Imagine a large, carpeted room with black drapes against one wall and a life-size rubberized spider-web net in front of another-an indoor jungle of sorts. Twenty-eight arms and legs move slowly along the floor, bones pressing and pulling against the ground in graceful, fluid motion. Only the lights in the studio reveal the truth: these animal-like creatures are humans. Yet the stimulating movements remind them of their animal aliveness, that feeling of inner strength and vitality. “We’re here to not get stuck in our ways,” says Palisadian Sharon Weil Aaron, who teaches the Saturday morning Continuum Movement class, called The Ageless Body, in Santa Monica. “When you relieve yourself of upright human identity, all these other energies come in, because they’re already there.” Based on Continuum, a system of fluid movement, The Ageless Body focuses on issues that arise during aging, including bone and skeletal health, joints, vitality, recovery and resiliency, and waning sensuality. Aaron helped develop the program a year ago with Continuum founder Emilie Conrad and instructor Barbara Mindell. “We felt there was a need [for the class] for baby boomers plus, and people who are starting to feel less active,” says Aaron, 48. “The Ageless Body is about creating possibilities in a process where people feel their possibilities are diminishing.” She begins the class on bone health by talking about the spiral structure of bones in order to give her students context for the movement, breath and sound exercises they will be doing. “When you age, you lose fluids,” Aaron says. “By keeping fluids active, we can increase concentration, radiance and flexibility.” Other benefits of Continuum can include restored strength, mobility, responsiveness, sensuality, sexuality and a feeling of youthfulness. Aaron, a former dancer, turned to Continuum 16 years ago, when she was in her early 30s, as a method of healing injured ligaments around her tailbone. While most of her current students are in their 40s and 50s, the program attracts a range of ages. “As people age, some take themselves out of the whole exercise/active picture because of limitations they think they have,” says Aaron, who has also practiced yoga, Pilates and swimming. “Others hurl themselves into linear activity.” Linear exercise includes working out on mechanical equipment at the gym. The nonlinear movement of Continuum offers a more feasible option for people of all ages and body types who want to improve and maintain their health by keeping their bodies active. Aaron’s oldest student, Ginny Mac, 76, admits to feeling stronger and more alive after one month of The Ageless Body. “I could hardly walk up the stairs [before I started Continuum],” Mac says. “Now, I am bending my arms and legs. I get on the floor and move.” She also uses the movements she learns to exercise in her bed at home. In class, students at all different levels can work on the floor, in a chair, or on equipment such as an “explore board” or the “web.” These latter two options offer more freedom to move in a variety of positions with greater ease. My own experience off of the ground, on the explore board, gave me the sensation that I was moving in an entirely different atmosphere, like the weightless feeling I imagine astronauts have in space. Aaron says that Continuum is different from other mind and body movement classes because it “questions what your body is and what we hold as true [about our bodies].” For example, while yoga “reinforces structure,” Continuum encourages us to understand our bodies in flux. Aaron’s two-hour classes are based around a sequence of different movement, sound and breath exercises that work together in a progression, and that relate to each class’s theme. While she designs the sequence and leads her students through it, there is a lot of room for individual exploration and adjustment depending on each student’s needs. In the bone health class, we strapped weights on our wrists and ankles to add more muscular resistance and to create traction. Most of us sat upright, cross-legged on the floor and began stimulating our bones internally by making resonant sounds (“zzz” and “jsh”), which created a vibrating feeling within the body. Slowly, we transitioned into the second part, which involved moving our hands, palms down, in a spiral motion, while making the theta (“th”) sound; this part helped to open up our joints. We then moved onto all fours and continued activating and strengthening our bones by pressing and pulling them against the floor, leaning back and forth in wavelike motion. By the end of the sequence, my whole body was involved as I pressed my left cheekbone and then my forehead against the floor, following the relaxing, fluid motion of my body. “Continuum breaks down barriers that words create and creates its own language,” says Jeanne James, 57, who has a thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s. She started taking Continuum 12 years ago because she felt pain in several parts of her body, and was one of the first to join The Ageless Body. “It’s been wonderful to open up those places that were injured and to feel more fluid,” James says. “I’m not dependent on anyone to do it for me.” She comes to Aaron’s Saturday morning class all the way from Pasadena because there is nothing like it offered closer to home and she finds it more “sustaining” than her experiences with yoga and rolfing. At the end of Aaron’s class, students shared their reactions to and feelings about the experience, while Aaron listened and offered suggestions to some. In addition to The Ageless Body, she also teaches a strengthening and toning class called Jungle Gym, which attracts many students, including her husband, John Aaron. She has been teaching Jungle Gym for nine years, and was able to teach up until one month before having her daughter, Sophie Aaron, now age 5. Sophie attends preschool at Little Dolphins by the Sea in Temescal Canyon. John is a professional photographer and practices martial arts. Aaron will be offering a free introductory Ageless Body class this Saturday, January 10, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. The ongoing program will be taught in five-and-six-week series throughout the year, starting January 24. The cost is $75 for the five class series and $20 for a single class. The Continuum Studio is located at 1629 18th Street, Studio 7, in Santa Monica. Contact Aaron at agelessbody@earthlink.net or 459-3326.
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