Ooh, friend, our focus on flexibility felt soooooo wonderful last week. Many thanks for joining me in that focus. This week, let’s come back to sensing & practicing gratitude. As we dance in class (and move through life), we'll simply practice asking ourselves again and again the big question of the week: what can I be grateful for in this moment? Then we can also sense things like: how does tapping into gratitude feel? What do we sense in our body, mind, emotions, or spir

Welcome to Part 7 of our series on Cultivating Organic Fitness ! Well, friend, this past week was interesting. In 2 different classes, we had some sounds beyond our control that required a bit of… flexibility . :) 1) On Monday, a smoke detector located on a very high ceiling above us chirped very loudly approximately every 60 seconds… 2) On Wednesday night, at the start of Zoom class, my microphone was accompanied by a loud buzz that I couldn’t find the source of… Both sound

Hello, beautiful soul! I hope you had a most wonderful spring break week. We are back from a quick camping trip, and I can’t wait to get back to the dance floor with you. This week, let’s dive into a somatic exploration of safety… The big questions of the week: 1). What does safety feel like? What do you sense in your body when you feel safe? Unsafe? What do you sense/notice in your: Feet Shoulders Face Heartbeat Belly Breath Eyes Muscles ________ 2). Do you move (or hold yo

Hello, friend! This week, we’re going to dive back into our Cultivating Organic Fitness series with a special focus on two sweet modes of training.   Remember that old story about the tortoise and the hare? You know—the one where they race, and the really cocky hare speeds away at the start? Then the hare stops to take breaks, and even snooze a bit? And, in the end, the tortoise who is cruising along slowly (but steadily) wins? This week, we’re going to use those two charac

Yeppers—- it’s time for another ease week, friend. After our last 3 deep dives into our breath, heart, and then feeling our feelings, let’s take a week to eeeeeeease our way on into this beautiful month ahead of us. “Ease & just being here now” is a focus we come back to often. While we can still move as vigorously as we’d like throughout class, we can think of this focus (once it is familiar) as a bit of mental rest week. Instead of diving into a new mental concept or prac

Thanks so much for another beautiful dive into our cardiorespiratory system last week. I’ve been really loving our Cultivating Organic Fitness series (and I hope you have been too). We’ll come right back to it again in a week or two, but we’re going to shift our focus in a bit different direction this week. Whereas last week we were tuning into our heart to sense it’s rate, effort, cardiac output, range, etc., this week, we’re going to tune into our heart (as well as the res

Welcome to part 5 of our series on Cultivating Organic Fitness Ooh, friend. Last week’s dive into our breath & lungs was so beautiful. Thanks so much for joining me. This week, we’re gonna keep on focusing on “cardiorespiratory” aspects of fitness, but from a slightly different angle. Whereas last week we focused on the “respiratory” side (via our breath), this week, we’ll be tuning into the “cardio” side by sensing our heart and tuning into its ability to pump blood throug

Welcome to Part 4 of our Cultivating Organic Fitness series! Ahhhh, last week’s focus on ease was just what my heart & soul (and brain—lol) were needing. I always love coming back “home” to ease. That said—-afterward, I also lovvvvvvve diving into our next challenge/exploration. This week, we’re gonna continue our series on Cultivating Organic Fitness with an exploration into: Cardiorespiratory Fitness. What do I mean by cardiorespiratory fitness (sometimes referred to as 'c

It’s time for an EASE week, friend... We’ve been focusing pretty intensely on sensing mobility, stability, and the interplay of the two these past few weeks, so this week we’re going to give our brains a bit of a rest. This is a focus we come back to often, and it always involves 2 parts... Part 1: Ease We’ll dance (and move as vigorously as we’d like) while inviting ease into our body. Easy does it… Part 2: Being Here Now We’ll also just be here now. As we dance, we’ll tune

Beautiful photo thanks to Cat McCombs. Welcome to Part 3 of our Cultivating Organic Fitness series ! Hello beautiful soul! Ahhhhh, last week’s focus on stability felt sooooooo…….. well….. stabilizing.  Thank you for joining me. After diving deeply into stability & mobility individually these past two weeks, this week we’ll focus on noticing how they work together as a dynamic team. We’ll root deeply with that grounded, steady inner anchor of stability. We’ll pause. We’ll slow

(Part 2 of our Cultivating Organic Fitness series) Ooh friend, I loved our exploration of mobility last week. This week, we’re gonna continue our special series of Cultivating Organic Fitness with a deep-dive into stability. Whereas mobility has to do with our move-ability, stability has to do with our stay-ability. It’s our ability to stay put, or keep one body part put, for example. A healthy, happy body has a nice balance of both mobility and stability, and they work tog

Ooh, friend, I cannot wait to explore our next few weeks with you. The new year is here, making it an exciting time to dive into the topic of: fitness. Fitness…. it’s such an interesting word. What do you think of when you think of fitness? What comes to mind for you? When I first met my husband, I was studying exercise science, and he was studying evolutionary biology (both at UNI). I would soon learn that —really— we were both studying fitness, just from two vastly differen

January’s here…. and, friend, we’re just gonna eeeeeeeease on into it. We’ll move. We’ll dance. We’ll sing. We’ll play. We’ll get a great workout… Yes… But alllllll with… ease . As we dance and sense our body, we’ll simply invite ease into our dance. Ease in our shoulder joints. Ease in our face. Ease in our lower back. Ease in our toes. Ease in our hips. Ease anywhere and everywhere. With nothing to prove (and also no need to hold back), we’ll dance as big (and as dynamicall

Wow, friend—- can you believe another year has passed? What a year it has been! Together, so far in 2025, we have: Danced 271 delicious dances. Had a glorious photo & videoshoot thanks to Cat, Jon, and Rowan. Enjoyed an incredible 3rd Perseidsfest. Raised $856.96 for the food bank with our fundraiser Zoom dance. Raised $525 for House of Hope with another beauuuuutiful Sunset Aya in the Orchard. Enjoyed our 1st Aya & Somatic Meditation in the gardens. And met so many wonderful

Hello, friend! The holidays are upon us, and the end of the year is so very near. This time can be so hectic, noisy, loud, and busy-busy… But what if we could somehow gift ourselves more spaciousness? More silence? More stillness? More…. rest? Does that sound good to you too? This is what we’ll be experimenting with this week, friend. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found myself picking up my phone a LOT lately. It is soooooo easy for me to fill every spare moment or every

Ahhhhh…. last week’s focus was just what I needed. Thank you so much for joining me in letting ourselves get weird(er) . :) As we continue our way closer to the winter solstice (and the days continue to get shorter, and the temps continue to drop), this week, we’re diving into the question of: What can we do to connect with our inner light? We’ll dance & explore things like: • What lights you up? • What is it like to feel lit up? What do you sense/notice in your body? • How d

Friend, I am sooooooo ridiculously excited for this week’s focus. This week is all about getting a little weirder as we dance. I’ll explain. :) You see, Aya is all about freeing our body (and self), and yet…. sometimes I find myself making my dance look…. well…. normal. I can feel that inhibition. I want to roll around on the floor more, but I don’t want to be quite so different than everyone else. I want to let my body move freely, but I don’t want it to look too weird and

Thank you so much for joining me last week for our November self-care reset. This week, we’ll revisit our monthly integration focus of ease & just being here now. Ahhhhh….. I always love coming back to this focus again and again. I hope it feels like great timing for you too. This focus always includes 2 parts: 1) Ease We’ll dance with ease. Ease in our shoulders. Ease in our hips. Ease in our spine. We’ll simply dance and connect with the sensation of ease. Nothing to prove…

It’s Halloween week, friend… and I always LOVE how dancing in a costume, seeing you all in costumes, and belting out Halloween songs together helps me lighten up and not take myself soooooooo seriously. I’m so looking forward to this week! We have 4 classes left this week — 2 of them Halloween-themed (Monday night, 5:45, at the CF Woman’s Club, and Wednesday night, 5:30, on Zoom), and 2 regular Aya classes... All will focus on the question: how does it feel to play? We can a

Oh man, last week's focus on ease felt soooooooo great. It was just what I was needing. Thanks so much for joining me. THIS week, let's dive into a practice of listening. Listening deeply: To the music. To each other. To your body. To the sounds of life --of the moment, right here, right now-- all around you. To the silence... the space... the in-between... To your inner self, heart, knowing, spirit.... To ________________. We'll practice listening as a way to: 1) stay prese