I am Air

a guest blog by Rachel Muller

When I started my Oula journey, I didn’t know I had a closed heart. I signed up for a fitness class that sounded fun because I loved the idea of dance, and I was looking for yet another way to fulfill a New Year’s resolution to exercise. At the time, things in my life were heavy. But when I walked into that studio on Saturday mornings and the instructor invited me to my hour, to get in touch with my body and to take what I NEEDED, that’s when some of that heaviness started to chip away. At the end of that hour, she would ask the class to look down and imagine there was a pool at our feet of everything we shed during class, that it was everything we got to leave behind in that room. I had not connected physical fitness to emotional fitness before, but there it was—I felt lighter, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I began to tell people about this new workout I found that was like my therapy.

When I hear the word Air, I think of words like:

Lift

Light

Breath/Breathe

Float

Fly

In other words, what Air is or does. A physical manifestation. Oula movements that translate for me as Air are ones that mimic flying motions, sweeping front to back or side to side, turns with lots of flowy motions, and light and playful song choices. Most recently, we had Lighter as our warm-up, a great example of bridging the physical and emotional with the lyrics “I feel a little bit lighter when the world is heavy as stone” while we open our arms as if we have wings.

But more than just a physical feeling of lightness or breath as a necessity for life, the Air element is also associated with the heart chakra. Air, which seems so transparent and light, can actually hold a lot of power. Now I know why those chest-opening moves feel so cathartic. Not only are we inviting breath, but also opening ourselves up to receive new energy and light.

I am in my third session of teaching an Intro to Oula class, and I love inviting my participants to go on their own heart-opening journey. Hopefully, they too leave class feeling a little bit lighter than when they walked in. I decided to bend the rules for just one class per session, and in the very last class, we have been dancing to Breathing as the cool down. For me, it’s a song that I can say to them is how Oula makes me feel and is also a lovely send-off for a new-to-Oula class. Some of them will be coming back for the next session, some will not, but it’s a chance to remind all of them to just keep breathing. And of course, we all end up in that beautiful open-heart pose at the end.

-Rachel