Archive for category: MoveWell

 

Looking for a new way to get moving or workout this school year? If so, UCLA recreation has you covered! It offers hundreds of different group exercise and instructional courses every week, so you’re bound to find one that’s perfect for you.

If you want to try out some group exercise classes, you can buy a Group X pass that grants you unlimited access to 59 group exercise classes per week! These classes include spin (indoor cycling), HIIT (high intensity interval training), zumba, booty kickin’ barre, and more. The Group X pass is only $25, making it a much cheaper option than non-UCLA alternatives like SoulCycle or Pure Barre. Check out the complete UCLA group exercise schedule here.

UCLA recreation also offers a wide variety of instructional courses. There are over two dozen yoga classes, some of which are completely free! Yoga classes are available at all levels, so you can find the perfect one for you. In addition to yoga, you can find everything from swim lessons to power lifting to boxing to salsa dancing. Take a look here for a complete look at the courses offered this fall.

If group exercise and instructional courses weren’t enough, UCLA recreation also offers private and semi-private fitness training (with a discount for students!) as well as arts classes including digital photography and improv comedy.

So…how do you sign up for these classes? You can sign up for any of the instructional and art courses online here. For the group exercise courses, you can bring your Bruin Card and $25 to the Sales & Services counter on the first floor of the John Wooden Center (past the basketball courts). If you’re unsure if a class is right for you, you can observe all classes for FREE during week one and then make a decision! If you decide to check out any of UCLA recreation’s classes, please share your experiences with us at livewellblog@gmail.com.

Danielle de Bruin is an undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Sociology with a double minor in Italian and Global Health. She is the blog coordinator for the UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative and the director of UCLA’s Body Image Task Force, which is a committee within the UCLA Student Wellness Commission. With the Body Image Task Force, Danielle organizes events, workshops, and campaigns to promote healthy body image, self-confidence, and mental health on campus. She is also a published co-author in the journal PLOS Medicine.

Move Well is committed to fostering campus wide access to culturally sensitive programs, events and opportunities to MOVE and BE MOVED.  As part of this initiative, Move Well is proud to highlight the Angel City Games on June 19-20, 2015 at Drake Stadium on the UCLA Campus. This will be the first ever Los Angeles Paralympic Competition, Clinic, and Exhibition.

This exciting event is open to qualifying adaptive athletes, volunteers, and interested spectators from the entire UCLA community.

Through collaboration with a core volunteer team known as Team Ezra, UCLA Recreation is proud to co-host the only multi-sport competition for children and adults with physical disabilities in Los Angeles.

About Team Ezra

For spectators and participants, this dynamic inaugural event includes Competitive Track and Field events and clinics, and a Wheelchair Basketball Clinic and Exhibition. Attendees can also walk through the vendor village to learn more about adaptive sports and active living. All events are open to the public, and all children, adults, veterans, active duty military personnel with physical disabilities are welcome to register and participate.  Families can take advantage of the Kids Zone, where children can participate in multi-ability Obstacle Course, Basketball Hoops, a Bounce House, Face Painting, and more.

 

 

 

Are you an adaptive athlete interested in participation in the clinics, exhibitions, or competitions?

All athletes need to be classified for the Track and Field competition, and can go through an evaluation if they have not done so already.  To register as a Paralympic athlete with the Angel City Games on June 19-20, 2015, click here.

The Angel City Games is sanctioned by USA Track & Field and Wheelchair and Ambulatory Sports/USA (WASUSA) and is IPC (International Paralympic Committee) approved.

Are you an adaptive athlete ally interested in supporting the event?

For those interested in volunteering with event coordination, management, and chaperoning athletes, you can volunteer to be an “athlete angel” by clicking here.

Questions? For additional information, contact: info@theangelcitygames.org or mgarafola@recreation.ucla.edu

 

For our March blog, the MOVE WELL Team wanted to follow up on our January Blog (scroll down), which featured information on the HCI sponsored course, entitled “Martial Arts, Phenomenology, and Personal Empowerment’ (WAC174).

WAC174 will host a martial arts demonstration on Wednesday March 11th at 11am in the Blue Room of the John Wooden Center. Students and instructors will demonstrate skills learned and contextualize research findings from this 10-week course.

While HCI and MOVE WELL promote a wide range of movement (and stillness!) activities as routes to personal health and wellness, here are some things that UCLA students took away from the regular practice of rigorous physical training in martial arts over the course of the 10-week quarter:

“…I initially took the class because I was attracted by the idea of self-empowerment. The word has a positive ring to it. I wanted to empower myself to feel comfortable with my physicality in every aspects of my life not just in athletics; having been an athlete my entire life, people naturally assume that I was capable of many things beyond my sport and it’s been difficult living up to that expectation. I often let my fear and ego get the better of me when pursuing goals but the biggest concern of all, is that I was unaware of those elementary issues I have which hindered my progression as a student in life. Gavin De Becker had a quote in The Gift of Fear that stuck with me. He said that we as people ‘…want recognition, not accomplishment.’ We tend to care so much for our ego but forget that progress is the only thing that will last. In our class discussions, we brought up how kids are able to learn so much quicker than adults…We would rather not try at all than to risk the potential of humiliating ourselves, which is why it’s so much harder nowadays for us to pick up new skills.

During our martial arts studio sessions, Shifu would always start us up with 10 to 20 minutes of warm up…I find it interesting to take command of my body in the setting of martial arts. I’ve never been one who is satisfied with the way I carry my body in everyday life so naturally I came into my first session with a lot of expectations-I was eager to learn the maneuvers of a Kung Fu master; to pick up insane fighting moves so I can showcase how smooth I am in combat, but Shifu quickly clarified things for me. He told us that every technique and every drill he teaches has a practical purpose. Fancy movements are only good in movies as real life combats are unpredictable. There’s no combination of attack that will work all the time; we have to adapt to the different scenarios.

Training martial arts is, essentially, us strengthening our ability to adjust to change.

We do it to defend ourselves and not to show off because, just like how Rory Miller puts it in Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training and Real World Violence: “Here’s a rule of life: You don’t get to pick what bad things happen to you.” Therefore, you have to stay a fighter, always. This mentality is the most important realization I’ve made thus far in my pursuit of self-empowerment.”

-Haiyang (Kevin) Yang, WAC174 student

Sophomore, Year World Arts and Cultures Major

“Martial Arts had been part of my life ever since I was in first grade, but with the demands of school and work, I gave it up a few years ago. The result was that slowly, almost without noticing, I became anxious and a bit paranoid about my surrounding. I didn’t like to go to unfamiliar places, or stay at home alone, without always feeling like I was uncomfortably on guard. Despite years of training, I felt like I couldn’t defend myself anymore if something were to happen to me.             Joining this class has meant a full turnaround for my self-confidence. I am more vigilant than I was before, but I also have more peace of mind. I’m no longer scared or anxious. This class has given me a new sense of self-empowerment, and it has made me feel like I am more capable of handling unexpected situations. The studio training has been full of great self-defense tactics as well as exercises to ease the mind. The class readings have given me a different outlook, allowing me to see the world through the eyes of people who have made Martial Arts a part of their lives. Interesting comparisons and contrasts make me look at some familiar problems from a more critical angle, and I have also started to think about many things I never gave a second thought before.            Whether you want to learn self-defense, get better discipline or gain self-confidence this class is for you. It is perfect for all skill levels, and good for the soul.”

-Nicole Tata, WAC174 student

Senior, Sociology Major

What moves you?

For a complete list of UCLA Martial Arts classes at John Wooden Center, visit:

http://www.recreation.ucla.edu/martialarts/

 

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By: Sharna Fabiano, UCLA World Arts & Cultures

Tango has long suffered from an international identity crisis. Erotic images typify the portrayal of tango in popular media, but curiously, experienced social dancers tend to liken tango to mind-body practices like yoga or martial arts, highlighting experiences of connection and creative flow. My own involvement with tango began in Cambridge, MA, in 1997, when I discovered the massive chasm between commercial and social tango, two related, yet unrelated, dance forms that irritate but cannot completely avoid one another. It is the community-based tradition of social tango that I have spent the last 15 years studying and teaching, and that I believe fosters the overall health and well-being of those who practice it.

A successful tango on the dance floor is one in which information flows back and forth, replacing the perception of two with the awareness of one. Tango partners listen and respond to one another, improvising each dance in the moment. This experience of generous, collaborative partnership makes dancers feel good about themselves by strengthening their sense of connection to others.

The tango classes offered in World Arts & Cultures/Dance are a wonderful opportunity to generate a sense of belonging in a group of students from across the entire campus, not only within the dance major. Requiring no previous experience, tango has a largely pedestrian technique. The goal for a tango dancer is not to be the same as anyone else, but to find a unique, personal way of expressing the form. In addition to being accessible, tango improves posture, balance, and coordination by gradually discovering more efficient ways of executing specific movements. Since these movements are always performed in relation to a partner, tango also teaches respect, and safe, supportive ways to approach physical touch. In their improvising, tango dancers learn to transmit trust, reliability, enthusiasm, confidence, playfulness, and patience to their partners through their own physical presence. In all of these ways, the practice of tango cultivates important communication skills that may be transferred to professional, academic, or personal contexts.

Furthermore, in this tango course, all students learn both following and leading roles, breaking the gender codes normally associated with partner dances. Learning both roles is not only a profound educational experience, but it also reinforces the understanding that both women and men are “followers” and “leaders” in the world, and that the relationship between followers and leaders can be complementary rather than hierarchical.

As an MFA student at UCLA, I’ve spent the last three years excavating tango for new choreographic tools. My degree concert, “After Hours,” is a series of interactions among four employees of a tango club, very late at night. But there is no classic tango, per se, in this show. Rather, tango principles such as lead-and-follow and upper body vs lower body direct the movement. I hope that audiences receive some of the experience of connection that I know to be so powerful for the participants of social tango dance. At the very least, this will be a very different idea of tango performance than the one presented in mainstream media!

The Dept. of World Arts & Cultures/Dance MFA Upstarts Series presents:

After Hours

Date: Fri, April 25, 2014

Time: 8:00PM Venue: Glorya Kaufman Hall, Room 200, UCLA Ticket price: $15/$8 students

Dance with us during Summer Session 2014!

Dance 8: Beginning Tango

Session A: Jun 23 – Aug 01, MWF, 1-2:30pm

Session C: Aug 04 – Sep 12, MWF, 1-2:30pm