GYROKINESIS® classes, your body, a chair and the ground.

You’ll use similar motions as GYROTONIC® training, but without the guidance of machines. Like yoga, you do your own work, find your own connections, discover yourself.

GYROKINESIS® methodology, the movements, came before the equipment work.

Juliu Horvath didn’t pop out of the ground with the equipment, he had the motions first. The equipment side of his work came later. When he was living in St. Thomas, healing his body from the cumulative injuries of life as a professional ballet dancer, he worked with his understanding and knowledge of dance, yoga, tai chi and qigong movements, as well as his understanding and knowledge of breath. From years of experimentation, observation of nature and internal discovery, Gyrokinesis methodology was discovered.

Juliu prefers to say that he discovered the work, not that he “invented” it. How do you invent a spiral? How do you invent energetic flow? How do you invent the seed center? You don’t. These things are already there, already in existence, eternal. Juliu discovered the synthesis of them and thankfully he shared it with all of us!

Why the floor work as opposed to the equipment work?

Ask most long time Gyrotonic trainers and practitioners and many of them will say they get more out of GYROKINESIS® classes. Why? Because it is completely internal. There are no external influences, no external resistance or assistance. It’s you, your body and your breath. That’s it.

Now that doesn’t mean we don’t love the equipment. We LOVE the equipment. But the floor work is special.

Not to mention that you can do it… oh… exactly everywhere! And believe me, it has been done EVERYWHERE. Beaches, airports, mountains, forests, city parks, parking lots (seriously, I really did once). That’s definitely a special plus for the system.

Finding it all within yourself: strength, connections and freedom.

Similar to the equipment work, most people when starting the floor work will consider it stretching exercises. Similar to someone starting out in yoga, they’ll feel their flexibility being challenged first. And that does make sense. You’ll need your physical and energetic channels to be open in order to find and feel the connections between the body part, the core, the breathing and the world around you. But it really is only the beginning.

You wouldn’t want to just continuously get looser and looser, turning into a disconnected ragdoll. Once you’ve created opening and space for strength and energy to flow, you want to corral those lines of strength and energy channels back into each other and towards your seed center. The strength you gain from Gyrokinesis classes derives from the constant interchange of the three kinds of muscular contraction: concentric, eccentric and isometric. While performing a motion, such as the catback series, you’ll be using one set of muscles concentrically to move your bones into the culmination position while using the opposing set of muscles to stabilize your movements. The isometrics really come in with the constant activation of, essentially, the entire body. Nothing gets time off and all the motions are full body. You’re not throwing your bones around all willy-nilly. You can consider the isometrics as the thread that weaves the concentric and eccentric motions into a single, continuous, purposeful exercise.

Combined with the breath, the end result is stretching, core  and full body strengthening and all around physical fitness, all at the same time.

To paraphrase a line from one of my favorite shows, “Futurama”, you’ll have the flexibility of Gumby and the strength of Hercules. “Gumbercules? I love that guy!”

To find a studio that offers Gyrokinesis classes, please visit the official website.

GYROTONIC and GYROKINESIS are registered trademarks of Gyrotonic Sales Corp and are used with their permission.