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Why the Flow Arts are Awesome by the Teafaerie When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I teach Flow Arts. That's much is easy. The hard part comes about three seconds later, when my well intentioned interlocutor inevitably insist that I define my terms. What is Flow Arts? It's a question that has been posed to me countless times. As one of the co-founders of Flow Temple (along with Burning dan), I'm often asked to explain why so many fully grown adults suddenly seem to be rediscovering the magic of playing with a certain class of toys. The answer turns out to be complex and involved, but it's ultimately intuitive at the core. Which is actually a fairly decent description of Flow Arts itself, now that I come to think about it. (click Read More for more)
Article authored and edited by Brandon Tyson, Banyan Gallagher, Thom Thumb, Jason Goethals and Carisa Hendix Buugeng and S-Staffs involves the spinning and manipulation of one or more S shaped objects. The art of S-Staff borrows many moves from traditional staffs spinning with the addition of the curved S shape to create an optical illusion known as the “visual kaleidoscope”. In addition the S-Staff also requires a lighter touch than straight staff, as well as a detailed understanding of plane mechanics. If your planes are slightly off with a staff the only conscience is that the planes will look a messy; however if your planes are off when working with S-Staff, you are likely to hit yourself with the prop. Its sudden popularity has lead to an explosion of new performances and styles with this unique prop including Fire Buugeng.  In this article from Oxford University, scientists discuss their research on: juggling! In a very exciting discovery, for scientific and flow communities, practicing a skill like juggling creates new connections in the white matter of the practitioner's brain. No previous studies have been able to show ways to improve these connections, called the "cabling network" of the brain because they pass messages between different grey matter areas (those parts that take care of processing and computation). So, what many of us have long suspected has now been proven true: juggling is good for your brain!  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a leading researcher in positive psychology, says creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. He has devoted his life to studying what makes people truly happy: "When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." Here he discusses the notion of "flow" -- the creative moment when a person is completely involved in an activity for its own sake. This interview is part of a series being produced by Jaguar Mary. It features hoop master Jonathan Livingston Baxter, better known as simply Baxter. In this video, he discusses the concept of "emerge or die" and how it applies to Flow practice. Although he is a hooper and discusses ideas around developing a practice based on the hoop, what he's talking about in this clip is valuable to spinners/prop manipulators of any type. There is much that Flowsters can learn from others that play with different toys, and this is a prime example of that. OjnM2yEyeQw |
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