✨As 2020 comes to a close, we are so appreciative for the strength and support of our community.✨

When we first began this quarantine 9 months ago, we knew it would be challenging but little did we know just HOW challenging 2020 would prove to be.
 

We could not have predicted how our ONLINE studio would transform so many lives from people all over the world, offering them reprieve and a place to prioritize their health.

The mutualistic relationship with our community gives us the strength, stamina and determination to continue onward—they are bright lights for us during this dark time.

Andrea Fuller is one of those shining lights. At the onset of the pandemic we set a goal for our community to: COME OUT OF THIS QUARANTINE STRONGER, MORE AGILE IN MIND & BODY, AND EFFERVESCENT IN SPIRIT! Andrea was right there with us, encouraging us as much as we were encouraging her.

Though we just met in April, she has become a beloved member of our community. She has inspired us with her positivity, generosity, thoughtfulness and dedication.

Here's her story:

I have had many of the same challenges as many people around the world in 2020. I have an African American high school son at home, a new puppy, work, and I'm trying to keep us all safe and sane.

There have been times this year where I felt scared, shocked, sad, gleeful and grateful. I have sometimes felt I was becoming unglued because of the range of emotion, sometimes all in one day or even in one hour. I decided that if I was lucky enough to survive the pandemic, I wanted to come out of it better than when I went in. I'm on my way, thanks in part to the dedicated loving teachers at the Seed Center who kept me moving and gave me courage to overcome limitations.

I started taking classes, and I did some private sessions with Charley as well. What a transformation! I can bend! I can feel my entire body and am much more flexible.

I work with a partner to help run companies grow from $1M to $10-$20M in revenues. I am constantly thinking. GYROTONIC® helps me to get out of my head and back in to my body.

I felt a stiffness in my lower back after a childhood injury—I got struck rolling backward like a ball. It was not painful, but it felt like a section would not bend easily. I believe this injury determined a lot in my life. I was very athletic but I had a big limitation. This stiffness stopped me from fully enjoying and maxing out my physicality.

I've done yoga and Pilates, but nothing worked to help me stretch my lower back in the way that Gyro has over the last 8 months. I can roll like a ball. I can feel the articulation of my spine. I can do Bikram yoga moves impossible over the last 5 years.

I can really sit in my own physical essence and it feels amazing.

I love Charley's Low Back Release class, Nina's Psoas and Hips class, and Holly's amazing Pilates challenge. All of these sessions in combination feel so good and have helped to build my strength, both physically and emotionally. I am very grateful and really privileged to be able to move in this way.

Goodbye 2020, hello 2021.

Thank you Andrea, and all our beautiful movers who give us support and encouragement daily. We will PERSEVERE!

✨ It's so rewarding being on the journey with our clients as they move through the different phases of life. ✨

Our November Mover of the Month, Jennifer Stahl-Weitz has been a client of The Seed Center for 5 years. We witnessed Jen's rise to Principal Dancer with San Francisco Ballet and now we're overjoyed to be with her on a different life journey as she is currently 8 months pregnant!

As a dancer, she has always inspired us with her hard work, thoughtfulness, dedication, and grace in any situation—her pregnancy has been no different.

Jen has been in our ONLINE classes since the beginning of quarantine and the beginning of her pregnancy. She approaches her pregnancy with the same methodical discipline as her dance career, she knows preparation of her mind and body is the key to a rewarding, successful and healthy outcome.

She says the GYROTONIC® Method has helped her "maintain a better balance of strength, mobility, awareness, and calm in my performance career and throughout my current pregnancy journey."

We love to help our clients find ease and joy in their movement, whether they're a professional ballerina or a weekend warrior.

"Before coming to The Seed Center I had far less appreciation for the benefits of linking breath with articulated movement. I had often neglected the power in calmly approaching movement and often dealt with more aches and pains from holding unnecessary tension while dancing."

Since practicing at The Seed Center, she notices her "body and nervous system both feel more resilient and in tune. I look forward to my sessions as time to refocus, recharge, and realign."

It has been a joy to see Jen in our classes and witness her blossoming before our eyes. We're thankful for the ONLINE format to keep us connected during the quarantine and to offer support in any way we can!

Impressively, Jen is an avid attendee in our Wednesday night Ankle Weight Workout class. She loves "the combination of the fluid movements and breathwork with the light weights."

Jen's pregnancy, like her dance career has brought us so much joy. We are grateful to be a part of her journey and to cheer her along.

As we anxiously await election results, and with Covid-19 on the rise, let our community support you, inspire you and bring you joy.

🌟See you in class 🌟,
Charley, Joyce and the Seed Center Team

✨The best part of our ONLINE Studio is being able to reconnect with clients like Christine Hutcheson.✨

Christine has been a part of our community since 2015 but she left San Francisco and moved to Minneapolis in 2017. We are so grateful to have her 'back' and wanted her to share her story. ️

Christine's story:
My main passion is skiing and 10 years ago I was told that I needed back surgery and should never ski again. Instead I found gyro and it's opened up my back and my whole body in a way that nothing else could. Not only do I ski regularly, I have no back pain, I have new found flexibility in my back and gyro has completely changed how I feel about my overall health and mobility.

I'm athletic, but dislike a gym environment where you are 'working out' just to work out. I have always preferred movement for fun - biking, dancing, walking, skiing, playing sports with friends. My body was always tightly wound, tight hamstrings, tight hips, stiff lower back, stiff upper shoulders and neck. I just thought that was my body and that's how it was always going to be.

I tried yoga, but found it oddly competitive and not relaxing or fulfilling, but I think I intuitively knew I needed something more than just stretching, I needed a movement practice.

Gyro has changed my body and it will always be in my life. There's something about the gyro high that is impossible to replicate and hard to explain, but I know it shows. Someone recently saw me just after an online zoom class and remarked "Wow, you are glowing."

The Arch and Curl series on the handles, that's where I always find the gyro high. After being in online only classes for months, it was the thing I missed the most and felt so good in my body once I was back in the gyro studio in Minneapolis. There's just that little extra something that you get on the handles that is different than in GYROKINESIS®. But I do love the GK classes as well, especially the Awakening of the Senses. And the jump stretch board, and the hamstrings... I love it all because it all feels good. 

My job is on a computer every day and gyro definitely helps to counter against the computer work and open areas of tightness. Joyce was my instructor at a Pilates studio on Polk Street, when she moved full time to The Seed Center I had to follow, my body missed gyro!

The one bright side for me to the pandemic has been the ability to reconnect with the amazing group at the Seed Center in the online classes. I'm so grateful to be able to take gyro again with Nina, Charley and Joyce.

❤️We are so grateful to our movers and our cherished Seed Center Community!