Hello Jazzies,

Mike Larsen’s Classic Memories Big Band returns for another majestic evening of awesome Swing Jazz power! There is nothing like an impressive line-up of Big Band musicians giving it their all and playing their hearts out. Come out and show them some love and enjoy the extravagant fun of magnificent music!

Swing like a champ! Lessons at 7:15 and 8pm are designed to challenge all levels to reach toward rhythm mastery. The advanced class at 7:15 will be new moves out of the trick bag and will surely add to your blue-ribbon repertoire. The fundamental class at 8pm will be everything needed to be a world class dancer!

Mike Larsen is a true professional and puts together a great band! They rehearse often to polish and add to their extensive playlist of Big Band standards. The last time they played for us was a magical evening for the Firefly Ball and they simply bring it big time! $10 gets you in and living large is to your substantial advantage!

See you there,
Stephen

P.S. For more info go to www.roaringtwentieshotjazzdanceclub.com or go to https://www.facebook.com/HotJazzSwing. If you have any questions or want to boost your Swing speed with private lessons, you can always call me at 843-557-7690.

Carnivalesque is Charleston, SC’s one and only carnival sideshow outfit, presenting burlesque, belly dance, acrobatics, fire dance, and much more. Beautiful girls, stunning physical feats, awe-inspiring sideshow stunts and much much more!

Miss Evelyn De Vere will be bringing TWO brand-new Associate classes to Spirit Moves on Wednesday nights, as well as “Stage Kitten” workshop on Saturday, March 3rd.

Miss De Vere is the Founder & Director of Carnivalesque and Ménage à Trois Burlesque. She is an accomplished burlesque dancer, belly dancer, and aerialist, as well as a skilled seamstress and makes most of her own costumes! Her goal is to bring together all of the wonderfully skilled fringe performers in Charleston and present a carnival show that will dazzle and amaze.

Belly Dance Basics

March 7-April 4th, 7:30-8:45pm

$75 pre-register / $90 day of

This 5 week session will teach you the foundational moves of belly dance. You will learn basic hip and chest moves, arm positions and movements, traveling steps, and more! Each week builds on the last to improve your muscle memory so that your body will learn the ancient art of belly dance. A wonderful low-impact workout that will help you feel centered and empowered in your body!

Wear what you would wear to a yoga class–and we will dance barefoot!

Burlesque Basics

March 7-28th, 9-10:15pm

$60 pre-register / $75 day of

In this 4 week session, learn the classic burlesque moves like the bump and grind, sultry walks, and those iconic showgirl poses. The art of the tease will be stressed–mastering the skill of keeping your audience riveted to you! You will also learn basic boa work and simple glove and stocking peels. Whether you want to go on stage one day, or just want to learn some sexy moves to build confidence, this is the class for you!

Wear comfortable clothes, and be ready to move! Heels are encouraged (though wear whatever height you are comfortable with).

Take both the burlesque and belly dance series and save 25%!

Stage Kitten Workshop

March 3rd, 2-3:15pm in the Mermaid Lounge

$15

Interested in joining the burlesque world, but not in performing? Come to this workshop to learn about how to be a sexy and engaging stage kitten or tip girl. Build your confidence and overcome stage fright by learning costuming, hair and makeup tips, how to interact with an audience, and fun character ideas for your stage kitten persona!

Register for any or all at CarnivalesqueShows.com!

We’re very excited to have the talented Miss De Vere at Spirit Moves, and look forward to working with Carnivalesque for a long time to come!

Annex Dance Company hosts the second installment of “A is for Annex: Cocktails and Conversation with Annex Dance Company” on Tuesday February 28th from 6-7:30pm at Spirit Moves.

Continue the conversation with Charleston’s only professional modern dance company and two of the company’s collaborators, saxophonist Jonathan Kammer and pianist Wendy Tahara. The evening will include a lecture/demonstration style performance showcasing works for the spring season. Hors d’oeuvres and beverages will be served, including cupcakes donated by Cupcake.

The $15 donation (cash or check) will be go directly towards rehearsal costs.

“The Dancin’est Yogi East of the Mississippi” has an extensive and varied background in teaching Yoga and Dance. He is well known and loved as a gifted and highly entertaining teacher. Bill has presented programs at the national Mind – Body Fitness Exposition, and teaches for Yoga, Nia & Dance retreats at the White Lotus school in Santa Barbara, CA.

* Nia Next Generation Trainer in Training
* Blue, Brown & Black Belt NIA certifications and FAB intensive with Debbie & Carlos Rosas, founders of the technique
* Green Belt Nia certification with Charleston area Trainer Stephaney Robinson
* White Belt NIA certification with Winalee Zeeb, who has been described by Debbie Rosas (founder of the technique) as “the Heart of NIA”
* Yoga Teaching certification with Ganga White and Tracey Rich at White Lotus
* Advanced Yoga Teacher training at White Lotus, and with Stephanie Keach at the Asheville Yoga Center
* Thai Yoga Therapy certification with Saul David Raye

Bill has a lifelong passion for movement, and has danced and taught Contra, Swing, Latin, Waltz and Argentine Tango, and has studied and danced the Five Rhythms work of Gabrielle Roth. Bill works as a Computer Geek, and in his copious free time he is an enthusiastic amateur chef (check out his blog at http://playwfood.blogspot.com/), a sometime thespian, husband of Dancer, Poet and Teacher Christina Stewart, and Dad to a beautiful and challenging special needs daughter, Camille.

bill@spiritmoves.com
(843) 810-3484

-License (SC 1607)
-NCTMB certified therapist
-NCBTMB approved continuing education provider
-Certified Continuum Practitioner
-Certified Watsu® Practitioner
-Nia Blue Belt Instructor

My Story

This story has been written in the pages of my life. It is a story of discovery, an exploration into the fibers of a delicate matrix. More than that, however, it is a saga that offers a tale of the spiraling, weaving, undulating signals of life begging for health. Like a rose dropping its petals, the mists of the universe have showered me with cosmic lessons, each offering layers of understanding, each unveiling a path of wonder. Read this narrative with your mind, but also with your heart. Know that its writing is to offer you a little history, but also to suggest the power of the flowing wisdom that lies just under the surface of our sacred essences.

Like many local therapists, I was initially instructed in neuromuscular massage therapy and began my career, assuming I would gain confidence and skill thru traditional continuing education experiences. Indeed, having an insatiable desire to learn, I attended a variety of workshops including craniosacral/sacred spaces massage, lymph drainage, Lomi-Lomi massage, myofascial release, therapeutic essential oils, and stone therapy. I remained fascinated and challenged, but did not realize that I had not truly begun my journey.

Personal events had been altering my path in several ways. I had suffered a stroke in 1971, and while recovering most skills, still I struggled with balance and sensory/proprioceptive/bodily awareness issues. While it appeared to the outside world that I had recovered fairly quickly, the insides were lost, confused and with minimal guidance. I had little bodily awareness on the injured side, relying on the left for all sensory input.

When there was response it was confusing. Tickle was perceived as pain. The rules were fairly simple. There was o.k. and not o.k., for temperature, touch or pain. What registered was never graded or refined. It was raw, it was absent or it was overwhelming. It would be many years later as these sensations returned that I began to understand just how bound I had become in that sensory obscurity. Having no clear internal voices, I would stumble many times, literally and in my own personal journey of self discovery.

Some intense synchronistic experiences during my rehabilitation led me into the field of speech pathology, a choice that would later lay the groundwork for my current explorations into the internal body communication pathways. For a long time, I would view the many structures of the body in anatomical language, each little part viewed for its specific location, merits and roles. It would be years later before I came to understand the special relationship to healing found deep within the resonating tissues of those oral chambers.

In early 2002, I broke my right kneecap and in December of that same year I broke my right wrist. During recovery from the bone injuries, I began to learn several alternatives to the deep tissue strategies. I found answers emerging from the tissue layers – patterns that invited movement of tissues, toxins and energy. I explored methods for opening to the body’s wisdom, and practiced being present for new techniques to unfold.

In sacred spaces therapy (in the cranio sacral realm), I had been introduced to the ‘fluid model’. This approach held fascination, but primarily within the academic/neurological framework. While there were discussions of the larger anatomy & physiology, and some level of understanding and appreciation at a body structure level, this connection had not begun to sink in, to truly filter into my massaging hands, or to resonate at a cellular level.

In the spring of 2004 I took an intensive training for the Nia Technique, a high energy movement form. Somewhere during that experience, the pieces began to connect. What had begun as a tool for staying physically fit ‘accidentally’ became a basis through which to expand the massage process itself, considering each component thru this more fluid based philosophy of movement. Every therapy session began to reveal new information regarding familiar topics such as body mechanics and basic massage strokes. Anatomy became a view of the sculpting nature of the body with its layers of spiraling structures and energies, each adding dimension and depth to the bodywork experience. The strategies being revealed followed the body’s natural pathways, opened the tissues and offered deep and lasting releases.

This ‘fluid’ model as a base for massage continued to sink even deeper into my consciousness. Additional information manifested following a sciatic ‘lock up’ in the summer of 2005. Of all the challenges I had faced, this was certainly the most intense, with layers connecting to the stroke, the bones, balance, sensation and even survival.

There was pain like no other. To look at me would be to view a woman writhing in frequent unrelenting whole body spasms, waves of anguish that bound tissue from my toes to my frontal bones. At one point there were such intense contractions, I could only manage small, shallow breaths – I could not cry, dialog, move my trunk or shift my legs. I came to realize that I had lost many of my motor planning skills and my ability to maneuver physically. I also began to recognize that this pain was a form of deep body trauma wounding surfacing some 30+ years after the stroke, intense sensations that had never been registered by the right side of the body.

Perhaps some examples of the challenges my body had not been able to resolve are needed for the reader to get a clearer perspective. When I began to have issues with extended female cycles a year after my son was born, the physician began to run a series of tests. Symptoms did not make sense to him. After a series of tests, he remained very concerned, but puzzled. Nothing was adding up, but the digestive issues, the swelling and continued bleeding continued. Finally, I was able to report some symptoms affecting the left side and he began to piece things together. After several more tests and two ultrasounds, he suggested immediate surgery for a probable tubular pregnancy. He related to me later that the fetus had been growing for 9 weeks. The doctor was amazed that I was never able to offer one symptom from that very inflamed and enlarged right ovary.

I recalled a skiing accident in which I had severely twisted my knee. My body told me the issue was my ankle. Since it had not begun to swell, after a few minutes, I began to ski again. The next morning, I discovered to my surprise that my ankle was fine – it was my knee that was very swollen. It did not really hurt, so I wrapped it and continued to ski. Again there was the doctor’s astonishment that I was walking at all, and without significant pain.

These incidents would surface later as I began to understand the amazing healing that was evolving as I silently lay there during the sciatic lock up experience, trying to avoid another wave of the intense spasms. I did not yet understand that the pain I felt was a guiding force. I did not see that by slowing and carefully navigating very simple maneuvers, I was reconnecting pathways for sensory and motor responses, lost so many years earlier. What was clear, however, was that this was a pain not to be ignored or medicated. It was necessary to let it be there, to sit with it, to follow its lead, and to allow my body to heal in its own way.

Intuitively, I understood that these deep sensations could not be massaged away. There were no knots, congestion, trigger points to be dug out, pushed on, or explained at a muscle/bone/nerve/ or organ level. These were tissues and cells claiming their right to move, to explore space in three dimensions, slowly and in time with a greater rhythm.

My sacred spaces therapist had witnessed my distress, and had suggested I watch a video on a movement form known as Continuum. In this film, its founder, Emilie Conrad shared her visionary wisdom regarding the exquisite splendor of this flowing intelligence. She did not offer a recipe, but her words began to sink in none the less. Rolling around on the floor, I began to listen and to explore this watery world. Continuum may be called the ultimate fluid model, inviting the practitioner to investigate our bio-intelligence at a molecular level. I was coming to understand the true healing magic of fluid and of learning to be guided by its gentle, but powerful movements.

As the days and months went by, I found that even the smallest gains in movement spilled over in to everyday activities. Balance returned as the intrinsic muscles of the ankles, knees, hips, and upper body began to fire once again. Smell, tastes, tactile awareness all shifted to accommodate these new sensations. Overwhelmed at times, I found these simple movement patterns offered emotional releases and connections I did not know were available.

As I returned to the massage table, every event became an opportunity to be grateful for this new freedom. The discovery that had begun after learning Nia took on greater significance. The need to honor fluid as a teacher and healer, to work with the tissue, to add resonating voices of sound, breath and movement became even more apparent.

These many lessons have become the foundation for my new massage therapy style. As my body began to demand its participation in this approach, I discovered that the techniques I had been learning were making sense on multiple levels. Massage was no longer a physical challenge but more of a dance of tissue. The strategies allowed for deep releases from tenderness through the unwinding of springs of trapped energies. This flow of connection opened pathways that stirred the intuition of change, ultimately inspiring my write manuals for the massage style I now call Integrative Massage Therapy ®.

This treatment form has evolved from the stroke experience, from the academic trainings, the broken bones and finally the several layers of training involving the nourishment found in the fluids of life. Every phase of this voyage has found its way into the manuals, the treatment protocols and the awareness experiences.

Each day continues to be a lesson in the mysteries of synchronicity and joy. Each experience seems to be a teacher offering itself like a bit of fine chocolate to be savored. The spiraling that had been my lifeline continued to offer richness to my work and to my daily interactions.

From the depths of the ocean waters comes that ancient phrase that says so much. Namaste. When I am in my heart and you in yours, there is Oneness. Such is the spirit of these words.

Joyous Living Massage
106 Dominion Circle, Goose Creek, SC 29445
email: hkahrs@charleston.net call: 843-813-2834 fax: 843-797-8004

Christina is a certified Blue Belt Nia instructor and co-owner and co-founder of Spirit Moves.

She brings a lifetime of dance training and love of movement and people to her classes. Christina specializes in athletic Nia, kids Nia, and adaptive special needs classes. On a personal note, she met her husband, Bill, in a Nia class in 2005 and fell in love.

Magical things happen in Nia!

christina@spiritmoves.com
(843) 814-3444

Now Forming: Continuum Movement Classes for Spring, 2012
Introductory Class: The Stream of Life, Sunday, March 18, 2012, 1:30-3:30 pm
Bi-Weekly Classes: first & third Sundayss of the month

Focus: Self Care Practices for Promoting Ageless Living

In Continuum Movement we use sound and resonance to connect with the fluid systems, to engage with the liquid play space within. We witness the felt sensations, the liquid movements, the travels of our resonating tissues, and we observe the unveiling of awareness. We perceive the transitions within at the practical, self healing level as we sink deeper into the nurturing waters,
the space of dynamic fluid potency that awakens within in our vibratory connection with all living things.

Topics to include:
Release, Re-vitalize, Re-align
Developing strength, power and a sense of internal well being
Promoting vibrant health, fluid resiliency, strength, & flexibility
Supporting strong, supple bones, tendons & ligaments
Freeing the rib basket to expand and float effortlessly
Encouraging connection with traumatized tissues
Releasing toxins from muscles and inflamed areas
Learning creative ways to energize facial tissues, a resonating lift that is natural, effective and immediately visible
Stimulate creative play, innovation, connection with the body’s wisdom

For pre-registration information, please contact Ashima (Cathy) Kahrs, CMT, Authorized Continuum Teacher & Certified Wellsprings Practitioner:

Cell: 843.813.2834
Email: hkahrs@charleston.net

All classes are 2 hours
Fees: intro class only: $25.00
Intro class & 1st month’s enrollment: $56.00 (March 19th, April 1 & 15th)
Students with previous continuum experience – monthly fee: $36.00

Note: all classes 2 hours – may wish to have a bit of down time after for processing and integration

Kacey has been hooping since 2005 and teaching and performing all over the east coast since 2007. Her classes break down the art of hooping into easy to understand concepts and instruction. Each class allows the student to form their own style and creative flow while gradually integrating new techniques and more advanced concepts at their own pace.

Find out more about hooping at www.homespunhoops.com.

Alison has been a student of Tai Chi for six years. The style she teaches at Spirit Moves, Lao Yang (“Old Yang”), can be traced back to Yang Lu Chan, the founder of Yang Family style Tai Chi.

Kristin A. Fieseler is the founding Artistic Director of Annex Dance Company, which premiered in November 2007. For over fifteen years her choreography has been presented in festivals, concerts, dance theater, musical theatre and opera productions. During the 2006-2007 season, she worked with inFluxdance as an artistic collaborator, choreographer, and performer on ‘Found and Lost: Goals for 2002′, which toured to nine cities throughout North America. In addition to her own work, she has performed and collaborated with VT Dance, under the direction of Vincent E. Thomas.

As a dance educator, Kristin has taught at universities, schools, festivals, studios, and camps throughout the United States, and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). From 2002-2010 Kristin was an Associate Professor of Dance in the Performing and Fine Arts Department at DeSales University (PA), where she also directed the DeSales University Summer Dance Intensive for three summers. She is currently the co-director of Ballibay Fine and Performing Arts Camp and the Endless Mountains Summer Dance Camp.
Kristin earned a BA in Dance with Secondary Education Certification and Business from Goucher College (MD) and a MFA from George Mason University (VA).