Embrace the Flow :: The Stars Have Aligned

So many of my posts have talked about living one's dharma, entering the state of flow, and being happy—probably because I'm aware of how lucky one is to actually move in that direction. So it's totally worth pausing, posting a little blurb, taking note of and being grateful for flowing. I sincerely believe that when we step into our lives and our dharma, the universe responds. So it's with great joy, gratitude and awareness that I'm not doing this alone that I get to announce the creation/manifestation of Spin :: Flow. MFY will be expanding its reach and offerings with a new fusion spinning and Yoga studio. MFY has leased 3000 SF of beautiful space on the corner of 12^th and Cherry (right by Seattle U) and the new spin/flow fusion studio will open its doors on approximately Feb 1, 2012.

Spin :: Flow is the manifestation of at least 1.5 years' worth of creative energy. As most of you know, I came to Yoga as an athlete. I spent my childless summer's reaping around the mountains, climbing, and mountain biking and being somewhat "intense" about it all: a happy Wednesday in July involved a quick stomp up to Camp Muir. With children, life obviously had to change: my husband spent more than one night anxiously awaiting my return home from an adventure, and that kind of life simply didn't serve a family. For a while I wallowed around, fully aware of—and a little bit resentful of—my "sacrifice. " Then I found Yoga. All of a sudden all that fire, all that drive could be realized in just 60-90 minutes just miles from home. I was home! I dove in and for a long time all I had time for, outside of my family, was Yoga, learning to teach Yoga, studying Yoga, teaching Yoga and opening a studio . . . . Yoga, yoga, yoga. I was happy and having a lot of fun, I could do the full splits for the first time since I was 9, I could lead a room full of people in a Pranic dance with life, I quickly received a lot of local notoriety and I could stand on my hands . . . FUN. But about 2 years ago I started getting hurt . . . A LOT. I met my new and amazing healing friends: my massage therapist (really the best ever jselements@msn.com), my chiro (also amazing Dr. Sasaki at Functional Health on Madison), and my physical therapist and I learned/worked to recreate stability in my body. I had become so hyper flexible, that I was no longer serving myself; my joints started slipping around and I become very prone to injury. I learned this: there's no point in fluidity and flexibility without stability. In fact, I believe stability must be built in advance of flexibility, or the flexibility can't be supported.

I also believe Yoga can be the PERFECT physical exercise, when taught and practiced properly and balanced: I haven't found a better endeavor for maintaining/accessing a full range of motion in our bodies while simultaneously building strength. I also believe that Yoga can and should be augmented with additional stability creating work, i.e. spinning, running, weight lifting. Spinning and running actually create tightness in the quads and hammies as well as around the hip, knee and ankle joints, this tightness can promote strength and stability, it's tightness that can actually serve us if we then build the flexibility. So with all my injury, I bought a spinning bike for my basement and started running again, while Yoga is still my primary physical endeavor, I balance it out with quite a bit of spinning and running to promote stability and create strength where I over-stretched .

Another amazing thing happened when I went back to running and spinning after years of just Yoga: I took my Yoga with me! I noticed that the breath, body awareness and mental presence to physical effort infused EVERYGHING I did. Running and spinning transformed into a meditation of mental and physical release into presence. I no longer rode my spinning bike watching the TV or the clock, I rode with eyes closed, breath flowing and heart pumping awareness. Same with running, my stride became effortless, I found my flow, and I could go forever . . . I realized that I wanted to bring this experience and this balance into the studio. I wanted to create stability based classes that were taught Yogically—classes in which the teachers promoted awareness and presence rather than competitiveness or striving. I am not a renegade: YAS Yoga in L.A, Soul Cycle in NY and Y Yoga in Vancouver have all beat me to it, but I realized their effectiveness and wanted to bring what they had to offer to Seattle. I visited many of these studios, planted the seed of intention to create it in Seattle, and here we are! Coming in early 2012, a dedicated spin studio with 30 state of the art, brand new Keiser spinning bikes and a 900 SF beaituful studio for flow will provide exactly this vision.

So this is a long story that explains the manifestation of Spin :: Flow. There's another long story about flow and serendipity that allowed this creative idea to actually manifest, I'll save it for another blog. For all of you Madrona efficionados, don't worry. MFY Madrona will stay open. The schedule will alter and the Yoga will be differentiated, but you'll still be able to walk to your classes there ;). Your packages will be good at both studios, but those are all details that will follow. For now, just get ready to spin and to flow.

I also want to give a big shout out to Thomas McCarthy, Jessica Robinson and Don O'Neil. The schedule is being created and some of Seattle's best spinning instructors are on board to compliment the already amazing crew of Yoga teachers MFY provides and another shout out to Tess Tabor, a current MFY teacher, who's leaving years in business and PR to be our new studio manager.

Feel free to contact me info@mountainflowyoga.com or Tess, tess@mountainflowyoga.com, with any questions you may have!

Namaste,

Jaime