Through an integrative blend of hatha yoga, somatics, movement meditations, tantric philosophy, and transpersonal psychology, Embodied Flow elicits the experience of stepping into flow as meditation in action.
We are a school of yoga and movement reconnecting body, mind and spirit while finding tangible pathways between the three. We use movement, asana, meditation, visualization, philosophy, psychology, verbal expression, and science as technologies for acquiring a deep sense of strength, ease and connectivity in the human form. Embodied Flow aims to deliver its practitioners a sense of agency as they discover their own innate capacity to step into a life that is in flow.
It is our aim to thrive in every layer of fabric of our consciousness and to take that awakened mind out into the world.
PRINCIPLES OF EMBODIED FLOW™
THE BODY IS A VEHICLE FOR AWAKENING
The highest aim of yoga is to know "The Self." Hatha yoga has traditionally taught that the method for awakening consciousness lies within the Body. We may know The Self through practices that support us to stay present within every part that makes up who we are. The result of this practice is an enlivened being, where the Body and Mind are one. Within this state, the limited or false Self dissipates, and all possibilities become available to us.
YIELDING
We can practice yoga with strength in a relaxed manner. We may do this by feeling our body relax its weight into the ground while the surrounding atmosphere equally supports its levity. This balance within our relationship to space and gravity is called Yielding. Resistance to gravity creates rigidity. In contrast, we can feel overtaken and defeated by gravitational force. This physical struggle is reflected in our internal state. By yielding, we neither brace or harden against experience nor give up. Yielding is a meta concept that defines how we enter a room and conversation, or relate to others and our environment. When we successfully negotiate our relationship to the earth, there is equanimity of effort and ease in our Body-Mind that effects the whole of our life experience.
PATHWAYS OF CONNECTIVITY
Feeling free within our Body-Mind is one of the strongest tools of yoga practice. The practice is one of listening to inner wisdom and creating circumstances that support harmony. This process begins during infancy, when we develop a series of movements that support healthy growth. Gaining fluency in each movement creates the foundation for ease in more complex movements to come. Oftentimes these developmental patterns become hindered, and blockages form in our body that remain as we get older. We can re-explore passageways of our own growth when given the right opportunity. Similarly, when we free contractions in the mind, we can feel greater ease of movement. In other words, conditions of connectivity can be created. Freeing these channels is the foundation of many ancient energy based healing art systems.
ARTICULATION & INTEGRATION
Developing awareness of our entire Body, and also the more subtle systems that comprise our Body such as bones, glands or organs, allows us to establish new patterns for experience. Articulation allows us to familiarize ourselves with the different systems that make up who we are. As we explore each layer of our Body, we must then reconnect it to the bigger picture. Integration gives time and space for those parts to interact. We can bring this skill of observing our parts in connection to our Whole to each aspect of life. We can deepen reflection of how our present beliefs, movements, thoughts, or attitude support presence within our True Self. We can also identify areas that are in shadow and are thwarting access to overall ease and strength. We have the opportunity to analyze our development, in order to support the greater whole of our life.
FLOW IS A STREAMING OF MOMENT TO MOMENT CONSCIOUSNESS
The ultimate aim of yoga practice is to be fully present in the here and now. This is our birthright. Yet constant focus on the past or a preconceived future often obstructs this aim. When we observe how we scatter between the past and future, we can create a safe space for those aspects of our self to release. We can then experience an uninterrupted continuation, or Flow, of thoughts, feelings and movement from one moment to the next. Living in a state of flow gives us the ability to fully arrive in this moment, and the next, and so on with presence-awareness. As we deepen understanding of our Body, presence of our awakened being has even more capacity to occur. This ultimate streamline of consciousness is the constant, clear expression of our being from poses to pose, moment to moment, and breath to breath.