In the Field

Run while meditating with Activité Physique

Text -

Marie Charles Pelletier

Pictures - Catherine Marois

The mind needs stillness, and the body needs movement. What if meditative running helped us slow down the flow of thoughts that surge by bringing us back to the present moment?

This is what Chanelle Riopel, founder of the multidisciplinary online training studio Activité Physique, deeply believes. “We use movement to immerse ourselves in the environment (natural, architectural, human), she explains, and use our senses as links between body and mind to help ground us.”

One Saturday in August, after enjoying a pleasant morning at the chalet and ingesting a – always appropriate – bowl of granola, runners of different levels joined her near Long Pond, in the territory of Lanaudière. Chanelle was waiting for them for a meditative run offered as part of the BESIDE Habitat summer program.

Once the greetings were made, the group spent the next hour and a half without saying a word. “Noble silence,” Chanelle explains, does not simply mean being silent; he also talks about not needing to speak. It establishes calm in everyone, and allows them to settle down — while running — to explore the meditative state. It is a practice that requires that intensity and performance be put aside to better make room for the connection to the body, to sensations and to the environment. At each previously chosen terminal (for example, at each kilometer), attention is focused on a given feeling: breathing, the noises that surround us, those that we create by treading the ground, the sun on our skin, perspiration , the wind.

When you put your body in motion and train your brain to focus on a single thing, the senses sharpen, the perceptions awaken and, for a few seconds — a few minutes on a good day —, the state of full consciousness is reached. Whether we are in the forest or in a city, alone or surrounded, we are 100% present and 100% aware of what is happening here, now.

“If you can live it for even 10 or 15 seconds, it’s already a success,” says Chanelle.

The one who is passionate about the movement of the body reminds us that static meditation is not for everyone. And that we can pave the way to full consciousness differently, one step at a time.

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Activité physique was born in January 2021, after Chanelle Riopel had long simmered the idea of launching an online multidisciplinary training studio. Acte offers collections of pre-recorded workouts, structured programs and workshops with, always, the same objective: to lead each person to better understand their body, to better put it in motion.

Experience the colors up close
Come immerse yourself in the colors and enjoy autumn as it should be, at the best place possible.
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In the Field

Run while meditating with Activité Physique

Text -

Marie Charles Pelletier

Pictures - Catherine Marois

The mind needs stillness, and the body needs movement. What if meditative running helped us slow down the flow of thoughts that surge by bringing us back to the present moment?

This is what Chanelle Riopel, founder of the multidisciplinary online training studio Activité Physique, deeply believes. “We use movement to immerse ourselves in the environment (natural, architectural, human), she explains, and use our senses as links between body and mind to help ground us.”

One Saturday in August, after enjoying a pleasant morning at the chalet and ingesting a – always appropriate – bowl of granola, runners of different levels joined her near Long Pond, in the territory of Lanaudière. Chanelle was waiting for them for a meditative run offered as part of the BESIDE Habitat summer program.

Once the greetings were made, the group spent the next hour and a half without saying a word. “Noble silence,” Chanelle explains, does not simply mean being silent; he also talks about not needing to speak. It establishes calm in everyone, and allows them to settle down — while running — to explore the meditative state. It is a practice that requires that intensity and performance be put aside to better make room for the connection to the body, to sensations and to the environment. At each previously chosen terminal (for example, at each kilometer), attention is focused on a given feeling: breathing, the noises that surround us, those that we create by treading the ground, the sun on our skin, perspiration , the wind.

When you put your body in motion and train your brain to focus on a single thing, the senses sharpen, the perceptions awaken and, for a few seconds — a few minutes on a good day —, the state of full consciousness is reached. Whether we are in the forest or in a city, alone or surrounded, we are 100% present and 100% aware of what is happening here, now.

“If you can live it for even 10 or 15 seconds, it’s already a success,” says Chanelle.

The one who is passionate about the movement of the body reminds us that static meditation is not for everyone. And that we can pave the way to full consciousness differently, one step at a time.

‍

‍

Activité physique was born in January 2021, after Chanelle Riopel had long simmered the idea of launching an online multidisciplinary training studio. Acte offers collections of pre-recorded workouts, structured programs and workshops with, always, the same objective: to lead each person to better understand their body, to better put it in motion.

Experience the colors up close
Come immerse yourself in the colors and enjoy autumn as it should be, at the best place possible.
BOOK NOW
In the Field

Run while meditating with Activité Physique

Text -

Marie Charles Pelletier

Pictures - Catherine Marois

The mind needs stillness, and the body needs movement. What if meditative running helped us slow down the flow of thoughts that surge by bringing us back to the present moment?

This is what Chanelle Riopel, founder of the multidisciplinary online training studio Activité Physique, deeply believes. “We use movement to immerse ourselves in the environment (natural, architectural, human), she explains, and use our senses as links between body and mind to help ground us.”

One Saturday in August, after enjoying a pleasant morning at the chalet and ingesting a – always appropriate – bowl of granola, runners of different levels joined her near Long Pond, in the territory of Lanaudière. Chanelle was waiting for them for a meditative run offered as part of the BESIDE Habitat summer program.

Once the greetings were made, the group spent the next hour and a half without saying a word. “Noble silence,” Chanelle explains, does not simply mean being silent; he also talks about not needing to speak. It establishes calm in everyone, and allows them to settle down — while running — to explore the meditative state. It is a practice that requires that intensity and performance be put aside to better make room for the connection to the body, to sensations and to the environment. At each previously chosen terminal (for example, at each kilometer), attention is focused on a given feeling: breathing, the noises that surround us, those that we create by treading the ground, the sun on our skin, perspiration , the wind.

When you put your body in motion and train your brain to focus on a single thing, the senses sharpen, the perceptions awaken and, for a few seconds — a few minutes on a good day —, the state of full consciousness is reached. Whether we are in the forest or in a city, alone or surrounded, we are 100% present and 100% aware of what is happening here, now.

“If you can live it for even 10 or 15 seconds, it’s already a success,” says Chanelle.

The one who is passionate about the movement of the body reminds us that static meditation is not for everyone. And that we can pave the way to full consciousness differently, one step at a time.

‍

‍

Activité physique was born in January 2021, after Chanelle Riopel had long simmered the idea of launching an online multidisciplinary training studio. Acte offers collections of pre-recorded workouts, structured programs and workshops with, always, the same objective: to lead each person to better understand their body, to better put it in motion.

Experience the colors up close
Come immerse yourself in the colors and enjoy autumn as it should be, at the best place possible.
BOOK NOW

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