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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)  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! This fantastic demonstration of isolating "eight" rings comes to us from Malabaristas, the Tokyo University juggling club. Kotaro, a university student and dedicated juggler, rocks out the rings with creativity and precision. This is a great reminder of the power of practicing with others of many skill levels. dvKDZEJkF4U  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 This essay delves into the brain chemistry behind the Flow state. Though it is from the perspective of a hooper, the ideas here can be applied to spinners and manipulators of any type. http://www.hooping.org/2010/12/dancing-with-dopamine-and-spinning-to-serotonin/#more-6656 |
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