By Maggie Cassidy
While many consider the summer months a time to relax, students at Northeastern know that June, July and August can be as stressful as the fall and spring semesters. Between classes, co-op, part-time jobs and other responsibilities, the pressure can build up.
This summer, the Spiritual Life Center and Campus Recreation are introducing instructional classes designed to help the Northeastern community unwind.
Several martial arts courses, including Capoeira, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Karate and Aikido have been added to Campus Recreation’s Northeastern University Opportunities (NU-OPPS) catalogue, available to students, faculty and staff. Additionally, Spiritual Life will be holding three different types of yoga classes – Kripalu, Hapha and Vinyasa – in the Sacred Space in the coming months.
“We have no trouble in filling those [classes] during the school year, so we thought given the demand and the number of people on campus who would like to continue yoga from the spring,” said Spiritual Life Director Shelly Jankowski-Smith. “Living and studying at college can be a demanding and stressful environment. People are finding that yoga can reduce your stress levels and keep you emotionally and spiritually fit.”
Colleen Fritze, the coordinator for non-credit instruction for Campus Recreation, said NU-OPPS courses like martial arts can provide similar benefits.
“It gives you a nice alternative to intensive classroom instruction,” Fritze said. “You can just chill a little bit, doing hip-hop class or yoga or martial arts – just to do something different outside of the classroom.”
This is the first time Campus Recreation is offering explicitly instructional martial arts courses at Northeastern. Similar clubs, like the Judo club, have previously “assumed you had some type of experience,” Fritze said. But these new courses, like Judo 101 and 201, will provide the necessary training to advance to the next level, she said.
Campus Recreation hired temporary non-student instructors with about 10 to 20 years of experience, and, although the martial arts space is currently restrained to the walls of Squashbusters’ fourth floor, interest is on the rise, Fritze said.
“It’s not mindless fitness activity,” she said. “It’s something you can start from the very beginning with the same people in your class. You grow with the core people in your class. It takes commitment.”
While all types of martial arts are open to beginners, there are different styles. For example, Aikido is a “smart way of fighting” that often appeals to women because it requires less strength, Fritze said. Capoeira is a rigorous Brazilian fusion of dance, martial arts and fitness, while Judo focuses on using an opponent’s strength against him or her.
Jankowski-Smith said while Spiritual Life ran small last year, under-publicized yoga classes, this summer will begin with major sessions of yoga.
“Part of the reason that they’re popular is that in general, in American society, yoga is increasingly popular,” she said. “A lot more people are being exposed to it even in high school right now, so they come to college with expectations of continuing it.”
Kripalu is an “easy-going, healing and peaceful” style of yoga that focuses on calming from the inside out, she said. Vinyasa is known as “flow flow yoga,” centering around gentle movement rather than holding positions. Hapha is challenging style that demands physical exertion.
Jankowski-Smith said holding class in the Sacred Space has been advantageous to the program.
“People just rave about it,” she said. “It’s really beautiful. It’s probably one of the best environments for yoga classes, just for the appearance and the general mood of the place.”
Both the yoga and martial arts classes have a fee that goes toward maintaining instructors. Classes average between $3 and $5 each for students. Students can visit the Campus Recreation website, www.campusrec.neu.edu, or visit the Spiritual Life Center at 203 Ell Hall for more information and schedules or to sign up.
