Increased and improved movement, better breath work, reduced stress levels and improved awareness is something we can all benefit from, regardless of age, health, fitness or mobility. With this in mind, my dad and I are combining our skills to bring you a new approach to Health and Fitness and Self-Defence, including martial arts principles, breath work and holistic therapies to encourage more natural movement, calmer responses to stress and confrontation, relaxation, and rebalancing.
Your instructors–
Chris Wallace – Qualified Systema and Aikido (4th Dan) instructor brings his 35+ years of experience of teaching health and mobility through martial arts to the class
Kerry Longworth– Qualified Holistic therapist and teacher, Holistic Health and Wellbeing consultant (with 20 years experience) brings you simple and effective massage and self massage to the class.
Health and Fitness with Self-Defence…..
The sessions will bring together Chris and Kerry’s experience and skills to provide you with a holistic approach to improving health and wellness with these key goals…
- Body conditioning using martial arts principles: Sessions are non-combative and non- competitive. There is so much more to martial arts than these common elements. They are an excellent basis for building core strength and preparing the body to defend itself. This body conditioning work incorporates natural movements to strengthen in more varied ways than just exercises, focusing on specific muscle groups and target areas, improving functional strength and natural mobility.
- Build Self-confidence and Self-esteem, improve your physical fitness and mental wellbeing, and help with stress and anxiety management: Mental health and physical fitness are connected. Holding on to stress has physical effects on the body, causing tension, restriction and stagnation. Equally, physical restrictions and poor health have an effect on our mental health and wellbeing, often raising stress levels. Our training methods are geared to combine physical and mental exercises, challenging us and building mental and physical strength in fun and interesting ways often taking us safely outside our comfort zones.
- Learn to control, act swiftly and decisively when faced with conflict and confrontation: Confrontation is a part of life, ranging from minor to major and sometimes dangerous situations. When we think of conflict we often think of situations of danger, and this is an important element of our classes. However, conflict often arises in daily life, sometime at home, in family situations and often our work life balance can create a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety, especially as we begin to move back to a workplace setting, following Covid-19, and start to deal with colleagues, clients, customers, and managers more frequently and face-to-face. By understanding the basic tenets of breath work and coping with stressful situations, we will begin to develop the ability to elevate ourselves above the stress and work on solutions in all areas of life. Many traditional martial arts focus on the learning of techniques which can take many years to develop proficiency. Our approach is to develop and improve the body’s natural defences, allowing us to respond to stress and confrontation in a calm and controlled manner. -A tiger doesn’t have to learn defence skills, it just strives to be an efficient tiger-
- Rebalance your body and mind with holistic massage techniques: Both physical and emotional stresses in daily life lead to stress and tension being held in our bodies, often we are not aware of this until we are encouraged to release them. Massage techniques, working on each other and self massage, are a great way to relax the body, releasing hidden and trapped tensions. Freeing up restrictions and reducing stagnation, bringing the body back to a natural state of balance.
We hope you find our classes fun and different. They are suitable for anyone over the age of 14 regardless of your level of fitness or mobility, all are welcome. At any stage in life it is important to strive for better quality of movement and mobility, better fitness, better mental and physical health, reduced stress and more confidence. Believing you cannot join a class because you are too unfit or not mobile enough, is similar to believing you cannot attend a Spanish class because you are not fluent in Spanish. Begin where you are. All of the work done in our classes can be adapted to meet you and any limitations you may have and help you to move and feel better.
Classes will begin on Thursday 12th May, 7pm-8.30 at the Carrig-on-Bannow community centre
Classes will be €10 (Cash or Card accepted)
Wear something comfortable, that will not restrict your movement.
We look forward to beginning this journey and hope you will join us!
The Barefoot therapist 