Force and Flow

Category: Force and Flow

  • Coming Out of the Closet

    I sent this (love) letter to my mailing list the other day and I’m sharing it with my blog readers now – I haven’t been doing much blogging lately and this will reveal a little of the “why”. The tide is turning and there are lots of blog posts coming up, but if you want to get the best of my insights and tips, make sure sure to subscribe to the newsletter – use the form above or to your left!

     

    Coming out of the closet is much harder than I imagined…

    Performing with Evan Hugh Worldwind & Kevin Nathaniel (AKA The Peace Department) at The Healing Arts Garden Event in Philly, 8/23/14
    Performing with Evan Hugh Worldwind & Kevin Nathaniel (AKA The Peace Department) at The Healing Arts Garden Event in Philly, 8/23/14

    When I was a little girl living in Israel, I used to wake up early in the morning and hide in the closet and play make-believe for hours on end. In the dark closet, while my brother and parents were sleeping, I could be anyone and do anything I dreamed. I was powerful and beautiful, gracious and brilliant – all at once!

    I’ve held on to so many of my dreams – my business and art are my testament. But I’ve often lived my life as if my powers and passions were safer in the closet. Fear of being seen has frequently terrorized me, which is strange considering the extraordinary lengths I’ve gone to embody my potential and uncover the brilliance within.

    Strange but not unusual.

    What is unusual is how much freedom and privilege I’ve had to follow my dreams and give voice to my truth. Especially unusual considering that I’m a woman. A Jewish woman. Israeli born. Of North African descent.

    And a dancer, a woman dancer who’s chosen to live fully in her body in a world that still behaves as if intelligence belongs solely in the cognitive functions of the brain and treats the body as territory to be conquered. And an improviser at that, who’s chosen participation in the mysteries of the moment over the stature of recognized knowledge and forms.

    A healer, too.

    Believe it or not, naming that is the scariest part of coming out of the closet!

    See, I grew up with a scientist for a father and scientific materialism as the reigning ideology of my times. My mother was a self-identified modern woman, who’d worked hard to distance herself from the “primitive” past of her Moroccan family, once well known and respected in Fez precisely because my great-grandmother was a powerful healer in service of the king. The gifts and talents that make me a healer weren’t always ones I knew how to appreciate.

    It’s true that people – maybe even you – have increasingly referred to me as a healer for years now, but I’ve rarely called myself one for fear of…

    It doesn’t matter. What I mean is, Enough With The Fear!!!

    This summer took me to the Sierra Contact Festival, where I taught a workshop and spent a week in the beautiful nature of the high Sierra's with amazing colleagues.
    This summer took me to the Sierra Contact Festival, where I taught a workshop and spent a week in the beautiful nature of the high Sierra’s with amazing colleagues.

    It’s killing us and blinding us from the immense healing powers of empathy and love. One look at the part of the world I hail from will suffice to prove my point. Which isn’t to say our fears – personal, cultural and global – are unfounded, or that our experience of them isn’t intensely real, but true courage and novel solutions are born of empathy and love.

    Empathy for myself hasn’t always been easy to come by, and lack of it has kept me in the closet far longer than I intended. The love in my life – from my friends, family, clients and especially from my main man Marcel – has increasingly given me the courage to make my way out into the world.

    It’s time for me to start giving and participating more fully.

    And that’s what this new newsletter is all about. It’s my way of sharing my expertise, insights and offerings with you, friends.

    Which is why I’d love to hear from you about what topics in the world of holistic health and embodied wellness are important to you to learn more about? Consider me a resource, at your service and gratefully so!

    And make sure to check out the opportunity to get one of the last spots for the Fall RELAXED Strength & POWERFUL Alignment 90-Day Semi-Private Session – we start the week of September 15 and if you’re looking to integrate a sustainable and consistent approach to health for your body, mind and spirit, you don’t want to miss out on this.

    Love,
    Ophra

  • Announcing the Spring Semi-Private Group Session!

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    Photo by Marielise Gouléne
    Photo by Marielise Gouléne

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    EXPERIENCE THE AWARD WINNING FORCE & FLOW APPROACH TO CORE STRENGTH

    Connecting to Core

    April 14 – July 13

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    90-Day Semi-Private Group Session
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    Dynamic Core Strength and Fluid Breath Connection

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    Spring is here and your body wants to come out of hibernation mode and bloom into it’s full potential for pleasure and productivity – what better time to commit to your wellbeing and transform your pain and discomfort into renewed strength and energy?![spacer height=”10px”]
    • Are you working hard at living a healthy, mindful life, but not seeing and feeling the results you’re spending so much energy on?
    • Are you aching to get strong but find yourself tied up dealing with fatigue and aches that only get exacerbated when you try to “work out”?
    • Do overcrowded and under-informed yoga, pilates and movement classes leave you feeling more tense and brittle than supple and centered?
    • Are you ready for the kind of detailed information and personalized attention that can catapult you to the next level of comfort, energy, flexibility and strength?
    • Do you love to learn and are you committed to opening your awareness, aligning with your highest potential and moving consciously through life?

    Then this is your invitation to join a small group of brilliant, creative, and perceptive folks like yourself to experience the Force and Flow approach to holistic mind-body movement.

    Our focus this session will be on finding the strength and flexibility that come from a dynamic and mindful connection to your core – there’s nothing as frustrating as watching your hard work make things even harder, but that’s often what happens when we “work out” without understanding the underlying connections of our body. CONNECTING TO CORE is about experiencing strength and alignment with ease and efficiency by learning how to connect and move from your center.

    I’ve gathered a number of incredibly potent exercises from the worlds of Pilates, Yoga, Qi Gong and beyond, and cohered them in a systematic flow focused on helping you cultivate a connection to your core which will serve you in every single thing you do, from sitting in a chair to climbing personal, professional and natural mountains.

    Take a moment to imagine what it would mean to you to have the energy, strength, flexibility and awareness to get the most out of the opportunities in your life? Who would you be if you could let go of held postures and tense positions and instead find ease in movement and organic strength? What kind of energy and awareness could you bring to the things you love?

    Regardless of your background in movement, whether it be on a mat, in the gym, on the grass or even if it’s none at all, this upcoming session at Force and Flow is an incredible opportunity to develop the awareness and acquire potent tools for stepping into a healthier, stronger, more vibrant body. And with a maximum of five people in a group, you’re sure to get the personal attention that is so indispensable to your development and without which you’re likely spend a lot more time repeating the same mistakes and fighting off or giving into burn out.

    Here are just a few of the benefits that you are sure to gain when you show up for yourself through this 90-Day CONNECTING TO CORE session:

    • Learn to attune to your movement, avoid injury and cultivate pleasure and ease in your body.
    • Have powerfully effective and simple tools for strengthening, centering, balancing, energizing and releasing tension.
    • Have improved breath awareness and breath capacity, as well as the improved focus, presence and resiliency that follows.
    • Experience dynamic alignment and tangible improvements in your posture, both in your body and in life.
    • Feel more connected to your intuitive, reflexive mind and experience greater ease and confidence with others as you come to know it in your own body.
    • Embody more strength, flexibility and agility as you navigate the challenges and opportunities in your life.
    • And most importantly, cultivate a healthy, strong and sustainable long-term relationship with your body.

    Here is what the thoughtfully crafted FALLING INTO BALANCE package includes:

    • 10-weekly 75-minute semi-private sessions which encourage a steady, incremental development of your strength, flexibility and awareness.

    April 14 – June 22
    Choose a group
    Tuesdays 6:45PM, Wednesdays 7:15PM, Sundays 11:00AM

    • A private 60-minute session in which we will hone in on your specific questions and accelerate your development.
    • An invitation to one of three Sound Baths, our acclaimed sonic meditation series.
    • A 3-hour Walking Workshop in late June and/or early July
    • PLUS: a gift for a friend to join you at the workshop for free!
    • 30% discount and priority booking on additional private or bodywork sessions throughout the 90-days
    • Personalized tips and assignments to keep you engaged in a sustainable, pleasurable way throughout the week
    • Audio recordings of all group sessions

    The cost for all this is only $840 or $280 a month! And according to my long time students, the benefits are priceless. A payment plan is available to break up the cost, and spots are extremely limited at this point – if you think you are a good fit for this program, fill out the application form below and we’ll get back to you ASAP with registration information.

    [spacer height=”10px”] [divider style=”medium”] [spacer height=”15px”] Pre-Registration for CONNECTING TO CORE: [spacer height=”15px”] [contact-form-7 id=”13869″ title=”Connecting_to_Core”]

  • New Year

    It’s the evening of Labor Day and I’m drinking in the wind right now, which is finally dispersing the thick air, heavy with humidity and energy of over a million people at the West Indian Parade up the street from me. I love Brooklyn, for its diversity and sheer life-force, and I’m also grateful for the quiet of my studio.

    I’m reflecting on my summer, which found me close to home on the challenging and thrilling journey of articulating what I do through language and image with the same kind of clarity, simplicity and attention that fuels my work. In many ways I’ve traveled farther than ever these past few months, skipping down unknown paths and jumping into cold waterfalls, literally and figuratively.

    I started the journey in mid-May. Grand Jury duty in the first two weeks of the month shocked my senses (more…)