Friday, April 26, 2013

Open Circle Kinetics

After quite a lot of time thinking about this, I am officially announcing the rebranding of my classes to "Open Circle Kinetics"  There are a lot of reasons I have decided to drop the word Yoga from my classes but the main ones are:
  • I want the freedom to evolve my class structure; methodology and underlying philosophy outside the already defined doctrine of Yoga. In many respects this is a retrospective assertion of what has already been happening for a long time anyway. There are a number of fundamental rules by which a yoga class is typically taught and I follow very few of them. In order to follow my own bliss, without a perceived conflict (from within and without) I have decided to let go of the very label that gave rise to this self-awareness.
  • A desire to disassociate myself from forms of Yoga that are in direct conflict with my own personal belief systems. My classes are not competitive, at least not in any traditional sense of the word. I think it is a word that must be treated with a great deal of care because it has as much potential to destroy as it does to create. I don't personally believe competition is inherently bad (and for better and worse it has been a huge part of my own life) but it just so happens that humanity is already awash with competition so the conscious removal, or at the very least management of this concept is something that resonates with me very strongly.
  • The escape from unrealistic aspirations. Yoga is and will always be a part of my life, but I have no interest in being judged as being a good or a bad yogi. It is hard enough just as a practitioner, but being identified as a teacher as well is really too much for me. I don't want to follow rules just because they are part of a doctrine I am apparently associated with. I follow my own rules, the ones that feel right to me with the full acknowledgement that I am a work in progress. I am far from perfect and I know it, yet ironically I believe I have a greater chance of evolving into a better (and more authentic) person if I'm not saddled with a system that expects far more from me than I am willing to give and in some cases don't even believe in.

I would like to finish by saying that I am not turning my back on Yoga or the many amazing people I have connected with through this beautiful system. I prefer to see it as a decision to stop turning my back on myself. I am genuinely excited about my classes and how they are continuing to evolve. They do not need a stereo-typed label to stand on, they are their own thing, and I believe they are beautiful and represent the light side of who I am as a person.
Namaste!!