Flowing Deep In To Spirit And Body With Simon Park
With an impressive curriculum of studying with some of the most renowned international yoga teachers, including Dharma Mitra, Shiva Rae and Iyengar has given birth to one of the most innovative and beautiful practices of yoga today.
Simon began the class telling us to set ourselves free from a structured practice that may place limits on both body and mind. He clearly is talking from experience as his style uniquely blends awareness of pranic power with conscious movement and powerful alignment cues. His passion for surfing and respect for Nature shines through. His innovation is testament of the necessity of allowing ones practice to evolve and transform and by doing so provides fresh challenges and insights aimed at motivating us to keep rolling out our mat for years to come.
He explained the “infinite number of possibilities” of movement and his sequencing was a reflection of that spirit. With the Main Pavilion packed to the brim, Simon had a challenge to guide a practice for so many different levels of experience and backgrounds. He achieved this by reiterating the importance of following the wisdom of our own bodies, not to be attached to a final outcome of the pose but instead to allow the breath to be the guide us to where we each individually needed to go.
Simon began by leading us through a series of movements to open up the major joints of the body, paired with an awareness of the rhythmic flow of the breath. We moved in and our of asanas, which flowed in a seamless stream, reflecting the motions of nature – opening and closing, moving and being moved. His trademark “waves” through poses such as down dog, cobra and vasistasana (side plank) liberated both the spine and the ego. The often static feel of poses was replaced by a tangible ripple of fluidity that travelled the full length and breadth of the body. His cues were simple, precise and yet rooted in natural imagery. He spoke circling the arm up like the sun journeys through the sky. He spoke of flying, suspension in the air, swimming into space, swaying with the breeze, feeling our wings and grounding to the earth. Simon often paused leading us into a fluid stillness based on chi gong movements; listening to feel the internal motion of the breath and liberation of pranic energy through the body. At times I found myself landing effortlessly in advanced poses and fantastic variations as we swayed from side planks to skandasana, three legged dogs and arm balances. At one point he invited us to “moon walk” exploring our mats in a walking malasana.
The class ended not only with hips and hearts open but also wise words delivered with humility: “The first thing to learn is compassion to the person to the right and left of you in the room. The second thing: W are all equal. Leave your shit at the door.” At this point we transitioned into group work using one another’s body’s and breath to go deeper into twists and share smiles with partner navasanas. Finally we were guided to sit face to face, eyes closed focusing on a third eye meditation with the person in front of us. Reminding us of our natural psychic abilities and collective consciousness. Savasana felt like the culmination of energetic, physical and emotional asanas that defined the class. Simon led us back up to sitting speaking of “a stream gathers energy” shifting through the body, that resulted in a collective circle we sat side by side, palms to palms in a victory mudra sealing the journey in a united and powerful “Om.”
My final comment would be a request for Simon to come back to Bali as soon as possible (or don’t bother leaving – we have good waves here!) It would be a gift to study more with him, exploring his depth of wisdom and personal practice. When Simon?
Check out his website to catch him in his international flow http://liquidflowyoga.com
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Written by : Administrator