For me that's interesting thing about the way they're bowing - almost like Orthodox. So maybe Roman Catholics after medieval times have changed the way of the bowing that now they do genuflection or lie on the ground in the form of the cross. And that is a sacred area only for priests and their servants like in today's Orthodox churches. I've read somewhere that in miedieval times they had a kind of curtain, similar to Armenian or Syriac one.
But I doubt that they're really praying; for me it's more like a play...
Dominican Fathers, Brothers, Nuns, and Sisters do not make the genuflection as do other Latin-rite Catholics. Instead they make a low bow (like our metania) without making the Sign of the Cross as do the Orthodox.
p.s. I was in a Dominican convent for three years. I left when they started listening to the late Father Thomas Merton and were into the study of Eastern meditations (Buddhism).
Interestingly, there were two Dominican missions to the Orthodox World: one in Constantinople and the other in the country of Georgia. It was not very long before both priories became Orthodox Christians and were then known as the "white" monastics. St. Seraphim of Sarov also wore white monastic garments and prayed in a way similar to the Dominican Rosary.
Some Western Rite parishes in Orthodoxy have an adapted Rosary, don't they?
