Circle Workshops and Drumming for Health and Wellness

Wellness drumming has become widely recognized over the last 10 years due in large part to research supported by the Remo drum company. Using a mix of free-form and facilitated drumming, participants of clinical studies showed improved outcomes in cancer, gait disorders, and during periods of stress. Wellness drumming is primarily designed around the concept of "free expression," that a healthy expression of one's inner wants and needs leads to "brain wave entrainment," where the brain induces itself into harmonizing beta and alpha wave states. Brain wave entrainment occurs both in the individual participant, and within the group, where the group adopts a common and healthy brain wave pattern and bond of support. As a drum circle facilitator, Stephen regularly employs this facilitation method.

There is a second and more specialized approach to wellness drumming where the facilitator is able to "psychically read the health issues" of the participants of the group, and create and delegate rhythms to "effect" each individual in a manner the facilitator believes will create the best mind-body connection to heal their ailment. This method follows the concept that specific rhythms impart specific benefits to the mind and body. Both methods can aid individuals suffering from a variety of medical conditions, including cancer, and couples struggling with infertility. This latter method can offer success where the "free expression" method fails, and may be of particular use in sensory integration challenges with autism. Stephen has experience with this more specialized method.

Drum Circle Workshops for Couples, Families, and Team Building

Various individual and family therapy methods have been used over the last 50 years to open communications among couples, family members, parents, and children. These methods have included psychotherapy, individual and group counseling, visits from social workers, and workshops on everything from EST and Lifespring to dramatic acting and image consulting. As simple as it sounds, a well facilitated drum circle can open much needed dialogue within a couple, family, group, or community.

Family and group drum circles for inter-personal intervention are cost effective, non-threatening, long lasting, and strengthen mental health, not to mention its benefit to one's confidence and stress level. This circle follows the free-form or "free expression" concept of drumming, with limited and very observant intervention by the facilitator in fostering participants to express themselves. As in wellness drumming, the end goal is group brain wave entrainment, and it can take several sessions.

Drum Circle Workshops aid Mobility in Neurological Disorders

Using the body's sensory ability, participants can be taught to initiate precise physical movements to walk, talk, and perform specific actions - all using drum rhythms as cues. This method requires less of the brain's voluntary thought and cognitive centers, and more of the rhythmic ability of the body to create syncopation of voluntary action.

As people age, and similarly after a brain injury or onset of neurological disorder, precise voluntary control of actions like walking can become compromised. Drum training can be done privately in one's home as well as in group settings. The participant is taught how to initiate action to the cue of a rhythm using the sensory system of their body. Participants are encouraged to pick a rhythm they can easily play, and be cued with either the upbeat or downbeat. Cues are carried out by tapping the hands, fingers, feet, and other body parts in accordance with turns, steps, and bending to pick things up. This is helpful in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS), post TBI, or stroke who have a lot of difficulty standing and walking. Those with autism will require more hands-on instruction. SEE more in our section on drum circle workshops.

Drumming after Spinal Cord Injury

The following information is part of a keynote presentation and workshop put on for the Orange County OC-SCI spinal cord injury networking group on December 10, 2009. Spinal cord injury, or SCI, poses some very specific mobility challenges to affected persons. Outside of their day to day physical mobility challenges, there is a vast amount of new research underway that is producing new treatments and impressive new outcomes for many following SCI today. Our goal in introducing drumming to this population is to explore ways in which it might be used to further the everyday needs of persons with SCI, perhaps even in ways not previously considered, and to explore how it might be used to support new research initiatives in the sub-clinical setting.

Up to this point, we have not had any specific experience with spinal cord injury or treatment. We are familiar with SCI albeit as a neurological and physical condition, and we interviewed a number of persons having SCI, as well as spoke with scientists at the UCI Reeve Center as to their current research interests. For this SCI workshop, we decided to present our hallmark "rhythm & movement" drumming to help everyday mobility, and we bolstered our communicative drumming with more assertive rhythms with the belief this might help them better navigate and communicate their way while at crowded places and venues.  Next, we wanted to feature "fun and lively" rhythms to simulate dancing, running, and jumping, movements that are widely not too available to persons with SCI, and ask participants to try and feel the playing of these rhythms down into their feet. Lastly, we provided a drumming session on "visualization of walking and gait," in support of a new joint Harvard University and University of California Irvine Reeve Center research study. In this study, participants are placed under an fMRI scanner and asked to visualize walking. The hope is that these researchers can come to a new understanding of the role between optimized brain activity and spinal cord repair. We felt that if the participants were to play their visualized walking movements on a drum or shaker, and try and sense it down into their feet, that this additional "biofeedback" might trigger a better response than merely visualization alone (though no brain imaging were done today).

1. Rhythm & Movement Drumming: Designed to help everyday mobility, tasks, and coordination thereof. SCI persons, notwithstanding the limitations from upper thoracic and cervical cord involvement, should already have increased dexterity in the use of their hands and fingers. The goal of this exercise is to get the participants to use existing finger and hand movements for more than merely tasks and control of their chair, rather, to play patterns that can be parlayed over to better coordination and syncopation of tasks and chair control. These should be quick and varying rhythms to simulate everyday movements. Participants are instructed to play patterns not only on the instruments, but also on their legs and parts of their chair.

2. Communicative Drumming: Designed around the concept that learning assertive and provocative rhythms will further an individuals body language, presence, and telepathic energy. The basis to this exercise is supported by an earlier published study that reported men under the height of 5'8" did not command the same attention when speaking as did taller men. Further, it has been observed in SCI that because the individual sits down relatively low in their chair in public, much less than 5'8", and that they require a wider space to pass thru crowds, they face additional difficulty in having people acknowledge them sufficiently to make room for passage. Here, strong and assertive rhythms are played to boost one's command and presence. Mind-body exercises may also be of help.

3. Psyche & Wellness Rhythm Drumming: The concept in this exercise is that body movements and rhythms like running, jumping, skipping, and dancing are important to our overall wellness and psyche. In SCI, when one is confined to a chair, he/she is limited in the movements and rhythms they can carry out. By playing these movement patterns on hand percussion, you can "simulate" many of the patterns as executed in running, jumping, skipping, and dancing. The focus of this exercise is fun and lively rhythms that simulate the above movements.

4. Drumming and Visualization of Walking/Gate: This exercise is being offered in support of a joint Harvard University and University of California Irvine Reeve Center study on walking and gait in SCI. Though no fMRI scanner is available in today's drumming, the concept is the same, that playing a rhythm and feeling movement down into the legs might enhance brain activity for spinal cord repair. Participants are asked to play their visualized walking movements on a drum or shaker, and try and sense the pulse into their feet. This exercise requires more individualized concentration to engage visualization of walking. It is unclear whether other distractions and rhythms in the room might detract from the merits of this exercise. Typical rhythms would be 1-2 1-2 or 1-2-3-4 to simulate walking and marching.

Contact us for pricing and availability at (949) 642-4592 or by mail here. Best time to call is between 11am and 5pm PST.