What Is Rare Form?
Welcome to a yoga method designed for functional mobility, integrated strength, and freedom in movement.
Class Structure
In the Rare Form Movement method we focus on moving your body through a healthy, functional range of motion. Through repetition, this practice opens and strengthens the body within practical boundaries.
A typical Rare Form class follows a particular format:
Opening and Integration
Here, we prepare the body for movement by activating major muscle groups and creating connections between them. Healthy movement happens when these groups cooperate, anchoring to the hips and core.
Patterning
In this phase we move through the basic postures and the transitions between them, one by one. This portion of the practice does not “flow” much. Instead, it prepares the body for the movement range and establishes the pattern of the practice in the mind.
Flow
Once everything is patterned in, we begin to sync movements with breath and “flow” through postures more. Depending on the students in class and/or the primary focus of that day’s practice, the “flow” can gain speed through consistent repetition.
Reintegration and Cool Down
After a few rounds of Patterning and Flow, we take the practice down. The ending of a Rare Form class is fairly low key, but still has a good bit of muscular work. The Flow practice opens the body, which is good, and we also want to ensure that once the practice is complete the major muscle groups are stable and well integrated. That’s fancy talk for “we reactivate the core and the glutes in particular, so you walk normal when you leave.”
Core Principles
Rare Form applies come core principles to create freedom and power through the practice. Some essentials are:
Every Day Is Leg Day. We want the whole body to be strong, and in the modern world our foundation, the hips and legs, are woefully underused. We are made to climb mountains, walk for miles, and run when the moment calls. Strong legs keep the body stable and healthy, and help support your spine. (Goodbye back pain.)
Every Day Is Glutes Day. Butt strength is essential to healthy movement, particularly walking. You walk, right? If your glutes are strong and dynamic, walking is easy on the body. The knees and lower back in particular get relief. Chairs are the worst, they put that system to sleep. Wake up your posterior, friend.
Use the Ground. Get up and down a lot. Get low. The floor is your friend. The ability to rise from a low position, whether actually on the ground or low in a standing pose, requires integration and cooperation in your body’s major muscle groups.
Stay in a Safe Range. Mobility is key to healthy movement, but too much flexibility and movement through extreme ranges can destabilize the system. A long term, powerful practice lives within healthy boundaries.
Don’t Overdo the Back Bending. Sparing you the nitty-gritty, there’s a point at which back bending provides diminishing returns. And it’s usually a lot less extreme than most of us think. A little back bending is nice, but we don’t want to overload it. Core integration beats spinal extension every time.
Get In Motion. You don’t have to be sprinting or doing burpees all the time, just get the body in motion. The human body is made for motion, so we build flows in Rare Form that move seamlessly from one position to the next. In time the practice becomes cyclical, in constant motion.
Go Side-to-Side. Lateral motion is vital in athletic and mundane movement. Shifting weight side-to-side, often in wide stances, opens the hips and strengthens the legs.
Flow in and out of balance. Balance is a key factor in long term well-being. And the world is in motion. The ability to stand still in balance is helpful, and we also need the ability to move to and from a place of balance. Flow in, flow out.
