Flow Arts Workshops

Panchavati, Shirali. Two days, sixty people on dhurries under open sky. Most were under thirty. The supervisors and volunteers who came with them ranged from forty-five to sixty. None of them had juggled before.

The workshop ran as part of Yuvadhara Sammelan, Shri Chitrapur Math's annual youth gathering, held under the guidance of His Holiness Shri Sadyojat Shankarashrama Swamiji. The brief was specific: use movement as a tool to deepen japa practice. Help participants find focus, learn to breathe, stay present.

The tools were slacklining, juggling balls, poi, the dapo star, and kendama. Slacklining keeps you focused on the present moment. On your breath, your core, your eyes on the anchor point. The moment you start thinking about falling, you fall. Juggling changes your relationship with failure and opens up peripheral vision. Poi is closer to dance than juggling: the whole body moves with the object, not just the hands. The dapo star asks you to stay locked on one point while staying alert enough to toss it the instant it lands on your fingers.

By day two, seven participants were juggling three balls. Fifteen were playing passing patterns with the dapo star.

I ran a separate session for the vaidiks — six students aged seven to fifteen, training to become priests. Same tools, scaled down. Same idea: that the state you reach mid-juggling and the state you reach mid-japa are closer than they look.

The video above is the full session.