Gallery : Health, Fitness and Personal Development

Health, Fitness and Personal Development

Health, Fitness and Personal Development Whatever your age – personal fitness and health is important. The programme that ACRES is offering this year caters for a much wider range of fitness issues and abilities and contains some exciting new courses. The programme is divided into three main areas – Fitness, Dance and Complementary Therapies. General Fitness classes include yoga at three levels; Pilates – Stretch and Tone, Tai Chi, both of which are suitable for all abilities, plus Saturday Workshops. There are a range of courses which cater for the mature and older learner and these contain the description ‘Gently’ in the course title. New for this year for the older learner are Belly Dance, Tai Chi and Yoga, plus the fun exercises classes for this age range which have proved popular in the past. Saturday Workshops include a wide range of courses and some short health courses covering stress management; back care and fitness and nutrition.
	This year we have widened our dance programme – dance, in any form, is a fantastic way to improve personal fitness. Belly Dancing is increasingly popular and is a lovely way to improve flexibility, achieve fluidity of movement and gain back strength. It is offered at two levels –this year we are also offering courses at Wadhurst. Also new is Latin American dance. Students on a recent workshop said ‘Fantastic, amazing, want more’. There is a range of ballroom/social dance short courses on offer as well. If you’ve never learnt to jive – can’t do the quickstep, want to have a go at rumba and cha cha cha – then these courses will teach you and they will be fun! They will be offered at three of our centres during the year, plus there are Saturday Workshops. Other dance courses include Dance for Fitness – the use of different dance styles to enhance personal fitness. These are valuable as an all round exercise class and great fun, eg experience jazz dance, Irish dance, Yoga dance, Afro and Bollywood. Students also have the opportunity to choreography should they wish to do so. This course will also be offered in Wadhurst for the first time.
Should you just wish to ‘have a go’ then try one of our Saturday Workshops which are being offered at the various centres throughout the year. This part of our programme contains a variety of Dance Workshops and will give you an enjoyable day and experience of the type of dance classes on offer. Lastly ACRES is developing its complementary therapy programme. Initially course in holistic massage, aromatherapy and Indian Head Massage are being offered offering a lovely way for you to relax and learn simple techniques which can be used on family and friends. Also on offer are short course and Saturday Workshops in Alexander Technique – this is a unique way of dealing with stress, mis-management of the body and postural problems. The technique is offered as a 5 week course, one day workshop or as part of general workshops dealing with back care and stress. In the future we hope to hold workshops in colour therapy and stress management and reflexology.
	Fitness The ACRES programme offers 3 levels of Yoga, Pilates based Stretch and Tone and Tai Chi plus Saturday Workshops on a range of health and fitness issues. All courses stress gentle all-round exercise, stretching and breathing work suitable for a wide range of abilities. Tai Chi has its origins in the martial arts but is invaluable for everyone. Whether you wish to learn about Tai Chi or experience its slow, controlled movement patterns as a way of improving muscle control and balance, its contribution to well-being is becoming increasingly relevant. We offer fitness courses which target the mature and older learner covering fitness and health issues important to this age range – they have the heading ‘Gently’. Dance Partially due to the popularity of programmes such as ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, people are becoming increasingly aware of dance and dancing as an all round enjoyable method of improving fitness and well-being. Dancing works on all areas of the body, it stimulates cardio vascular activity, uses music which enhances enjoyment and it uses the mind. ACRES Dance programme offers something for all.
Complementary Therapies The courses we are offering are beneficial to the individual in terms of learning useful skills, receiving a massage, experiencing the relaxing benefits of aromatherapy as well as being able to practice on family and friends. Alexander Technique is a proven way of aiding back, postural, joint and stress problems and is offered as a short course or as Saturday Workshops. Another new course for this year is the use of massage and colour therapy for stress release.