Achieving Positive Peak Performance Through The Flow Arts
The secret to effectiveness and productivity
Somany factors can influence how we can achieve success, healing, and self-awareness. One of the least recognized and most important is the “flow arts”.
Flow Arts is a general term used to describe the intersection of a variety of movement-based disciplines including dance, juggling, fire-spinning, and object manipulation.
The broad category of Flow Arts includes a variety of pursuits that harmonize skill-based techniques (critical thinking) with creative expression and intuitive thinking to achieve a state of present-moment awareness known as Flow*.
Common forms of Flow Arts include poi, staff, and nunchaku spinning, hooping, juggling, contact juggling, and fandance. New props and expressions are emerging all the time as flow artists cross-pollinate with martial arts, yoga, circus, belly dance, and beyond.
Most flow artists start doing Flow Arts because they are fun! Soon they begin to incorporate Play back into other aspects of their lives. Enjoyment is usually the hook, but we soon find many reasons to keep up our practice. The basics of a prop are easy to learn, but the possibilities of moves and personal expression are infinite, and art is a great tool for exploring personal potential. Flow Arts are body-mind activities like Yoga, Tai chi, Somatics, and many others that help practitioners focus their minds at the same time as they hone their physical abilities. Many people describe their flow activity as “moving meditation”.
There are many health benefits to Flow Arts as well. A skill-based movement art naturally brings more awareness to our bodies. As Flow artists use their muscles to control props through space and to dance with the props they are engaging in an easy form of somatic movement, and exercise. Many flow artists achieve a greater degree of fitness and are even driven to do additional strength and flexibility training simply to perform better at their art.
In Our Work many students who are involved with Flow Arts develop a passion for, and an ability to guide their qi. This ability and the process itself is commonly known in Asian traditions as the ‘Microcosmic Orbit, the ‘Self Winding Wheel of the Law’ or the circulation of light. Generally speaking ‘Microcosmic Orbit is a Taoist Qigong or Taoist yoga qi energy cultivation technique. It involves deep breathing exercises in conjunction with meditation and concentration techniques which develop the flow of qi along certain pathways of energy in the human body which may be familiar to those who are studying in Lewis Harrison’s Transmodern Shamanism Academy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Qigong, T’ai chi ch’uan, Neidan and Taoist alchemy. The exercise can be performed usually at first in a sitting position, but it can also be practiced standing as in Zhan zhuang or with movements included as with T’ai chi ch’uan.
A clear understanding of the microcosmic orbit technique is very important not only because of its historical context in the story of Chinese alchemy but also because it is at the heart of many Taoist and somatic forms of exercise performed throughout the world by many millions of people today.
The history of the Microcosmic orbit dates back to prehistoric times in China, and the underlying principles can be found in various classic Chinese texts including the I Ching.
To practice the Microcosmic Orbit fully, it may be helpful, though not required to learn the various meridians fundamental to Chinese philosophy and Chinese medicine.
In the Microcosmic Orbit normally essence or Jing can flow either way through the eight extra meridians or energy pathways in the body, but in the microcosmic orbit meditation exercise, Jing is encouraged to flow upwards along the Governor vessel during inhalation and then downwards along the conception vessel returning to the Dantian on the exhalation. Dantian, dan t’ian, dan tien or tan t’ien is loosely translated as “elixir field”, “sea of qi”, or simply “energy center”. Dantian, similar to the chakras in Ayurveda are the “qi focus flow centers”, important focal points for meditative and exercise techniques such as qigong, martial arts such as t’ai chi ch’uan, and in traditional Chinese medicine.
The microcosmic orbit can be viewed in the context of a variety of techniques and exercises essential to our work and designed to purify the body physically, mentally, and spiritually, improve health, and prepare the way for the flow arts and the Chinese System of Six Pillars.
These types of exercises, especially when performed by serious students of Our Work are best practiced under the guidance of qualified teachers to help them avoid any pitfalls and misunderstandings along the way rather than copied from books, especially if the subject may have a history of mental illness or emotional imbalance.
More than anything the Macrocosmic orbit technique assists the individual in maintaining a personal sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to stay grounded in their bodies and maintain emotional homeostasis. It also enables them to integrate creative, innovative, and critical thinking.
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