I had the pleasure of attending an hour long Vinyasa of the Hoop workshop at Sacred Circularities Sedona last year.  Nayeli’s energy, knowledge and careful attention to her personal craft is beyond abundant and OH SO glorious!  I moved my body and my hoop in ways I didn't know were possible and my mind, body and soul buzzed with connectedness afterwards.  She will steer you down a playful path of self-discovery through her creative embodiment practice, yogic philosophy and authentic instruction that will leave you feeling utterly transformed, alive and inspired.  This is a workshop you won't want to miss and an amazing opportunity for yogis, dancers and hoopers that we may not get again!  - Steph

Hoop Vinyasa: Lunar & Solar
(‘nyasa’- to place; ‘vi’- in a special way)

We learn from Nature, life, the cosmos, and everything in existence that the most fundamental movements are those of the spiral, wave, and rhythmic pulsation. As hoopers and dancers, we know this, and have probably received transmission of these deep embodied truths through our hoop journeys! 

Hoop Vinyasa: Lunar is a unique form of mind-body-awareness training using a hoop and Prana Vinyasa Flow (Shiva Rea’s style)-inspired vinyasa sequences. Integration of the Hoop invites greater opening throughout the body, reveals alignment and energy flow through shape and pathway rather than spinning in the dance, refines one’s sensitivity and opens up new movement pathways in space for expanded creativity in the dance. Fabulous cross-training for hoopers, and valuable for all levels.

Hoop Vinyasa: Solar is crafted for those already at home in the hoop. In this session we take the concept of vinyasa into our dance. We will explore circuits and sequences that repeat, weave together right and left, cross planes of movement and qualities of energy flow. The goal is movement meditation, present moment awareness, while finding greater ease in new movement territory. Our possibilities expand and our ability to fall into the magic of spontaneous flow will be all the more accessible from the increase in our hoop vocabulary. We will delve into specific sequences and drills, however this method of practice will give you a framework for always progressing on the path in ways that stay juicy and perfect for you.

In celebration of the Summer Solstice and the fullness of the light, join us to expand the ways you play and practice in the hoop!

Learn more about her in her BIO HERE
And register for her workshop HERE

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know 
if you will risk 
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are 
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you 
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know 
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone 
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer 

So tell me, what are your dreams?

In under one month I will be celebrating one year of having hoop dance in my life and the beginning of a beautiful and emotional journey, that ended up being the catalyst for releasing a life's worth of pain and emotion through dance.

My mother always said "Everything happens for a reason" and although it was tough at times to see all of the reasons for things that occurred in my life, I can honestly say that they are now clearer and cleaner than ever...all of them.

I grew up in a broken home, the youngest of my siblings. Five years younger than my brother, ten and eleven years younger than my sisters. Three fathers between the four of us.

Our mother was a strong, beautiful and spiritual woman. 
Anyone lucky enough to cross paths with her in life fell in love with her energy. She lived life exactly how she wanted to, moved us when a place no longer suited her, and died in January of 2013 just the way she wanted to...flawlessly beautiful and out of the hands of doctors and medicine. She died on 80 acres of her own land in Arizona, 40 minutes from the closest town, no electricity or running water, at the age of 63.

My father was a Vietnam Veteran, I was his only child. He was a charming, handsome and funny man, but a tortured soul. He struggled with mental disorders and alcohol abuse nearly his whole life and after 15 years of sobriety and 15 years of being reconnected with him, he died with his hand in mine of COPD, at the age of 64 in March of 2013...less than three months after my mother.

I am a wife and a mother of two boys, age 15 and 3. I settled and started working in Bristol 16 years ago, at the age of 19.  I was born in CT and it was my 32nd move coming back here in 1997. Half of those moves were on my own, due to catching a bit of my mother's "gypsy bug", the other half from being bounced place to place and from parent to parent.

I was sexually abused as a child for a number of years. When I finally decided to tell, I was still too young to testify against my abuser and the case was dismissed.
I grew up having flashbacks and recurring dreams of my abuse. I struggled with suicidal thoughts, body image and eating disorders as a teenager and turned to drugs and alcohol to forget the pain of the things I had endured and was reliving.

Although I easily made friends everywhere I moved, I always felt disconnected. 
Never a part of something. 
An outsider looking in.
No sense of community.
Never realizing that the "in" I wanted the ticket so badly to, was myself.
I struggled my whole life for that ticket, I took endless prescription medications to find it and spent over a decade in therapy searching for a way to get through that door.

I wasn't ready to be let in.
I didn't want the ticket.
I wasn't ready to let go of my past.

When I lost my parents, I lost myself. 
I lost the talks I thought we'd have and the healing that would come from them.
I lost the chance to tell them that although difficult, I was thankful for all of the hardships I endured growing up. They made me a stronger, more forgiving person and more nurturing and caring mother, wife and woman.
I crumbled because of that loss and the weight of the memories of my past crushed me.
I too died in March of 2013, shortly after my mother and father passed.

With that death, came a rebirth.
A reason to not let my past control me any longer.
A reason to let go.
A reason to forgive.
A reason to find my voice.
A reason to find community.
A reason to want to make a difference.
A reason to tell my story.

I decided to finally take that ticket that I had been resisting for so long.
The ticket came in the form of an adult-sized child's toy and that "toy" not only helped me to reconnect with the girl I had lost as a child but the woman I am today and the person I want to be tomorrow.
I took and embraced that ticket with open arms and I danced. I danced and I began to share that dance with everyone willing to jump in with me.

It took me a long time to find that ticket.
To find that courage.
To dance.

I am hopeful that my dance, my journey and my story, will help you to let yours out.

Maybe not with words, but somehow in some way, sooner than you knew you could and I hope that I can be there to witness it, and to give you a hug when that release finally comes.
  
You don't have to be a trained dancer to dance, you just need to be willing to let your story out.

Steph

To read more about what the Just Flow Fun studio could offer CT residents, click HERE