aryanmehr

For years, design management and innovation consulting were my profession: creating refined media and designs, and working with the relationship between human beings and the world until that relationship could become functional, enabling, and woven into art, culture, and lived experience. This work has never been a chapter that simply came to an end. My teaching and research continue the same inquiry; they do not replace it. Consultant, manager, and teacher are three names for one practice: careful observation, understanding structure, testing, feedback, and refinement.

The body was the first laboratory of this practice. I began judo in childhood under Amir Gomi and wrestling under Abdollah Zare. Before any theory, these two disciplines introduced me to mechanics: leverage, center of gravity, load transfer, balance, and pressure. Yoga and Qigong followed, alongside the study and practice of Neigong and the internal traditions of China, all before I entered formal YMAA training. The word yoga derives from a root meaning “to yoke” or “to join.” Qigong asks a related question in another language: how do breath, attention, and flow come together to form an integrated whole?

I pursued Yang-style Taijiquan within the YMAA curriculum, alongside Qigong, Neigong, Tuishou (push hands), and the martial applications of Taijiquan. In Tuishou, force is heard before it is seen. This kind of listening is the same quality of observation I had sought in my professional work. For years, I have regularly pursued the seminars and courses of Grandmaster Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming, following a structured and continuous course of study. Today, I am a YMAA International–approved instructor in Taijiquan and Qigong.

In yoga, I earned a Level II teaching certification and continued into Viniyoga and yoga therapy at the American Viniyoga Institute under Gary Kraftsow. Ayurveda, mantra, and Vedic studies, Yumeiho Therapy, aerobic gymnastics, and judging in Wushu Taolu and yoga have also formed part of this path.

Study has always accompanied practice: Vedic texts, Advaita Vedanta and yoga traditions, Daoism and the internal traditions of China, Iranian and comparative mythology, and, later, cognitive science and embodied learning. Some of this path has been self-directed; other parts have developed through study with Dr. Borzou Ghaderi, Dr. Behzad Barakat, Dr. Jaleh Amouzegar, Dr. Abolghasem Esmailpour Motlagh, Dr. Bahman Namvar Motlagh, Dr. Alireza Esmailpour, Dr. Esmail Radpour, and Grandmaster Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming.

I serve as Director of Business Development and a member of the Board of Directors of YMAA International – Americas Headquarters. I teach Taijiquan, Qigong, and yoga; research internal traditions and cultural systems; and design educational programs and structures.

I build my approach to teaching around three elements. Tradition is the channel: it preserves continuity. Experience is the flow: it makes testing and discovery possible in the body and in life. Research examines the course of the water, keeping inquiry open. For me, the body is a field of observation—a place from which to explore the quality of presence, the relationship between mind and body, and the ways we encounter life.

What emerges from this encounter and accompaniment is, first, precision: the capacity to notice what is happening in body and mind, here and now, before it acquires a name. From this precision, a more attentive language for listening to the body begins to take shape, along with a livable order in sleep, movement, work, and relationships—an order that can be revisited as life changes without falling apart.

Gradually, practice moves beyond technique toward quality, and what has been learned finds its place where it belongs: in the body, not only in the mind. What remains is not a catalogue of movements, but a more precise relationship between oneself and the world, and the distance that binds them together.