Alternative healing modalities offer a perspective on health with a focus on prevention through a comprehensive approach of body, mind and spirit.
Four practitioners of yoga, tai chi, massage therapy, Reiki, biofeedback and essential oils have recently begun to offer their techniques at Dancing Sky Wellness, located at Faith United Church at 1001 5th St.
To make an appointment call 286-5464 or visit online at www.dancingskywellness.com [1].
Cathy Johnson and other instructors will lead Iyengar style yoga and tai chi classes. They will start at the beginner level and move on to advanced levels for students that wish to continue learning breathing technique, stretches, postures and movement to increase flexibility.
The Rev. Sue Judson Hamly, pastor of Faith United, offers Reiki (ray-key) therapy, a Japanese term meaning life force energy and spirit. She said it is a way of channeling spiritual energy to focusing divine healing power to help in meditation, spiritual growth and healing.
“Reiki energy just goes where it is needed,” said Hamly. “I don’t direct it, I just channel it and it can’t do any harm.”
Hamly offers optional Reiki drumming as “guided meditation,” where shamanic rhythms starting at 115 beats per minute help to put a person into a relaxed and meditative state. The beats slow down as they reach that center, where Hamly says some people visualize a place and some even go on a spiritual journey.
Hamly learned Reiki through a friend in Decorah, Iowa, where she had been a pastor for eight years before coming to the Falls. She became a Reiki practitioner in 2003, and a master teacher in 2004. She later repeated much of her training to pass the national certification program to include Reiki drumming in 2007 at Sedona, Ariz. She is currently on sabbatical and will soon take advanced classes on Karuna Reiki in Sedona.
Nancy Lindstrom is a certified massage therapist with over six years of experience. She also teaches yoga.
As a cancer survivor, Lindstrom recalls a very therapeutic experience with massage. She was inspired to teach other to remember a time when they listened to what their bodies were telling them.
“My experience told me that I wasn’t taking care of myself,” she said. “That is when I decided to go into massage therapy.”
Lindstrom said people forget this as they try to do too many things. She wants them to realize that they cannot care for others unless they watch their own health first including the mind, body and spirit.
Lindstrom studied massage at Eagles Nest Institute in Duluth, which is now a program at Lake Superior College. Yoga and tai chi was also taught as part of massage. She said many therapists do not practice more than three years because of repetitive stress injuries. The profession is very taxing on the practitioner, she added.
She said massage manipulation helps increases blood flow to the muscles and brings more oxygen to the tissue. With it comes the relaxation the client needs to become more aware of their health.
“My goal in massage is to help people quiet themselves,” she added. “So that they just focus on their own physical and emotional wellbeing.”
Shirley Early is lifelong educator who is readying for retirement and a new career in biorhythm systems. She combines biofeedback data with her education background to help clients make good choices.
Her journey to naturopathic health began ten years ago when her own health began to deteriorate. Doctors could not find the source of her issues and she began to look at how she worked, ate, exercised and just lived as a way to gauge her overall health.
When Early found out that she had been suffering from Lyme disease, she looked at holistic health in her effort to begin feeling well again. Her training taught her that to de-stress the body helps eliminate energy blockages to create a condition where good health is more likely to follow.
The biofeedback field uses an electronic box to read body pulse and muscle contractions to teach a person relaxation techniques. To be able to teach others how to do that is Early’s goal.
She expands her education specialty into health with classes on essential oils, yoga and on choosing good supplements from the bad ones in an unregulated industry.