Freewheelers Dance and Wellbeing Session!
On Sunday we were joined by Andrea (Emily on committee's mum!), Jacqui and Richard from Freewheelers Theatre and Media for a full body work out dance session, followed by wellbeing activities!
We started the session with some introductions and then a seated warm up that included rolling our shoulders, stretches, twists and rubbing our muscles. Our aim was to boost our circulation and loosen our muscles to prevent injury. This was all to the music of our first song requests - Mamma Mia by ABBA and Prince Ali from Aladdin. Great choices Felix and Amit!
Next we moved onto the standing warm up which really got our hearts pumping - hip sways, crossbody punches, leg raises, downhill skiing, followed by our own improvised moves. Joseph's choice of Live While We're Young by One Direction and the crowd pleaser Better When I'm Dancing by Meghan Trainor really got us in the mood for dancing!
After a well earned water break we learnt our first dance piece! 'The Pizza' is a slower piece which involved picking up our ‘dough’, rolling it, lifting it then stretching to get toppings and chucking them on the pizza before putting it in the oven. This piece incorporated different movements that are common in dance and the pizza analogy was helpful for everyone to visualise the moves.
It was time for a change of pace as we took part in a high energy dance along to Reach by S Club 7! It was great to see so many smiles during this one!
Finally we learnt our final dance number - Work This Body. Despite this being a fast one, everyone grasped the choreography really well and we shouted out the moves to help each other.
After saying goodbye to the Freewheelers, it was time for a quick lunch break before joining the afternoon session.
We split off into two breakout rooms, one for a wellbeing session and the other for chatting, singalongs and dancing.
In the wellbeing room we started off with talking about what had made us smile that week. It was so lovely to hear everyone's experiences! Next we drew a butterfly and filled the wings with all sorts of things that make us happy - people, places, foods etc. We then coloured them in and everyone's drawings looked beautiful!
In the second breakout room we had a good old catch up with our favourite songs in the background. We loved seeing everyone bouncing off of each other - some of you even arranged play dates for later on in the week!
In both breakout rooms we talked about the mindfulness activity book that everyone had been sent. It features a wide range of writing and practical exercises to help practise mindfulness, calm anxiety and understand our emotions. These could be great to do in your spare time or whenever you're feeling stressed!
We'd like to say a huge thank you to Freewheelers for joining us and of course thank you to everyone who came along on Sunday. We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did!
