The long Labor Day weekend and the summer we almost had have both come and gone, and the feel of fall is in the air.
This is the season when schools re-open and the Bainbridge Island Senior Community Center expands its offerings, with the return of some programs from their summer break and the addition of others that are new or have been missing for a few years.
Charlene Moore, our talented Evergreen Singers choir director, will be donning her other hat to teach the Feldenkrais method for banishing body pain and developing a healthier you through more effective patterns of moving, thinking, feeling and acting.
Moore is a well qualified and effective teacher who studied for four years to receive her certification after experiencing the healing benefits of the Feldenkrais method herself. In a brief introductory lecture at the Senior Center earlier this year, she demonstrated a few simple moves for the audience to try and immediately experience improvement in their mobility.
The Feldenkrais method will be offered in three different segments: Pelvic Health and Awareness, Better Breathing, and Focus on Feet.
Pelvic Health and Aware-ness consists of easy floor exercises that will guide you to greater control of the pelvic floor by including auxiliary muscles, breathing, and larger functional movements of the whole body.
Better Breathing will teach you optimal ways to better adjust your breathing to the needs of the movement and eliminate unnecessary tensions.
Focus on Feet recognizes that our feet are our base of support and keeping them happy keeps us on our way. Here you will learn to improve their flexibility and comfort with exercises you can use anytime.
Sign-ups for each of these sections can be done at the Senior Center or through the Park and Recreation District. The first class begins at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 24 in the Commons. If you have questions or want more information, e-mail the instructor at charlenemoore01@msn.com.
Donna Moore, who guides the Center’s popular T’ai Chi practice groups, will once again be offering lessons in this gentle movement form of exercise for mind, body and spirit. Sign up at the Senior Center by Sept. 3 to learn 20 T’ai Chi movements in eight easy lessons that begin at 10:15 a.m. Sept. 10 in the Commons. Completion of this course will qualify you to participate in the weekly practice sessions that are ongoing.
Early sign-ups are also requested for a new Beginning Memoir class. Enrollment is limited to allow for more individual attention to each participant. Here you will find the inspiration and motivation to get you started writing your memories down for your children, grandchildren, other relatives, and yourself.
The first two-hour session will begin on Nov. 5 and meet at 2 p.m. the first and third Wednesday of each month in the conference room of the Senior Center.
Graduates of this class are eligible for the Memoir Writing Club that meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, also at 2 p.m. in the conference room.
Club members continue to work on their life stories and receive positive feedback on their writing from their peers.
An exciting new offering starting in October is A Hand Full of Signs, for those who would like to learn to use signing to have their speech better understood by everyone. This class will be especially helpful to those who have some hearing loss or have friends or relatives with this problem.
Registration can be done at the Senior Center or through the Park and Recreation District.
Still in the exploratory stage to see if there is sufficient interest, is a program titled Remember When, for those who’d like to reminisce with others about past experiences. Members of the group will help select topics to be discussed for these oral histories, which can be recorded if the group agrees.
This is just a small sampling of the many offerings available at the Senior Center to help each of us keep active in mind, body and spirit while meeting other people, making new friends and enjoying life – which, by the way, is the mission of the Bainbridge Island Senior Community Center.
Be sure to check you newest BISCC Bugle, or the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park and Recreation District brochure, for the rest of the games, classes, lectures, social events, trips, sports and exercise programs continuing or beginning anew at BISCC in September and beyond.
Marcia Rudoff
writes the monthly
Senior Outlook for the Bainbridge Island Senior Community Center.
