Skylar illuminates her Sacred Circularities Bali 2013 Experience!What is Sacred Circularities? Sacred Circularities has been a deep and profound recalibration for my hooping practice as well as my spirituality. It was an opportunity to completely drop in and let go of outside baggage that may hinder me from stepping into my highest version of myself. SC holds a container of sacred support for which I felt held to show up in my true, authentic, vulnerable, raw real and radiant self. SC Bali provided an amazing opportunity for me to take my healing and hooping to the next level through participating in all of the amazing workshops, and going to and being surrounded by the powerful energy centers and temples and ceremonies in Bali.Highlights from your SC Bali 2013 Experience:- I had a beautiful breakthrough facilitating the twins workshop with Ashley this year, and that is, we all have something powerful and profound to share with others, especially when we are coming from a place of humility and authenticity from our heart. This is the medicine people will receive and that will stick with them in the long run...not so much what hoop tricks or technique they were taught, but rather, how they experienced and felt about themselves. It was a humble honor and I bow to everyone that took our class and held us in support. I Iearned so much from everyone there.
- SC was an amazing opportunity to build community and deepen friendships and soul hoop family. I feel more connected to my hoop tribe than ever and truly can not wait for next year to continue to deepen into the expansive awareness we are all gaining through this mirror we are holding for one another. OH,...so much more than a hoop retreat. My spirit is filled, my heart bursting and ecstatic and inspired to go home and share and spread this sweet & profound feeling. MAHALO SC FAMILY!!!!!!!
What are you "taking home" from your Sacred Circularities experience?I am taking home new inspiration in its truest form. I am so excited to create and dance and expand my practice, my hoop community and myself. How do you stay inspired with your hoop practice? I stay inspired by pushing my edges, trying new things and getting out of my comfort zone. I also love to be around other inspired hoopers and take workshops because I am always learning and I see the unlimited potential that this sacred circle holds for me to step into in all aspects of my life. I like to use my hooping practice as a metaphor for my spiritual state and as my Blissometer. If I am not happy, or feeling in a rut, I am probably not hooping enough!What would you say to your 70 year old hooping self? "WOW, you look so healthy and vibrant and your aura is beaming. You are so grounded and connected yet light and free."What would this 70 year old hooper say to you?"Hooping keeps me YOUNG, centered and HAPPPPPPPPPPPPY!"Learn more about Skylar:www.soulfireproductions.comFacebook - Hoop Dance Hawaii Facebook - Soul Fire ProductionsTwitter
Jaguar Mary decompresses during a practice flow after three amazing weeks at the Sacred Circularities Hoop Dance and Movement Meditation Retreat in Bali. She's currently organizing another retreat gathering to help people connect with the healing power of hoop dance in Sedona, Arizona this October. You're invited. The music is "Fossil Fuel" by Ex-Friendly. Download his album. The hoop is a 5/8" outer diameter, 35" Quad (four sections) poly-pro hoop by Trinity Starr. Follow Sacred Circularities on Facebook & Instagram.Begin your Spirit-Infused Hoop Practice Journey at our upcoming retreat in Sedona, Arizona in the United States! Find out more about this 6-day immersion into hoop dance, movement meditation, inner alchemy tools and fantastic community!
Ann Humphreys illuminates her Sacred Circularities Bali 2013 Experience!What is Sacred Circularities? Ann: Sacred Circularities is a hoopdance and movement retreat that takes place every year at the Ananda Cottages in Ubud, Bali (and soon, twice yearly--Ubud in the spring and Sedona, Arizona in the fall). Movement artist and visionary Jaguar Mary is the organizing force behind this one-of-a-kind event. Using her superpowers of discernment and utter calm, she chooses four hoopdance instructors, as well as a handful of other pioneering facilitators--among them practitioners yoga, dreamwork, ecstatic dance, Nia, and ThetaHealing® --who bring the freshest ideas in hoopdance and meditative movement to attendees from all over world. It is a singularly special event, drawing inspiration from its unique setting--a land of unmatched beauty and mystery.
Highlights from your SC Bali 2013 Experience:- At Sacred Circularities, I experienced a truly astonishing and totally unexpected healing of my right ankle, which had been arrested in its range of motion and clicking unremittingly for six months. I had received traditional Western physical therapy for this injury, which was cumulative but had a sudden onset about two months before a major dance performance. I had been practicing the stretches and exercises from this rehab for the last five months--I even brought my rehab bands to Bali. One of the attendees, an osteopath, massaged my ankle one night, which felt great but left it still clicking. The next afternoon, there was a guided Five Elements dance with Malaika, a Canadian woman who designed this distinctive ecstatic dance experience. In that workshop, I felt a force enter my body that was truly beyond comprehension or explanation. In the dance, surrounded by a community of women, my body lifted itself from the floor without effort, like a dream of flying. I opened from the center out, a physical unraveling that began as soon as the dance started and continued, totally effortlessly, throughout the 90-minute movement meditation. The leaping, bouncing, and shaking felt intensely good, but I had no idea of the effect it was having on my ankle. It wasn't until the next afternoon, as I was walking up some stairs on the way back to my room, that I realized--the click was gone. Totally...gone. And it hasn't come back.
- I have been surprised and delighted by how much my friendships with my fellow facilitators and returning attendees have deepened. We spinners meet in different corners of the world, often only for a few days, but what we share is so rare and special we end up bonding in profound ways. I'm so powerfully inspired by my colleagues as movers and as friends, it endlessly amazes me.
- I found many new shapes with my hoop taking class with my dear hoop bro Malcolm Stuart. He's so wildly creative he's like a source of magic. So grateful he was able to come to SC this year.
How do you stay inspired with your hoop practice?Ann: I try to view my practice time primarily as an opportunity---which I know how lucky I am to have--- just to explore the possibilities of my dancing and moving body. Since I was 35 when hooping came into my life, and I already had 8 years of yoga under my belt, I had cultivated some patience, which has helped me a great deal with the transition to hooping in my 40s. I view my practice time as utterly sacred, a precious chance to dance while I still can. I really do. It keeps me humble and keeps me more fully engaged in the present. I also allow myself to be moved and inspired by all the brilliant younguns out there-- Brecken, Nick, Tiana, Gail, Emma-- and always set small, attainable goals of new things I want to try. Shoulder duck-outs, for example, have taken QUITE a while, but after years of dipping my toe (shoulder) in, I'm pretty much there!What are you "taking home" from your Sacred Circularities experience? Ann: I'm taking home a sense of humility as a movement artist. There is so much to learn from my colleagues, so much to be inspired by--my mind is so expanded. All of the facilitators this year have contributed meaningfully to that. I've never been so impressed by the classes.What would you say to your 70 year old hooping self? Ann: "I hope you're still thanking all the gods and goddesses for Grandmama's athlete genes! Remember how she played soccer with you when she was in her 70s! Share that goodness with the children around you."What would this 70 year old hooper say to you? Ann: "Now aren't you glad you have up alcohol and coffee?!? Way to go! You did, after all, make some good decisions along the way...even your boy-craziness led you to hooping. Trust yourself a bit more."Sacred Circularities: Thank you Ann for expanding us into new territory. You're like our Hooping Astronaut - exploring outer (and inner) space! You illuminate the world! Learn more about Ann:Launching this summer! Sign up now for the mailing list and receive discounts on online classes:www.lineandcircle.com
Ann's Blog
Facebook Twitter
Anah "Hoopalicious" Reichenbach illuminates her Sacred Circularities Bali 2013 Experience!What is Sacred Circularities? Anah: Sacred Circularities (SC) is a unique event in the world of hoop retreats. It holds a beautiful space for deep connection with yourself, other hoopers and of course, your hoop. It is a place where all parts of you can be expressed in new ways and you will find yourself growing in unexpected and long lasting ways. It is a place where we are truly all in it together. Instructors and participants alike find themselves transformed and uplifted. SC is my fave event of the year and one I look forward to again as soon as I leave.Highlights from your SC Bali 2013 Experience:- One of my highlights of the week was Christabel's amazing Breath of Bliss journey. It completely turned my inside out (in a good way) and I got a real sense of my purpose and how supported I truly am.
- I also just had such a wonderful time hooping in the beautiful wantilan with everyone and learning some new moves to share on my next stop in Australia. I find myself re-inspired in my hoop practice and walking away with a new solidity in myself and excitement for the next phase of my life!
What are you "taking home" from your Sacred Circularities experience? Anah: I am taking home that we are truly all in this human experience together and there is never any reason to separate yourself from the beauty of connection. What would you say to your 70 year old hooping self? Anah: "Keep rocking it! You will never be as young as you are now!"What would this 70 year old hooper say to you? Anah: "Keep rocking it! You will never be as young as you are now!" ;)Sacred Circularities: Thank you Anah for your Body Rocking inspiration and embodied wisdom! You illuminate the world! Learn more about Anah:www.HoopRevolution.com
Hoopalicious Blog
Facebook ~ Hoop RevolutionFacebook ~ Hoopalicious RocksTwitter
Tammy Firefly shares her journal entry on the last full day of the Bali 2013 Sacred Circularities Retreat ...... Today brings us the last full day of Sacred Circularities. We started the day with Shakti Sunfire's One Love Yoga Class which always leaves me feeling great! Following breakfast was Ann Humphrey's Technique as Meditation: Part Three. Ann offered a deepening class which focused on meditating while exploring fundamentals within the hoop. After lunch was another amazing class taught by Shakti Sunfire ~ One Hoop, One Love: Co-creating Hoop Dance, Movement and Skill. Shakti taught us body rolls, tosses, anti spin variations and lots of fun sequences! I've learned so much in her class and I'm excited to explore these new techniques in my daily practice. Following Shakti's class was a new experience led by Christabel Zamor. She guided us in a three hour breath work ceremony ~ Breath of Bliss™. At first I was a little apprehensive and feeling a bit resistant, but as Christabel guided us in group activities, the tension in my heart relaxed. We started in a circle with a community discussion and Christabel explaining in-depth about breath work and the emotions we may experience. After the discussion, she had us stand and explore different dances, starting with freestyle just to loosen up and settle in our bodies. The next dance was a laughing session where we danced, jumped and laughed for twelve minutes. This led into more laughter which opening into crying. We then reconnected with the circle and experienced a crying ceremony to release built up energy and emotions. For an hour straight, we laid in a circle with our heads facing inwards around a flowered alter, our eyes closed and an inward focus on our breath. Within the hour, lots of shifts, emotions and experiences occurred. I'm not going to go much in depth right now, but I definitely had an awakening. I highly recommend participating in a breath work ceremony if given the opportunity. After breath work, it took a minute to come back into full awareness, but once grounded, we had a great skill share. We played, danced, ate and went over what we learned during the week. It was so much fun to simply play and be with everyone on the last night! The skill share rolled into a group of us going to a party. We took a cab out to the jungle to a beautiful museum where a Russian Psy Trance party, was pretty full on. (Russians definitely know how to party! :) The energy was a bit intense for me but it was fun dancing and stomping around with a bunch of new faces from Goa, Israel and Russia along with some of the Sacred Circularities crew. This was an all night experience ~ a perfect last night cap on the week!  Tammy Firefly is an internationally acclaimed performance artist whose unique and refined style is rooted in modern dance, theatre and circus arts. Inspired by creativity and self expression, with a repertoire ranging from fire dance to aerials and acrobatics, her performances fascinate and entrance viewers with decadent magnificence. In early 2007, Tammy FireFly embarked on her first world tour and has since captivated audiences across Asia, Europe, Australia and North America. Her refined and unique style has been enriched by each stop around the globe, providing new inspiration and creative progression to her diverse range of acts. In addition to performance, Tammy Firefly offers a wealth of experience in teaching technical and performance classes, from private instruction to group workshops. www.tammyfirefly.com
Gail O'Brien illuminates her Sacred Circularities Bali 2013 Experience!What is Sacred Circularities? Gail: Sacred Circularities is a phenomenal in-depth, intimate, all encompassing hoop retreat in Bali. Highlights from your SC Bali 2013 Experience:- Looking out across the rice paddies in the sunshine in my hoop fundamentals class and thinking how lucky we are to be able to gather in such an amazing space to learn. Then looking back at my class and realizing the beginner hoopers were all casually doing anti-spin flowers and isolations like they had been hooping all their lives.
- Swimming in the infinity pool in Ananada in the pouring rain.
What are you "taking home" from your Sacred Circularities experience? Gail: A huge host of new friends, deeper connections with old friends, massive amounts of inspiration, a meditation practice and an addiction to mangosteens (personal best of 11 mangosteens eaten in one day).How do you stay inspired with your hoop practice?Gail: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE, repeat a move til you break it then build something new from the partsWhat would you say to your 70 year old hooping self? Gail: Nice work on the four hoop anti-spin turning rollsWhat would this 70 year old hooper say to you? Gail: Practice more :) Sacred Circularities: Thank you Gail for making the extraordinary accessible! You illuminate the world! Learn more about Gail:www.hoopspin.co.ukFacebookTwitter
Wow the days are flying by! Where is the pause button on this movie we call life? ... Today, the retreat group traveled to the Gunung Kawi temple. It was a very hard decision, but I felt the call to stay at Ananda and join Malaika Mavene In the Five Element Dance. It was was phenomenal! I have never experienced anything like it - a full shamanic experience as she guided us in a dance taking us through the five elements. By the end, we were sweating, uplifted, inspired and super connected with one another. After lunch was Skylar Mallas Darby and Ashley Jone's workshop Double the Pleasure which was all about twins! They taught fun arm extensions with twist and turns, sustained spinning techniques and different ways to get twins on and off the body gracefully! This was an amazing class and I learned lots from these ladies! The last class of the day was another one of Anah Reichenbach's ass kick'n workshops - Hooping on the Edge; Deepening. This woman seriously brings it and I love the energy and flow of her workshops! Today was an amazing day of up high impact technical workshops! Tonight, the retreat space invited the Ubud community to a marketplace and performance experience. There were many amazing performances and I had the opportunity to share as well! It was a beautiful evening, and of course as we do here in Bali, we danced the night away!!! Thank you momma Bali for all your beauty and gifts you shared with us this week!  Tammy Firefly is an internationally acclaimed performance artist whose unique and refined style is rooted in modern dance, theatre and circus arts. Inspired by creativity and self expression, with a repertoire ranging from fire dance to aerials and acrobatics, her performances fascinate and entrance viewers with decadent magnificence. In early 2007, Tammy FireFly embarked on her first world tour and has since captivated audiences across Asia, Europe, Australia and North America. Her refined and unique style has been enriched by each stop around the globe, providing new inspiration and creative progression to her diverse range of acts. In addition to performance, Tammy Firefly offers a wealth of experience in teaching technical and performance classes, from private instruction to group workshops. www.tammyfirefly.com
During the High Vibe Morning Hoop Jam, Jaguar Mary chants into a microphone with a drummer keeping rhythm. Her voice was speaking in a non-language, singing with a soothing yet primal resonance. This was an amazing medium for the participants to explore hoop dance along with the rising of the sun over the rice fields of Ubud, Bali. I found myself being transported to another ancient place and time, where my ancestors were holding the space for me, and Jaguar Mary had somehow called in this beautiful energy.
After facilitating her 7:00am workshop, I asked Jaguar Mary how she got into sound healing:
JM: I've been exploring Sound as a healing vibration, and making sounds with my vocal chords. When I make certain sounds, I can feel the vibration in my body. It soothes me. It has to do with this idea of calibration. If I am off-center, sound is great way to re-calibrate myself.
Jaguar Mary went to a Mystery School training when she first came to Bali, where she heard this wordless language being referred to as "Light Language", using the realm of the imagination:
JM: I learned that I can make sounds that make me feel good. I started singing and sounding in the shower, giving myself permission to not make sense, and exploring that realm of sounds and syllable and having fun with it. It's simultaneously preparing for the next syllable and also allowing for the next syllable; it's not just coming from nowhere. There is a teeny bit of thought, with the perfect mixture of mind and spirit. Our minds can be so pervasive, but we need our minds! Our minds really help us, and we need to train them and it is an interesting relationship between my expression as a spiritual being and my analytical expression. The more I do it the more I feel like it just comes naturally. It's a flow and it really relates to my dance because I'm moving through space to see what happens. I have some (dance) training so I can influence that space, and it's this relationship.
Cookie: When I asked you about the chanting this morning after the jam, I mentioned that for me, it was a heart connection, and it spoke to my heart, and my heart was listening the whole time and giving me information.
JM: Well, the thing that is interesting is that these sounds are Universal sounds. OM is a Universal sound, the sounds that we make are all Universal sounds, so if I'm sounding ("oieeeeoohaaaahhhheeeeeeaaaaaa…,") there's an intention to bring Love into the space, creating a field of Love resonance. It's another language that is a feeling and can be spoken and heard by hearts, a resonance between hearts. That was the first time sang with accompaniment, (David Stoves played the drums and played shakers with his toes!). I am really loving it and I would like to work on making a recording!
These special moments are what make Sacred Circularities a truly spiritual and meditative hoop experience, and Jaguar Mary organizes the whole event and also contributes her beautiful voice to her own workshops and to the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. We have more workshops, circles and ceremonies, and recordings to look forward to in 2014!
 Jen "Cookie Hoops" Cookson
Medicine HoopExploring healing through Hoop Dance, Poi Spinning and other props and their affects on PTSD, Autism Spectrum, Depression, Anxiety and Addictions, as well as chronic pain conditions.
Days are flying by and every day is filled with new, exciting workshops, activities and experiences!This morning we had the honor to experience NIA hosted by Saffire Bouchelion. NIA, short for Neuromuscular Integrative Action, is described as self-healing and self expression through the conscious awareness of how you use your body, mind, emotions and spirit. Following NIA was a delicious buffet breakfast and another workshop with Malcolm Stuart - Extracting from the Old. We explored the Infinite Plane which was described as thinking loosely without goals or moving freely without an outcome. Another focus point, which I really resonated with, was “Fractaling” - exploring an existing movement pattern and finding new pathways and body notations to accomplish different patterns. AMAZING! After lunch was an empowering workshop hosted by Jaime Powell, part one of a two series session titled Movement and Sound: Expanding Creative Expression. The first offering was based on community, connection and communication through different physical and emotional games. The second half was about connection with the inner self. We created personal space on the floor and were taken on a journey of sound, meditation and light movement. It was an empowering experience that left me feeling humbled, grounded and connected with myself and the group. Following Jaime's workshop was the famous Anah Reichenbach teaching Hooping on the Edge: Facing Challenges. The title explains it all! I was tested and reached my edges - re-learning the pleasure of angle hooping and barrel rolls. I came to the realization that I need to spend more of my practice hooping on body. I've been so drawn to off body hooping, that on body hooping has become a little unfamiliar. I'm inspired to take on the precision of shoulder hooping, angle hooping and barrel rolls. Thank you Anah for re-inspiring and introducing a new 'angle' into my hooping practice! For dinner, a large group of us gathered for a delicious dinner at our favorite Ubud restaurant - Clear. I thinks it's my 5th time eating there in a week! After dinner we had the pleasure of jamming out in the large pavilion closing out the night with an LED hoop jam! It was so inspiring seeing everyone in their flow and personal practice! The days get better and better here at Sacred Circularities and I'm excited to see what tomorrow has to offer!  Tammy Firefly is an internationally acclaimed performance artist whose unique and refined style is rooted in modern dance, theatre and circus arts. Inspired by creativity and self expression, with a repertoire ranging from fire dance to aerials and acrobatics, her performances fascinate and entrance viewers with decadent magnificence. In early 2007, Tammy FireFly embarked on her first world tour and has since captivated audiences across Asia, Europe, Australia and North America. Her refined and unique style has been enriched by each stop around the globe, providing new inspiration and creative progression to her diverse range of acts. In addition to performance, Tammy Firefly offers a wealth of experience in teaching technical and performance classes, from private instruction to group workshops. www.tammyfirefly.com
|
RSS Feed