New classes are good for our minds and spirits...

 

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Fun Friday for November! I think we need this now more than ever, yes? It's getting pretty wintry in my part of the world, and things are also getting even more challenging with regards to the pandemic, so it's going to be a tough haul over here for the winter. But we can do our best to keep our spirits up! Last week we talked about holiday crafting with new and upcoming -alongs, and this week I thought we would focus on trying our new classes!

With our current situation, of course, we're pretty much talking online classes for the time being. There might be some in-person opportunities right now, but I know that's much more limited at present. We'll get back there! In the meantime, to try and look at the positives, online classes present a greater variety to choose from, sometimes offering instruction/instructors that you otherwise would not have access to. This winter, I think online classes are an important way to keep our minds engaged, our spirits lifted, and our souls feeling a connection to others. *heart*

For my part, you know how I am with dance. ;-) I love it! Since the summer, I've been taking an online ballet class, which I had not done since I was in my teens. I am finding it challenging in the best way possible! I have even worked my way from Introduction to Ballet to Advanced Beginner ballet, LOL! It's *difficult*, to be sure. I'm using different muscles and movement pathways than I'm used to. But it's absolutely awesome, and a great lift to my week on Tuesday evenings, all from the comfort of my home office. I'm taking the classes via Rosa Noreen's Grace Academy. She's based in Portland, Maine, but via Zoom anyone can access her classes from anywhere in the world! She's an absolutely delightful instructor, and has adorable cats that visit during class, too. :-)

Rosa also teaches belly dance (same link above if you'd like to try an intro class!), which you all know is my very favorite. My local belly dance classes have been back in-person since September, but I've been supplementing with other classes and workshops online as I see them pop up in my social media feeds. Right now, I'm taking a 4 week practice series for November based around slow "gooey" movements with a dancer I admire who lives on the West Coast. Aside from doing time zone math to get the class time right, it's now easy peasy to study with her! It's for 30 minutes a day, Mondays through Thursdays, and I'm loving it. It gets me moving during the week, and focused on technique. It's also inspiring new ideas for me on a slow piece I could work on over the winter.  

If you're at all interested in dance, do some searching online and I bet you'll find an instructor you could study with via Zoom for the winter. It's really kept me going to discover and try out new things this way! Fitness is the same. I take Piyo and Body Sculpt online via Zoom, and my wonderful Zumba instructor offers online classes that I'd love to get back to. I *highly* recommend Zumba dance fitness, and I'm sure you'll be able to find tons of people offering these online right now!

To tie together our themes from the past two weeks. Craftsy offers a slew of online classes for knitting, crocheting, sewing, cake decorating, and more! These are not live classes, but still, an impressive library of possibilities. Is there anything specific you'd like to explore in an online class? Pop your ideas into the comments and we'll see what we can find out online!