from origin magazine - issue 5, march 2012

If I told you I were able to connect to myself, others, and what I believe to be the highest as clearly through hip hop as I do through yoga, would you look at me in disbelief? When you hear the word breakdance, does your mind evoke the antithesis of a mindful and contemplative yoga practice? If you nodded in agreement with either or both, I invite you to join me in a Breakti movement class.

From the moment I consciously opened myself to the power of hip hop music, I touched into an experience of self that I had only brushed up against before. When I danced and nodded to the music, the chasm between self and other
began to dissipate. Years later, a dancing injury took me to the yoga mat, where I opened myself consciously to the power of asana to heal my body. The repetition of movement and breath on the mat, though new, felt strikingly familiar – I found in it a similar experience of the narrowing gap between self and other, a return to my-self through myself.

The convergence of these experiences is what gave birth to the Breakti movement. Breakti unites postures and transitions from both yoga and street dance styles into a class that is at once challenging and freeing for both mind and body.

My mission in the evolution of this work has always been to open the space for my students to have an experience of both personal and cultural rhythm, a spiritual experience of themselves in relation to ground, music, and movement. Breakti is also a powerful cross-pollinator of cultures. Hip hop invites youth to experience the benefits of yoga. Challenging poses invite the archetype of strong men to learn where to soften. Beat-driven, exhilarating music invites those to class who might dismiss traditional yoga practices.

Breakti seeks to transcend our familiar stereotypes of what yoga or hip hop is, revealing instead a new path back to who we are. Along the way, it might teach you a thing or two about what it means to get down in your dog.


a life in a night

we step into our words and lay them on the floor
you move into my breath and i leave you wondering
what did i say?

here we wade through creating our memories
in every moment
we whisper our painted future dreams

this is worth a golden weight
that one is left behind.
holding each truth like a penny or a diamond
letting each one fall
float

fade.
or cling.

this is a moment i will not allow to pass beneath my dancing feet to the floor…

this is a piece of me.
wrapped in a piece of you.
 

I awaken to the sun and let my skin soften to the light of morning.
we are painting tragedies upon our canvases while miracles lie nestled beneath.  this day of all days could be brilliant inside the cocoon of fear and i step from my dreams to the floor with feet that bear the weight of all of me, sleeping and waking.
we are centuries deep in our samskaras, yet the points of love and freedom and limitlessness point to something different.  in the waking and sleeping we return and return back to something sweet and subtle and graceful…  we return to our-Selves as our experience peels away the layers of perfect imperfection.  we become who We are. 
we always are becoming who We are.
 

through movement we can connect to ourselves in a deeper way

we create space in ourselves for all that we are, in part, through thoughtful and challenging physical effort and action.

in movement is both the gross physical and the subtle nuance, the holding on and letting go, the inhale and the exhale... all of which create a pulsation of rhythm.

…and when we can sit within and around the weaving of this rhythm, a revealing begins to happen wherein we start to experience the tempo, cadence and beat of our own steps, our own stillness.

welcome to the path.