A celebration of spirit: explore Kripalu DansKinetics[R] with instructor Carole Addlestone.

Everyone is a dancer and can enjoy participating in Kripalu DansKinetics classes no matter what age, condition, experience, or even disability. Kripalu Danskinetics is a joyful and healing fusion of yoga and dance, based on the seven chakras. It incorporates both guided community movement and free-form dance. Music plays a big part in these classes and is chosen from a wide variety of genres from around the world to open up the chakras and free the spirit. It's about learning to feel comfortable in your own body; it's a way of blissful self-expression; it's a vehicle to access your core energy; it's an emotional release; it's a celebration of spirit. It's all these things and more in a safe, non-competitive environment.

Kripalu DansKinetics was developed in the mid-1970s by Ken Scott, a Canadian dancer and Dancercise trainer, who spent time at the then Kripalu Yoga Ashram in Pennsylvania. His experience with the Kripalu Yoga Meditation in Motion posture flows encouraged him to combine dance and yoga as a transformational vehicle for integration of body, mind, and spirit. From this beginning, Kripalu DansKinetics was off and running. Many teachers and guests alike at Kripalu over the years have contributed to the codification of this program.

A great deal of creative leeway is granted to each certified Kripalu DansKinetics teacher as long as prescribed program guidelines are followed. Some of these guidelines are the following: warm-up and cool-down including Kripalu yoga postures; music selections sequentially based on the seven chakras, progressing from the root chakra (chakra #1) to the crown chakra (chakra #7); opportunity for both individual and collective freeform movement; dance prayers; and a guided relaxation and meditation at the end of a class. Instructors are free to choose a brief reading or poem to present and also an intention in order to "frame" their work together with their class. Students are welcome to join in that intention or they can feel free to select their own.

A typical class lasts one hour and fifteen minutes and starts with a warm-up. Then the students may be asked to start walking around the studio, exploring the space in various ways, leading with different parts of the body, breathing into any challenged areas of the body, and perhaps communicating in movement with any other student they pass. The music (usually drumming) escalates as the class forms a circle and one or two people enter the circle to do a dance movement that feels good for their bodies. The rest of the class takes up their movements until another student jumps into the circle to trade places. This continues until all who wish to do so have had a chance to enter the circle and lead a movement. Other dances follow: a simple guided line dance, a free-form dance with colorful scarves, perhaps a dance with a chair as a prop, a meditative dance prayer, an improvised group sculpture, and other circle dances utilizing yoga postures that are morphed into dance steps. The class concludes with a five-minute meditation.

Each class is unique because instructors vary the focus, music, and activities to encourage exploration of individual creativity as well as community support and bonding. Some students have an emotional breakthrough in a class. Such breakthroughs illustrate that the opportunity exists for profound healing when the body, mind, and spirit are joyfully and harmoniously engaged and supported by a like-minded community.

Carole Addlestone is a certified Kripalu DansKinetics[R] instructor. She holds classes in Georgia at Harmony Learning Center in Decatur, Spectrum Life Center in Stone Mountain, and The Heal Center in Sandy Springs. She is also available for private group classes. 404-315-8003 or [e-mail] for further information and class schedules.