Creating a Sacred Space

Every practice has a space, and that space is sacred.

Setting up your workspace is a vital part of your creative process, whether we’re speaking of creative movement or another artistic expression or practice. Your environment has a significant impact on expression.

A personal place of expression is a grounding influence and a partner through every phase of expression.

I personally envision the studio, the dojo, or the woodshed as a nucleus of creation, a source from which creative movement and expression flows outward to other areas of life and the place to which it returns again.

Personally, I maintain my artistic workspace as a sanctuary, a place at home where creative expression is nourished and regenerated.

Start by setting up your space. Your very own creative movement woodshed.

A few years ago I was struggling to find or uncover my own practice so I literally built a woodshed where I could move and create daily.

I wrote about here: Jiu-Jitsu and the Slow Track.

Exercise, Expression and Creative Movement

““I estimate that the average professional person gives much more time each week to physical exercise than to creative expression. We have discovered that health is significantly affected by how we care for our bodies. Why is it that we have overlooked the way creative energy influences our individual and collective well-being? Can you consider making a small weekly time commitment to creative exercise?

If your time is really constricted , consider how a discipline like creative movement can combine body, mind and creative spirit.””

— Shaun McNiff

Putting the Art Back Into the Art of Teaching

Some of your students/ athletes/artists simply will not consider themselves artists. My personal opinion is that anyone that steps inside a movement or martial arts studio is already an artist, it’s simply a matter of refining and cultivating one’s artistic skill.

Recently a mentor of mine, who is a dancer, told me that everyone is a dancer, but some people just need to learn, or maybe relearn the techniques. As a grappler, I would add that we are all grapplers, but maybe we just need to learn or relearn some techniques. My sons, as toddlers were excellent dances and roughhousers (grapplers.)

That’s how I think about movement and martial arts. Or even personal training and athletic development. It’s our job to bring out the artistry and movement creativity in our students. We are here to help guide and shape someone, not to change them.

If you’d like to learn more about my upcoming workshop please go here for some details Teach Like an Artist.

TEACH LIKE AN ARTIST

$50.00

Teach Like an Artist Workshop

Whether you've learned to teach through a solid teacher training program, apprenticeship, or time and experience, you know there's a lot to coaching & training: safety, spotting, cueing, anatomy, and all of the soft skills.

But how do you teach like an Artist?

How do you make deep connections with your students, clients or athletes?

The Art of Teaching is about creating connection.

And it may not seem essential at first, but if you've ever felt burned out, struggled to come up with new material, or noticed that your students stop progressing at a certain level, it might be that your spark of artistry needs to be reignited.

This workshop will help you:

• Make deeper connections with your students, clients or athletes.

• Create an environment that is fun for everyone (including you!!!)

• Adjust your lesson plan based on your student’s body type, learning style, or other individual needs

It is great for coaches & trainers of all levels of experience. Think of it as a continuing education workshop to support and enhance your skills as a coach or trainer. Improve your connections and remember why you wanted to do this whole teaching thing in the first place!

WHO IS THIS FOR:

Anyone who currently coaches, is thinking about coaching or wants a deeper understanding of what goes into teaching a class, a 1 on 1 session, or a practice that balances good technique with creativity.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

-A 90 minute video class presented by Jason C. Brown who has 23 years of experience as a movement and martial arts teacher.

-A downloadable PDF/Ebook of the “Teach Like an Artis” approach.

-An opportunity to as questions and get real time answers (live recording only.)

TEACH LIKE AN ARTIST

$50.00

Creative Movement Workhops

I recently taught a workshop in beautiful Philadelphia PA called The Art of Play.

The focus was on creative movement and exposure to different moving and martial arts like combat yoga and steel mace work (heavy but artistic and graceful.)

My creative movement workshops are about connection and communication.

Communication with yourself, with other people but also with the mediums and tools we use and play with.

I like to think of ourselves as craft folk and often use the imagery of us shaping the medium or the object, and in return, having the medium or object shape us back.

We touch the clay and the clay touches us back. We touch the yoga block or dragon's pearl and they touch us back.

Creative Movement Training is all about physical problem solving.

This Art of Play workshop took place in beautiful Jim Thorpe PA. The artists/athletes were quite a diverse group of movers, yogis, dancers, physical education teachers and gym rats.

A good time was had by all. We change partners often to bring even more variety and challenge.

Windmill Masterclass Now Open

Thursday October 13th from Noon - 2:00 P.M. Please join me via ZOOM.

The Windmill is a graceful yet powerful movement that I personally attribute to keeping me young, mobile and injury-free. It also has many martial & moving arts uses.

Mastering the Windmill will help you build mobile & stabile shoulders (a quality known as Mostability), increase hip & back mobility and strength, and move more artistically in the dance studio or martial arts tatame.

We will cover several variations of the Windmill using a variety of tools and set-ups to make mastering the Windmill easy and fun.

We’ll start with a brief discussion session so I know exactly what I need to cover. And then we’ll dive right in

Windmill Masterclass

$50.00

Is Creative a Noun?

Is Creative a Noun?

The usage of Creative a noun was something that I struggled with initially. I strictly considered "Creative" an adjective, something that described a creative person whether they were an Artist, a Craftsman or an engineer.

Austin Kleon, one of my favorite authors and artist even has a chapter in one of his incredible books called "Creative is not a Noun." But he and I were wrong. I am the type of Artist that has to search and research topics that I'm currently in love with and creativity is one of them. And has been for most of my life.

In my research I found that the usage of "Creative” as a noun is over 200 years old. Most of the time it's being used in the marketing and advertising worlds but also as a synonym for craftsman.

The Art of Walking

The word "Art" and our words articulate and articulation share the same roots and mean to bring or join together. Very similar to the word "Yoga" actually which is related the word yoke.

In this video I speak about a walking club that I started at the local YMCA where 50 people registered.

The main reason why people registered was "connection" and community and meeting new people. Literally making the act of walking an artistic expression. The Art of Walking is a topic I'd like to spend much more time and energy on.

Thanks for being here.

Creative Movement...Break the Exercise Rules

“Exploration “Play Rules.” These rules are as follows:
(1) you shall investigate the unfamiliar until it has become familiar; (2) you shall impose a rhythmic repetition on the familiar; (3) you shall vary this repetition in as many ways as possible; (4) you shall select the most satisfying of these variations and develop these at the expense of others; (5) you shall combine and recombine variations with one another; and (6) you shall do this all for its own sake, as an end in itself.”

— Desmond Morris - The Naked Ape (1967)

I wrote about this exact topic a few months ago. The fancy term in the movement literature is Motor Creativity but Creative Movement sounds much better.

You can check out that article here: What is Motor Creativity?

I Am Trying

I am trying to learn how, when leading a workshop, to speak from the creative in me to the creative in each one of the people present. I do not mean by this anything to do with good creative or bad, better creative or best.

I find such distinctions meaningless and unhelpful.

My own experience is demonstrating that there is a creative voice in each one of us and that is not helped by any comparison except with our own deepening growth. In each of us there is our pinch pot, as there is our dance, our poem, and our song. What it looks like or sounds like is less important than the artistic journey we take to discover it.

I greet the creative in you from the creative in me.