Festival of Ageing Better Middlesbrough – Our Experience

Ageing Better Middlesbrough asked us to host a stall at their Festival on Wednesday 29th of October.

Spreading the word about our classes.

AMALAwellness – What we do in Teesside…

We have helped over 200 people look after their physical and mental wellbeing with our gentle, accessible yoga and exercise classes since setting up in January 2020. Even during Covid, we moved online and continued to teach. Moving past this, we have continued to grow a community of people within Teesside that is growing every week.

AMALAwellness’ aim is to offer classes for to help improve mental and physical wellbeing, as well as offering a safe, fun, inclusive social space for people to enjoy being active, learning something new and making new friends.

‘Classes are really friendly, as is Aimee – They have helped me finding my confidence going back out after lockdowns. My mobility and flexibility has really improved. I love the mindful practices and the classes are social and really fun!’ – Dorothy.

Our main activities are gentle movement classes, yoga classes and chair based exercises, which can be done standing, with chair support or seated. AMALAwellness’ classes focus on – Flexibility, Aerobics, Balance, Strength, which is incorporated into every class.

After spending a morning with Ageing Better Middlesbrough, teaching gentle chair based movement and exercise, Aimee was asked to host a stall at the festival.

We spent the day listening to the wonderful talks from people within the community and local organisations and charities. They were really moving and have inspired us to continue to push forwards with our community based work within Teesside.

‘A quick 10 minute energizer to get everyone moving and active!’

Team AMALA really enjoyed the day and Aimee taught a short 10 minute lesson which went down a storm with everyone in the room participating.
As Aimee was only expecting to teach a small number of people, we were quite impressed with around 200 people participating in the class!

Everyone loved being active to Radio GaGa by Queen and practicing some Chair Yoga Flow to The Gladiator Film theme tune.

Keep Moving Teesside! – Chair Based Yoga and Exercise – What are the benefits?

We help to bring people together in the community, to socialise whilst keeping fit, active and looking after their physical and mental health.

Physical Benefits

Our classes help people stay healthy, active and independent. They are also an asset to the local community, slowly developing more and more into a social hub where like-minded people can come together, get moving, learn something new and make new friends.

Just some of the physical benefits include:

• stretching the muscles, to reduce pain and stiffness.
• improves blood circulation to keep the body fresh and active.
• keeps control of blood pressure.
• improves the range of motion of the joints, keeping the symptoms of arthritis in control.
• Helps lift mood – reducing anxiety
• improves balance and coordination.
  

Mental benefits

Our classes always include a short mindful practice and gentle breathwork at the beginning and end of the class, where we focus on the breath.
This helps to slow down breathing, helping the mind to be more clear and focused. It soothes the nervous system and invokes rest, relaxation and reduces stress and anxiety. Exercises in the class, especially chair based yoga and chair yoga flow also have a focus on the breath, which really helps with improving mental wellbeing too.

Yoga, Gentle Exercise and Meditation lessons have a myriad of benefits for those suffering with anxiety. For example, you can learn how to control your breathing and learn relaxation techniques which can be used in and out of class.

To summarize…

We loved spending time helping spread the word of our new community ventures and classes. We also loved listening to peoples stories and seeing what other charities and organisations are doing and how we could potentially work together.
We loved teaching too, especially as the participation was so wonderful!
It was a worthwhile venture and we hope to attend more in the future.

Would you be interested in our classes or in our community ventures?

We are a socially conscious, community-minded local business with wellness at the heart of our mission.

Find AMALAwellness yoga and meditation classes in Teesside – Check out our website for more information,

Team AMALA <3