Martial Arts
Whether you are seeking to tone your body or transform your mind, the Joy of Movement offers a variety of classes each month for which beginners and drop-ins are welcome.
For more information about our martial arts teachers, click here.
For our monthly class schedule, click here.
For our list of monthly special events, click here.
T’ai Chi for Body Awareness | Dan Pasek
T’ai Chi for Body Awareness emphasizes practices that bring awareness to how the body is properly used. Adults typically use their bodies unconsciously for many functions, including such basic things as walking and breathing, but this is using habits, and those habits can be less than ideal. This art’s roots in the martial arts means that practitioners needed to be aware of aspects of how their body was used while under the challenges and pressures of an opponent. Therefore, refinements were needed and habitual postural and movement patterns were changed to be more efficient and structurally sound and stable. Today Taijiquan (T’ai Chi) is more commonly studied as a health practice rather than as a martial art. But the efficiencies learned from its martial arts roots have been found to have numerous potential health benefits. Aspects like awareness, balance, stress reduction, proper breathing and other practices all aid those seeking health and wellness. But we still need to become aware of habits in order for refinements to occur.
Dan holds classes every other Sunday at 2:30 p.m.; please check the JOM class schedule. Cost: $15 per class.
In-person classes.
For more information: EntwinedDragons@gmail.com | slantedflying.com/author/dpasek | 919-545-9185
Capoeira | Frederico Castelloes
Capoeira, a Brazilian martial art form, is a mesmerizing dance-like game played between two people inside a community circle. With little to no bodily contact, the players perform a non-verbal discourse through free flow movement. Capoeiristas in the circle support the synergy of the game through percussion and singing. Capoeira is a moderate to intense workout and much more. In Contra Mestre Frederico’s classes, you will learn martial arts movements, how to play percussion instruments like the berimbau (Capoeira’s lead instrument), drums and tambourine, as well as to sing songs in Portuguese. This hour-and-fifteen minute class consists of 20-25 minutes of warm-up and stretches, 20-30 minutes of practicing individual capoeira movements, 10-15 minutes of music (instruments and Portuguese Language) and the class concludes with the game of capoeira in the roda (ring/sphere of capoeira). All come together as we showcase and hone each other’s skills in a martial art game of movements intertwined in the full complexity of interpretive music and movement. Capoeira is offered on Wednesdays at 7:45 pm.
Cost: $15 per class or $50 per month. Currently no in-studio classes.
For more information: flcastelloes@gmail.com | (919)407-1838
Muay chaiya | Derek Stevens
Muay chaiya is one of the traditional styles of thai boxing that falls under the umbrella term of muay boran and of which muay thai is the sport version fought in a ring of which has become very popular in this day and age in the west. It has elements of ceremonial dance (such as the ram muay and wai kru) that is strongly tied to buddhism as the buddhist monks were the keepers of the knowledge of muay boran in times of peace in ancient thailand. As such it is also an art that cultivates mind, body, spirit, inner and outer strength, character and integrity. It is similar to capoiera in the sense that the beauty and grace of the movements hide the lethality and practicality of the fighting techniques themselves. It is in my humble opinion to be one of most aesthetically pleasing and physically/emotionally empowering martial arts i have come across