Indoor rock climbing, sound healing, Feldenkrais? Try a new practice this month.
Sound Healing
Soul Body Finesse is a wellness studio in Minneapolis that specializes in sound healing. Here’s how it's described on the studio’s website, “As a form of energy medicine and vibrational therapy, sound healing recognizes that every living being carries its own frequency and vibration. Through this practice, we can harness these frequencies to restore balance, strengthen, and create new pathways through the body and nervous system.” The studio offers sound baths and classes involving reiki, yoga, meditation – even life regression therapy. The intention is to offer unique experiences that you’ll cherish. I still remember one I attended that included astrology and… drinking cacao.
Pilates
Founded by Jaqui Howard in order to create “a safe and inclusive space for women of color to practice and thrive,” Spyce Pilates offers classes to improve flexibility, strength, and overall well-being. Some people think you can’t break a sweat doing pilates, but these classes are for sure challenging, as I learned in a recent Spyce mat pilates class. In addition to pilates essentials, the studio offers classes incorporating sculpting and cardio.
Indoor Rock Climbing
With locations in Bloomington, Minneapolis, and Saint Paul, Vertical Endeavors offers newcomers and experienced climbers alike a variety of indoor climbing opportunities. Artificial walls, colored plastic holds, and a controlled climate allow people to practice skills like bouldering, top-roping, and auto-belaying, all while forming a community based on a shared passion. Here’s a video orientation if you want some amazing views of their climbing walls. Lessons, clinics, and kid summer climbing camps are available.
Feldenkrais
I can’t say enough good things about Feldenkrais, a somatic practice developed in the 1940s by Moshé Feldenkrais after he suffered a severe knee injury. Through this method practitioners rewire neural pathways by bringing gentle awareness to specific isolated movements and body parts. Classes are sloooooow and many are conducted entirely lying down. Counter to the prevailing American fitness ethos, participants are encouraged to not push themselves to their limit. The results are phenomenal. After each class, you move with greater ease and efficiency. If there’s a movement that you cannot yet do, you imagine yourself doing it. Moshé Feldenkrais believed imagination was a more powerful force than raw willpower and regained his own mobility through these methods. Practitioner Jeffrey Wells offers in-person sessions at East Lake Aikido in Minneapolis’s Longfellow neighborhood, or Zoom group classes with co-teacher Krista Langberg.
