“Ryan asks us to remember the body. In movement devoted to discipline, he bridges us back to impulse and listening. Honors breath and energy as it passes through us. Teaches how to direct and build it with intention. He acts as a strong, gentle mentor. Shows us how to attune senses back to physicality and connection. Reminds one of a river: focused, life-giving and ever flowing. ”
ABOUT RYAN
My name is Ryan Miller Wolf. I have over 25 years of experience in Martial, Movement and Healing arts. I’m a committed seeker of states of freedom of Body, mind and spirit.
Born to an Indonesian immigrant mother and an European-American Father, I traveled most of my young life as a “missionary kid”, experiencing the world and its many faces. I consider myself a “third culture kid” - at home nowhere and everywhere, a naturally Liminal being.
I’ve always instinctually felt the interconnection of all things, never wanting to reject, rather wanting to integrate and bring things together.
As a young adult, I studied Piano performance at Seattle Pacific University, then completed my studies in Sustainable Design at Evergreen State College. I began training at the Kannagara Aikido Dojo in Washington state in 1997 and in 2004 began a residency apprenticeship with Koichi Barrish at Tsubaki Grand Shrine, home of Kannagara Dojo. For two years, as a live-in apprentice, I undertook immersive studies in both the Japanese martial art of Aikido and Shinto, a Japanese indigenous shamanic spirituality.
During this time, I performed Misogi daily, (ritualized cold water purification rites), and studied Shinto prayers, practices, ceremonies and formal ritual architecture. It was through the material that was unearthed by these experiences that I came to build the pillars of the work I offer today. My Aikido practice allowed me to cultivate my world view, understand my deeper purpose and begin to form the understanding of the Body as Ally.
Systema came into my practice unexpectedly in 2006. In stark contrast to Aikido’s strict form based training, Systema provided a more open platform to study freedom of movement as well as fear reconciliation practices. Systema also offered unique teaching methodologies within the context of martial arts training that greatly opened up new understanding of Self and tools for navigating daily life. I was unusually blessed with the opportunity to study with Kaizen Taki and Brian King and began teaching Systema in 2010 with permission of chief instructor, Vladamir Vassiliev.
In addition to martial arts, I've also worked with shamanic practices for over 7 years and offer healing sessions. I studied Classical Shamanism with Simon Buxton at the Sacred Trust in England and am an initiate of the Lyceum under Naomi Lewis. I’ve also studied the Nervous System, and am a Reiki practitioner and certified in the Rossiter System, an assisted stretching method for myofascial release.
For 10 years, along with my wife Nico, I ran Golden Well Sanctuary in Vermont on the crossroads of Spirit, Nature, Community and Self. Here, we kept bees, farmed the land, held community events, hosted and taught countless seminars and retreats, fed thousands, and brought two children into the world. At the onset of the global Pandemic, we took a leap into the Unknown and moved to Brooklyn in 2021 with a distilled vision of my work in hand and came to co-found School of Liminal Arts. With my family, I’ve continued on this Liminal Path and currently live in Provence, France.
Today, my work as a Liminal Artist is devoted to the Materia of Relationships - and at the core of this, honoring the Body as Ally. Though I’ve moved away from my life at the Shrine, I take my experience of this way of sacred living out into the world, inviting my students to bridge the gap between the individual and the world at large through living more awakened, vitalic, meaningful and connected lives.
When we step onto the knot between polarities: masculine-feminine, good-evil, darkness-light, the experience-experiencer, we return to “Right Relationship”. This reconciliation does not intend to render all the same, but instead allows us to Know the beauty that is the warp and weft of the world, and repair and reconnect these threads within our Bodies, relationships, own histories and future stories.