step off your mat and enjoy eachothers gifts :)

continuing:

We are looking for win win situations, where you get a lot out of the training and you leave with the tools to share this magic. We honor your interest and your passion for the work. We look to serve you and your community in becoming a playground for yogis to step off their mats and enjoy each others gifts.

requirements to apply for AcroYoga teacher training:

It is up to you to decide what form of yoga moves you and what you want to share with your students. Becoming a yoga teacher is not a requirement to be filled to become an AcroYoga teacher, it is a vital part of knowing yourself and your relationship to spirit. Clarity and steadiness on your yoga path is what we are wanting you to find before you come to this training.

AcroFlow 2.0

Just got through my second private AcroYoga jam today, and it was as blissful as I dared to imagine.

We had all the time in the world, so we started real slow with partner stretches, and some of the stuff I had warmed up with in NY at the Om Factory. That was nice, since my practice had been getting more and more acrobatically, and simultaneously, macho oriented. Which only means, acro / circus has a tendency to jump straight into the advanced / highly physical stuff, and I've begun to really miss some of the really basic stuff which is the real foundation of the practice: like, two people coming into trusting physical contact.

What really brought this home to me was class on Sunday, where there was a 60/40 mix of complete newbies and experienced acroyogis. The experienced group was really pushing into some new ground which, with some of the heavier partners, was really beginning to strain my shoulder, so I went back and played with some of the new kids. To see, feel, and spot the instability of some of their basics (folded leaf even), really brought me back to foundations... and then to see the look on their eyes after completing... pure bliss and joy!

So H and I went through the foundation and got really relaxed and comfortable prior to a deep therapeutics session. My stated intent was to really start working on our flow... as in, really intuitive, natural transitioning through poses and full sequences, so we could get to that magic place of being.

We went through three or four sessions of intense practice, and worked verbally and bodily through some intriguing places and body spaces. One of the synchronistic highlights of the afternoon was when I had her up in throne, working through some nice one leg poses and arm movements, and she placed her hands above her head and said "wow, this feels like a halo..." literally at that precise moment the chandelier flickered and leapt to like 300% brighter than it had been. I looked up and saw all the arms of the chandelier (which she was perfectly positioned below) extending from her head, and it was a moment. :)

Since it was just me and H, my body/legs needed to recover between sessions, so we often returned to the mat and just did gentle partner mirroring work while having a natural conversation. Being able to have conversation while in physical flow was something completely new to me, and it was refreshing and fun. Normally I am so caught up in the blissful physical intensity that I am speechless.

So tonight I'm up now, after crashing early, and I received some intense dream intelligence about acro flow.. yes, finally I'm getting to the real reason for this post :)

Working through acro-flow with a partner is like a microcosmic mirror of working through a relationship with a person. The way your bodies feel, touch, balance, move, and flow together, how it feels for each of you, where the sticking points are in the pattern, how you choose to work through them together, the dance of flyer and base... these can all be seen (and in my dream, they were literal manifest) of the story of flow of the relationship... THIS MIRRORING IS THE CORE TRUTH OF THIS DREAM.

the real kicker was towards the end of the dream, where we started to add mechinical externals to the core acroyogic play. I visualized this as actual metal knobs bolted onto our hip bones for external attachment. H is an aerialist as well (trapeze, silks), so soon this will probably integrate into the practice. And the trapeze is a form of technical gear, a step away from purity but also an augmentation... and then I woke :)

AcroFlow

Today we rocked out a serious sequence. Here goes. At the start I thought, this is *long*... by the end, I think I got it.

* Throne
* wild dance on throne
* legs wide, no hands throne
* unhook legs
* hop / throw to forward flying
* flyer grasps ankles, full bow
* flier bends forward, base arms on shoulders
* flier grabs base ankles, powers up to
* shoulderstand
* stag
* legs wide, grab bases feet and bring them to hips to
* folded leaf
* the twisty thing to turn them over into reverse leaf
* they go pike and grab their ankles
* pashi
* base releases and relaxes feet (yum), all weight on hands
* flier up to headstand
* base toes to fliers back
* flier backbends over into whale / upside down flying
* flier grabs ankles
* rock flier back, forth
* ???
* reverse shoulderstand (fliers arms behind back, grasping base ankles)
* i have no recollection of where this went next or how it ended. like i said, its *long* :)

I <3 Acro!

Piloboli

Well, long time since I posted. Here's the skinny:

Went to my 9th Burn, Burning Man 2008. It was great. One of my absolute highlights (in addition to fornicating in the middle of the open desert) was kicking it wild style with the Contact Improv kids. It was a rocky start, but once we were in flow, we were in FLOW. I literally just closed my eyes and followed my body (and the body of my partners) through a rollicking flow of inversions, wrestles, lifts, crawls, rolls... you name it! 20 minutes later I left the floor completely out of breath and I hadn't even realised the exertion I was putting into the practice. I talked with the people, especially Renee, and he explained to me some of the fundamentals of the form.

I left Center Camp resolved to begin a Contact Improv community in Atlanta. Upon arriving back home, I followed my classic "Shoot! Aim! Fire!" routine, and emailed several people and my favorite yoga studio asking for space and time to gather. Of course, 2 hours later, after a little google research and some emails, I found out that there already is a *thriving* contact improv (CI) community right here.

Better yet, I found out that there was to be a 3-day workshop with Matt Kent, choreographer for Pilobolus, beginning in just 5 days! I signed up immediately.

Matt was the first person I met upon walking into the backstage door of Atlanta Ballet. And he quickly clarified to me that this was a dance workshop, not contact improv. No matter. It was awesome! And to me, it *was* contact improv, because, aside from like two times that we were gifted 10-15 minutes to synthesize a "piece", all the activity was improvisational and immediate. What's more strange is that out of 30 participants, I was the *only* male! Fine. I've been to the Hoop Convergence. I can handle the estrogen :)

AcroYogi / AcroBat

This Sunday we had another Jedi Kula class with Todd at Jai Shanti. A good diversity of players. We started off with simple and deep therapeutics, then moved to some forward flying, advanced to forward flying bow, and just as I was starting to think: "Oh, this is all such basics!" Todd threw us into some serious full inversions, including both candlestick and some other thing which required SERIOUS abdominal / core pushes along with real arm strength for both the base and the flyer. In fact, in this class, I began to realise the limits of my body, and where some old old injuries came out.

Playing with PC was very fun. She has a joyous and confident and ambitious energy to her that is fun to be around.

It was funny enough how the class began. Late to show and just in time was Vincent(?), a classically trained acrobat and dancer who had actually spent several years in the Circus... like, as a real job! He gave me some very detailed tips about how to place my hands and how to work grips that really allowed me to get into the advanced work.

In the end it was Trish and Vincent and I pushing the limits of our bodies with an inversion. As I tried for the second time, I could feel my muscles beginning to literally pop in both my triceps and legs, like I was going to pull one. That scared me a little. Nothing would suck like pulling a muscle while upside down 4 feet off the ground. Nonetheless, I was determined to hit the pose, so after stretching and breathing and jumping jacks for a few minutes, rejoined the fray... and damn if I didn't HIT IT! BAM!

Once I was up and in layout, it was all about balance and less about strength... hooray!

We also began to learn about "wrist love" in addition to the core practice of "leg love." Good stuff all around.

I realised leaving (in a very high state) that we had really begun the transition from AcroYoga into Acrobatics. Great stuff. And I now know where I need to build strength (arms and core). Boom! :)

Capacitor