BIO
***SNOW & FLOW***
"I kind of entered a flow state. I've been there before while climbing. You are not thinking ahead. You are just thinking about what is in front of you each second"
- Aaron Ralston
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https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=en
Rose Ashes (AKA Megan Ashley Thomas, LMSW) grew up studying dance and travelling the United States as a competitive baton twirler. In her teens, she began coaching younger twirlers and choreographing solo/group dance twirl routines.
During her undergraduate studies in psychology at SUNY New Paltz, she began teaching early childhood dance classes at a local daycare. It was about this time in her life, when she was living in the Hudson Valley, exploring the Shawangunk and the Catskill Mountains when she discovered the healing nature of outdoor adventure sports.
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She started teaching children's ski lessons at Hunter mountain in 2007. It wasn't until she felt the adrenaline rush of flying down an icy ski slope that she felt truly alive. Despite her involvement in baton twirling as a child, her experience with snow sports as a young adult was what truly ignited her passion for life. It is through snowsports and other outdoor adventure sports that Rose Ashes first experienced the flow state.
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For about 5 years, every spring time brought about a sense of longing, a spiritual void that had only been filled by the magical feeling of flow that snowsports had provied for her.
While backpacking in the Western US, hiking 14ers in 2010, she saw a group of performers spinning fire at a summer solstice festival in Utah. It was at that moment that her whole childhood had made sense to her. She always thought that she had misspent her youth, wasting hours of her life training for baton twirling competitions. It suddenly all made sense to her now...
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The flames had re-lit her passion for baton twirling, and during her graduate social work studies at Adelphi University's satellite campus in Manhattan, she shared this passion of hers with inner-city youth at a co-ed after school program for middle schoolers. She began performing her fire twirling act at private parties and events. Yet again, she felt a void.
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In her winter wonderland of snow sports, she was constantly challenged to become a better athlete and instructor by her trainers and other, more experienced instructors at the mountain. She yearned for this type of external inspiration with her newfound passion. In the summer of 2012, she discovered the flow arts community. She always knew that she would find her summer tribe of fire spinners that would challenge her the same way that her snowsports family had during the winter months. In the winter of 2014, she took an introduction to poi spinning class with Ms. Claire De Luxe in Brooklyn, NY. Through her class, a whole new world of tech was unlocked. She was now able to learn from other flow artists, as she now knew how to speak the same language of movement as they did. Since then, Rose Ashes has dedicated her summer months to flow arts. She has performed and taught workshops all over the US.
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From 2014-2019, Rose Ashes lived in Steamboat Springs, CO "Ski Town USA", where she happily taught snow sports, flow arts, swimming, and gymnastics while working in the special education department in the local school district and supporting special needs children out in the community. During that time, she enjoyed the various forms of dance training and community performance art opportunities that the small mountain town had to offer. She received formal training in aerial silks from Heidi Miller of Spirit Winds Aerial Arts; tribal fusion belly dance, West African dance, and BUTI yoga from Nicole LeDuc of IBI Dance Brigade, aerial hoop/lyra from Chandler Elizabeth Chamberlin of Mod Vaude, hoop dance from Ji Min Shwangri-la of Mod Vaude, Improvisational Tribal Style belly dance from Heidi Mershel-Jolly of Jasmir, pole dance fitness, acro-jazz, and burlesque from Emily Stein of Upper Altitudes Pole Dance Fitness, and acroyoga with Onaray Heart of BODYFLOWART. She also cultivated many performance art opportunities for herself and her community by organizing local performance artists and coordinating events for the Steamboat Pyroneers, (a fire, prop dance, and circus troupe).
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She recently relocated to Denver, where she was offered a clinical social work position serving the special needs population as a behavior therapist. She looks forward to connecting with other performance artists in the area to continue her training, share her passions and to explore new performance opportunities/creative collaborations.
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Her Mission: To honor her calling as a teacher/muse and to serve her community by sharing her passions with others.