Finding The Flow
Original Date: | Mar 24, 2016
I have been quiet for a while; focusing on deep introspection and re-investigating purpose. I have been finding the flow. Part of my lack of recent posts has been to a proliferation of art creation. I realized that letting my art life sit in the corner was not good for my soul. I belief it to be a source of a recent plague of migraines, which miraculously went away when I began to make art. You can see what I have been working on over at my ART WEBSITE. Being creative in this way has led me away from writing for a while. Perhaps I will find a balance between the two. Being an island baby, I enjoy the waves and tides. So if I veer away from something for a while, I try not to worry about it too much, trusting that the tide will bring me back when the time is right.
In my physical practice I have been exploring creative movement through waves and tides as well. I recently discovered the work of Emilie Conrad and her Continuum Movement practice. Her book, Life on Land has been a joy to read. I often feel that the physical practice of yoga can have a masculine slant. We get overly obsessed with form and alignment, right and wrong. The practice becomes rigid, and then just another way to justify our ego obsessions. Emilie Conrad was a dancer and spent many years dancing in Haiti. She eventually moved on to movement therapy, helping patients find movement after paralysis. Continuum is a Somatic based movement therapy. I belief the evolution of yoga will be towards a more Somatic approach.
I have been weaving these concepts into my practice through fluid movement. More fluid than vinyasa. The wave of the spine brings forth the next movement, and all movement emanates from the core. The practice looks like a dance, though you might see a brief glimpse of a traditional posture. While moving, the breath is fluid and free. It originates in the waving roll through table-top cat cow, or childs to table flow, or the roll up to stand you might be familiar with. My practice has taken on the grace and waves of the teaching of Angela Farmer. That wave now invigorates all the movements. Currently, this movement is expressing through my personal practice more than my teaching. Perhaps as I embody it more, it will make guest appearances in my teaching.
“Each grasp and thrust of a new muscle dims the internal memory of watery origin. But meanwhile, deep inside, the intrinsic movements maintain their oceanic memory. Organs undulate, unaware of the hardening of muscle and new reflexes making their demands; organs pulsate as they have always done, moving in rhythms more ancient than we. Moving in timeless rhythm like an endless prayer to life, the inner movement of the body is possibly unaware that it is on Earth. All of the interior movements are aquatic, true to their watery mother.” ~Emilie Conrad, Life on Land
