Yoga studio reaches for the unfamiliar

In any of Dharma Movement Company’s classes, expect to go far beyond downward-facing dog.

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      When Shannon Cluff talks about movement, her eyes sparkle. As yogis like to say, there’s a light within her—one that no one who enters Dharma Movement Company (DMC) is immune to absorbing.

      That contagious energy exhibited by Cluff and her kindhearted crew of yogis seems to ignite a mind-body consciousness in practitioners that separates DMC from the average cookie-cutter yoga studio.

      The word experienced is an understatement in Cluff’s case: she’s been teaching yoga to students and instructors alike in Vancouver for almost 15 years. Before diving headfirst into yoga, Cluff trained as a dancer.

      As the manager of the enlivened Yaletown space—the reinvigoration of what was formerly known as Exhale Studio—Cluff, along with her tight-knit team of instructors, has thrown out the rule book and created a place for practitioners to “move all ways” by injecting a series of movement modalities into their classes that strict yogis might dub too experimental. Cluff, however, says it’s a “space for people to feel mechanically what their bodies can do” through intuitive movement that encourages not a step but a leap out of one’s comfort zone.

      A quick glance at DMC’s schedule will reveal that yoga is just one part of what is offered. Although familiar names like hatha, yin, and vinyasa appear, some are more idiosyncratic: Cirque Fit utilizes dynamic movement and conditioning to build stamina and active flexibility (hello, splits!), while Primal Flow combines yoga and a series of animalistic movement sequences that will have you crawling through the studio on all fours.

      Cluff’s Freeform Hatha class begins in a place that, she says, often perturbs DMC virgins: off the mat.

      “That, for some people, is like: ‘What? I have to leave my life raft?’ ” Cluff says with a chuckle.

      “It helps that our teachers are fusing the movement styles in classes, so it’s easy to pull people through that uncomfortable feeling.”

      Pointing across the circle of instructors who have joined the interview, she tells me that their programming is partly inspired by Slava Goloubov, an instructor at DMC whose commitment to variety has helped Cluff, other instructors, and DMC’s regulars “get out of the yoga box”.

      At Dharma Movement Company, Shannon Cluff (standing, centre) and her fellow instructors aim to “get out of the yoga box”.
      Amanda Siebert

      “Before I started yoga, I was in construction. I did nothing prior to it, no dance, no martial arts—I just dove into this thing,” Goloubov says.

      It started with yoga. Then Goloubov took up acrobatics, circus training, capoeira, and kung fu. He says opening his mind to other disciplines has made him not only a better student, but a better teacher.

      “You see things that are good about the practice, but then you see the things that are missing as well, so you try to infuse the things that are lacking,” he says.

      He says a student of his who has practised yoga for five years was unable to flatten her palms to the ground in certain postures.

      “After two of my Movement Lab classes, where we do a lot of kicking, conditioning, and martial arts, she was able to go flat with her hands to the floor, where she was always on her fingertips before,” Goloubov says.

      Other instructors at DMC agree with Goloubov’s sentiments: the injection of difference, of unfamiliar movement and diversity, has helped remove an element of rigidity in their practices, opening them up to new experiences and closer connections, both in the studio and out.

      Erika Valliere, a hatha/TNT-conditioning-class instructor, says DMC’s message is as much about community as it is about cultivating a healthy lifestyle: “At the end of the day, it’s not a competition. We’re all here to make people’s bodies healthier, to make them have a better relationship to movement, and to nurture this idea of community support.”

      “This,” Cluff says as she opens her hands to the floor, “should make us more friendly. We do this to get better at that, at the outside world. We get in our body, we get out pain, we get out of our heads, and we go out there with the intention of creating change.”

      In addition to regular classes, Dharma Movement Company hosts a variety of workshops. On May 14 and 15, Lucie-Honey Ray will present her Sensual Diva movement workshop, and on May 28, Morgan Lee Snow will host the Family Yoga Playshop (ages 2 and up).

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