I filmed a 30-minute "Intro to Flowbility™" class and some tips last week for Qinetic. The class is already up on their new app and it's F.R.E.E. Check it out here: https://appsto.re/us/R0aZ_.i
For the video seen here: I believe functional warm-ups can be creative and fun. Try the exercise seen on this tip. Remember to move slowly; try holding the most distant position for three full seconds then make a smooth transition to your next hand or foot placement.
In this excerpt from a rooftop movement session, Marlo leads a quick sequence to wake up your back musculature. Try these moves to enliven your posture and prepare for deeper stretching. If you have more that three minutes, great! Extend this sequence by performing more repetitions of each exercise -- try each movement for 30 seconds to one minute for even more Flowbility benefits.
In this excerpt from a rooftop movement session, Marlo leads a quick sequence to wake up your back musculature. Try these moves to enliven your posture and prepare for deeper stretching. If you have more that three minutes, great!
Have you ever bought any digital tutorials or courses? Or saved videos on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube?
Chances are you grabbed them because wanted to remember and LEARN the material.
But, did work through them?
How has it been integrating what you learned into your dancing/living/teaching?
Or, are the videos collecting digital dust...waiting for you to give them a chance?
If you have gathered materials, especially if you PAID for those materials, but haven’t given them the attention you intended, how about getting out your calendar RIGHT NOW and booking yourself some self-learning time?
If you look at any beginner movement class, you'll see widely-varying degrees of bodily awareness. However, regardless of how someone moves, with a little bit of cueing, anyone can feel if they are in contact with the floor or not.
You don’t need skill or imagination to sense your contact with the floor. You may not be paying attention to it most of the time, but it doesn't require anatomical awareness to grasp what 'weight-bearing' is or to notice which of your parts have the most pressure.
Weight bearing is a constant thing (unless you are temporarily airborne, space traveling, or swimming, you are bearing weight, somehow).
Yet, the details of rolling contacts are rarely zeroed in on outside of higher-level movement environments. But...they could be.
The first is called ‘Bodyfulness’ by Boulder author Christine Caldwell. It’s swelling with information for or anyone who’s ready to look at the how and why of how they move. The author founded the Somatic Counseling program at Naropa University and has been in practice for more than thirty years.
She says:
“The body isn’t a thing we have but an experience we are. Bodyfulness is about working toward our potential as a whole human animal that breathes as well as thinks, moves as well as sits still, takes action as well as considers, and exists not because it thinks but because it dances, stretches, bounces, gazes, focuses, and attunes to others.“
Have you been to a dance class that was supposed to be beginner-appropriate or all-levels, but the class progressed in a way that made you want to disappear?
Maybe you had fun the first few minutes when the sequence was short, but then the instructor moved on, and on, and on. With rapidly dwindling confidence, you were left stumbling in the wake of an ever-growing sequence. Perhaps physically you could have done it all, but you needed more time to really 'get it'. It was just too much to remember.
I've been there. In classes and in auditions, I've been there.
You can only stumble around, a count behind everyone else, for so long before you want to shrivel into the corner and become unseen.
When you’re new to a style or form (or even just with a new teacher), learning a lengthy complex piece of choreography (maybe alongside people much younger or more skilled than you) is daunting and often
disheartening. Based on what I've observed, the amount of choreography delivered in many dance classes leaves a LOT of people behind.
In my opinion, if you are still trying to remember the choreo during the last minutes of class, you're missing out on the joy of dancing, the part where the movement starts to carry you and you can transcend who you were when you arrived.
My message is this:
If you flow with a gourd of your choice between now and Nov 5, I’ll send you a code for $5 off any event or video.
How:
Get busy with you pumpkin and catch it on video.
Post at least 15 seconds on FB or IG and tag #pumpkinflow and @flowmovement
Send us a message on either platform with the link to your video and we will send you your discount code.
Yesterday, I witnessed a group movement experience that I was SO glad I was not a part of.
After a month away and a week of living the truck driver life, I got a month-long pass to a nearby gym. It’s primarily a rock-climbing gym, but they have a weight room upstairs.
This particular gym runs some group conditioning classes inside of the weight room. While I was gleefully doing irreverent things on the back extension bench, a voice came over the loudspeaker letting everyone know that “Body Blast with Mr. Blasty Blast” [ok, not his real name] was starting soon. I thought, “Oh nice, I’ll get to see if I would ever want to join the class.” Consensus:
OH NO, I WILL NOT FUCKING EVER. (Unless you pay me. I’d consider it if money were involved.)
Photo by Pole Ninja Photography.
1. Choose three breathy songs with minimal lyrics.
(Suggestions from the December Playlist are listed below.)
2. Assume one of the following positions: seated, supine (laying on your back) with feet on the floor (start of a hip bridge), quadrupedal (all fours), or sitting on your heels.
3. Practice breathing at a slow comfortable pace.
4. Then, follow the rhythm of the music as you...
As you move through the song, focus on moving from your pelvis. Gradually, incorporate body parts you didn’t incorporate before: use your head, your arms, your fingers, and toes. Emphasize the lengthening on the front side of your body as the back side shortens -- and vice versa. When you find spots that offer more resistance, explore them more.
Can you curl so small it is barely visible? Can you make it bigger than you believed it could be?
Song suggestions:
Track #3 - Kareful, "Backwards"
Track #4 - Ash Walker featuring Zeb Samuels, "Blue Veins"
5. Either remain in that position, or change positions for the next song as you...
Isolate the movement to one part of the body; sway the hips, arms, or head as the rest of the body rests. Then gradually, move your head and pelvis together in a side bend. Swish to the other side...like a snake or a cloth in the breeze. Work out the kinks as you follow your breath.
Song suggestions:
Track 5 - Handbook, "Sixteen Lights"
Track 6 - George Fitzgerald, "Full Circle" featuring Boxed In (Bonobo Remix)
6. Finally,
for the entirety of the third song.
Can you do it only with the thighs, the head, or the hands? Feel the floor beneath you and the space around you as your circles become strong and continuous. Reverse your circle and see what it offers.
Song suggestions:
Track 7 - Bluetech, "Phoenix Rising"
Track 8 - OBESØN, "Friend To An Enemy [NEST HQ Premiere]
As you repeat the patterns over and over again, you may drift into new positions. This is ok!
Focus on moving as a result of your breath. Begin small, subtle and easy. Gradually express full range of motion as you move.
There are no wrong answers, as it is an exploration. You think you look weird? Great, you are doing it right. Keep going. You feel sexy? Fantastic, exactly. You feel stiff? Beautiful, move through that.
Heightened focus brings greater results, so focus IN, and feel the space around you.
Enjoy, and share your discoveries....
“I don’t do balls,” I used to say.
Like many other dancers I knew growing up, I formed an identity around being a dancer with no interest in activities involving balls, pucks, paddles, etc. (unless I was dancing with it).
In high school, I almost failed P.E. class because I flat-out refused to participate in any sports activity. As a result, in later years, whenever someone would throw me a ball I’d duck away rather than catch it, or if I did attempt a catch, it would be in a stiff and panicky state. It was embarrassing.
Ki’ilani (seen in the video) changed my relationship with catching. She loves balls more than anyone I’ve ever met. Every trip to a large store includes a visit to the sports aisle to feel balls. She even keeps a ball in her pocket for comfort tossing. One of our quarantine activities has been ‘dance catch.’
Have you ever bought any digital tutorials or courses? Or saved videos on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube?
Chances are you grabbed them because wanted to remember and LEARN the material.
But, did work through them?
How has it been integrating what you learned into your dancing/living/teaching?
Or, are the videos collecting digital dust...waiting for you to give them a chance?
If you have gathered materials, especially if you PAID for those materials, but haven’t given them the attention you intended, how about getting out your calendar RIGHT NOW and booking yourself some self-learning time?
If you look at any beginner movement class, you'll see widely-varying degrees of bodily awareness. However, regardless of how someone moves, with a little bit of cueing, anyone can feel if they are in contact with the floor or not.
You don’t need skill or imagination to sense your contact with the floor. You may not be paying attention to it most of the time, but it doesn't require anatomical awareness to grasp what 'weight-bearing' is or to notice which of your parts have the most pressure.
Weight bearing is a constant thing (unless you are temporarily airborne, space traveling, or swimming, you are bearing weight, somehow).
Yet, the details of rolling contacts are rarely zeroed in on outside of higher-level movement environments. But...they could be.
The first is called ‘Bodyfulness’ by Boulder author Christine Caldwell. It’s swelling with information for or anyone who’s ready to look at the how and why of how they move. The author founded the Somatic Counseling program at Naropa University and has been in practice for more than thirty years.
She says:
“The body isn’t a thing we have but an experience we are. Bodyfulness is about working toward our potential as a whole human animal that breathes as well as thinks, moves as well as sits still, takes action as well as considers, and exists not because it thinks but because it dances, stretches, bounces, gazes, focuses, and attunes to others.“
Have you been to a dance class that was supposed to be beginner-appropriate or all-levels, but the class progressed in a way that made you want to disappear?
Maybe you had fun the first few minutes when the sequence was short, but then the instructor moved on, and on, and on. With rapidly dwindling confidence, you were left stumbling in the wake of an ever-growing sequence. Perhaps physically you could have done it all, but you needed more time to really 'get it'. It was just too much to remember.
I've been there. In classes and in auditions, I've been there.
You can only stumble around, a count behind everyone else, for so long before you want to shrivel into the corner and become unseen.
When you’re new to a style or form (or even just with a new teacher), learning a lengthy complex piece of choreography (maybe alongside people much younger or more skilled than you) is daunting and often
disheartening. Based on what I've observed, the amount of choreography delivered in many dance classes leaves a LOT of people behind.
In my opinion, if you are still trying to remember the choreo during the last minutes of class, you're missing out on the joy of dancing, the part where the movement starts to carry you and you can transcend who you were when you arrived.
My message is this:
If you flow with a gourd of your choice between now and Nov 5, I’ll send you a code for $5 off any event or video.
How:
Get busy with you pumpkin and catch it on video.
Post at least 15 seconds on FB or IG and tag #pumpkinflow and @flowmovement
Send us a message on either platform with the link to your video and we will send you your discount code.
Yesterday, I witnessed a group movement experience that I was SO glad I was not a part of.
After a month away and a week of living the truck driver life, I got a month-long pass to a nearby gym. It’s primarily a rock-climbing gym, but they have a weight room upstairs.
This particular gym runs some group conditioning classes inside of the weight room. While I was gleefully doing irreverent things on the back extension bench, a voice came over the loudspeaker letting everyone know that “Body Blast with Mr. Blasty Blast” [ok, not his real name] was starting soon. I thought, “Oh nice, I’ll get to see if I would ever want to join the class.” Consensus:
OH NO, I WILL NOT FUCKING EVER. (Unless you pay me. I’d consider it if money were involved.)
All up in my Kindle at the Denver airport
I usually read full books, but out of curiosity I read the 15 min summary of the "Motivation Manifesto" by Brendon Burchard. I will never go for a summary over the experience of reading the book again. I felt like I was cheating on the author. Plus, similar to someone telling you about how good a class was, secondhand info can never replace what you may have learned from having the experience yourself.
Anyway, that’s not what I am writing about, there was a quote in there that struck a cord....
"Waiting for the perfect day to initiate change is essentially the same as choosing never to start, because perfect opportunities are so few and far between.”
If you keep hearing yourself say “I should …..,” either take steps to make it happen ASAP, or have an honest talk with yourself about why that thing is not actually very important. It will probably never be done.
Harsh? maybe. But I’m here to fuel your fire.
You are probably subscribed to Flow Movement because you are interested in moving better. Perfect, I can help with that. But first, in what ways do you let opportunities for movement improvement pass you by?
Take a minute to think it over.
Movement improvement can happen at any time -- not just during designated training times.
Here are a few tiny things you can do NOW
(and over and over again/always) to improve your movement quality:
**Place one hand on your belly and one on the center of your chest. Check in with your breath. If you do not feel your abdomen move for the first 2/3 of your inhalation, and the chest for the last third, try to relax your airways and allow natural, three dimensional breath movement to happen. Go for belly expansion with a soft chest and throat.
**Check in with the alignment of your head. You are reading this, but how are you holding yourself while reading this? Chronic forward head posture is a major stressor to your musical-skeletal system with repercussions ranging from chronic pain to lack of flexibility/strength and even negative emotions. It’s worthwhile for you to become conscious of the relationship between your head and shoulders.
**Immediately after reading this go to the closest wall or floor and have two minutes of you time. Breathe, stretch, and explore. Scan your body for muscles that could use some blood flow and pump them up. Focus on what you feel. Stay with what needs more attention.
Short on ideas? I don’t believe that -- you have made it this far....Start with anything: move your head, your pelvis; squeeze your glutes; make yourself long. If you still need help, check out some videos HERE.
Zombie handstands are all the rage so I flipped it over and became a zombie crab....The reclined heel sit position is one of my favorite quad stretches and the crab position is one of my favorite shoulder stabilizing/ front line lengthening moves. Together they are challenging and perfect for a morning in the Philippines : ).
Start lying flat on your back and slide your heels in. Then, slide your shoulders towards your heels by reaching your knees forward towards the ground (to get to the start position shown here) for full zombie status.
I'll be posting more videos like this on the Flow Movement Facebook page.
When I was young I would buy fitness magazines hoping to look like the models I saw. In my mid-twenties, pole dancing inspired lifestyle changes that shifted my relationship with movement. My body changed and I appeared in a number of fitness magazines as a model. Gradually, I moved away from the aesthetic-driven exercise I was selected to represent in favor of natural movement and skill development.
Now, Flow Movement is featured on 10 beautiful pages in Shape magazine. I am honored that Shape featured not only my exercises but aspects of my shoe-free, floor-loving, playful and creative movement philosophy.
Online version: http://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/killer-flow-workout-total-body-strengthening
A hike in Boulder, Colorado.
Pants by Flow Movement.
Wobbly rock play on all fours.
Good morning Flatirons, thank you for being part of my backyard.
This was fun. slippery dirt and downhill square splits. A true adductor test.
As much as I love interacting with a smooth clean floor, playing in dirt and rocks teaches things that the studio cannot.
Challenges bring me joy. Well, the challenges nature presents.
I remember watching someone press a handstand and thinking I would never be able to. I tried anyway. I remember eventually holding a straddle handstand after a press and realizing that holding your legs together was way more challenging. Now, most of the time, my straight body handstand is there for me. Sometimes for a little while, sometimes for longer. But I have the power to control it. As I focus my eyes in the position, I smile. I remember the process.
Scuba Floral Cuff Pants by Flow Movement.
I remember watching someone press a handstand and thinking I would never be able to. I tried anyway. I remember eventually holding a straddle handstand after a press and realizing that holding your legs together was way more challenging. Now, most of the time, my straight body handstand is there for me. Sometimes for a little while, sometimes for longer. But I have the power to control it. As I focus my eyes in the position, I smile. I remember the process.Scuba Floral Cuff Pants by Flow Movement.www.flowmovement.net/shop
Posted by Flow Movement on Wednesday, April 29, 2015
“I don’t do balls,” I used to say.
Like many other dancers I knew growing up, I formed an identity around being a dancer with no interest in activities involving balls, pucks, paddles, etc. (unless I was dancing with it).
In high school, I almost failed P.E. class because I flat-out refused to participate in any sports activity. As a result, in later years, whenever someone would throw me a ball I’d duck away rather than catch it, or if I did attempt a catch, it would be in a stiff and panicky state. It was embarrassing.
Ki’ilani (seen in the video) changed my relationship with catching. She loves balls more than anyone I’ve ever met. Every trip to a large store includes a visit to the sports aisle to feel balls. She even keeps a ball in her pocket for comfort tossing. One of our quarantine activities has been ‘dance catch.’