Island Senior: The gentle power of chair yoga with Katerina Wen

Contributed photo

As sum­mer comes to an end, we sense the sea­son­al changes, a cool breeze, and the turn­ing of the leaves. If you are any­thing like me, you get an autum­nal urge to sign up for class­es. If, like me, you appre­ci­ate a gen­tle solu­tion sure to improve the qual­i­ty of your life, I high­ly rec­om­mend Katerina’s chair yoga class taught through the Mullis Center.

If you have been putting off get­ting into an exer­cise class because get­ting up and down off the floor has got­ten hard, stand­ing for peri­ods of time is uncom­fort­able, or you sim­ply do not like to exer­cise even though you know you should, this class is for you.

The class is gen­tle yet decep­tive­ly thor­ough. When you have fin­ished a ses­sion with Kate­ri­na you will feel every part of your body has been gen­tly stretched, strength­ened, and invig­o­rat­ed. Plus, you may find you have a smile on your face that was not there before. Katerina’s class­es are uplifting.

I have ede­ma in my low­er legs and real­ly appre­ci­ate the leg tap­ping, knee mas­sage, and ankle rota­tions in par­tic­u­lar because they so specif­i­cal­ly address my issue. I also love how even sit­ting we are able to address the entire body. Every time it lifts my spirits.

Says stu­dent There­sa Simendinger, “Katerina’s class­es are one real­ly good thing to come out of the last few years! She has kept spir­its up and bod­ies feel­ing great! We are lucky to have her!”

You don’t have to be a senior to take this class. It would ben­e­fit any­one, espe­cial­ly if you have mobil­i­ty issues, but Kate­ri­na does have a spe­cial affin­i­ty for seniors. “For the last 12 years, I’ve been design­ing move­ment and well­ness pro­grams for seniors, and I always look for­ward to spend­ing time with them,” she explains. “I find this work very mean­ing­ful since seniors are one of the most under­served pop­u­la­tions. Ped­a­gog­i­cal­ly speak­ing, the typ­i­cal chair yoga exer­cis­es on the mar­ket lack com­pas­sion­ate under­stand­ing of their day-to-day chal­lenges, and what senior peo­ple expe­ri­ence in their phys­i­cal and men­tal body, so I feel strong­ly about con­tin­u­ing this work.”

Class­es are held via live Zoom at 9:30 a.m. on Tues­days with a record­ing of each week’s class avail­able to use as often as you’d like dur­ing each week. I appre­ci­ate the recod­ed class­es because I enjoy the flex­i­bil­i­ty of choos­ing what time of day works best for me.

Class­es are a sug­gest­ed $6 per class. The Mullis Cen­ter is com­mit­ted to mak­ing these class­es avail­able. If the cost is pro­hib­i­tive, a slid­ing scale is avail­able. To sign up for the class, arrange to get the record­ed class, or learn more about the slid­ing scale, con­tact Anna at the Mullis Cen­ter at 360–370-7520 or info@mulliscenter.org.

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