Next Up at
Oak Grove Retreat

Caroleeena's workshops start back February 3rd.

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Our Resident Artist: Caroleeena!

Caroleeena offers her world renowned movement classes for 2025. Caroleeena's Music and Movement classes are designed to help you cultivate good health, stress relief, creativity and joy.

 

Caroleeena (a.k.a. Carolyn Mabry) is an internationally recognized hoopdancer, fire performer and circus arts instructor from Raleigh, NC. She taught for many years at Cirque de Vol and has been teaching hoopdance and fire arts nationally and internationally since 2005.

 

Many of you who've attended the Raleigh Hoop Jam, Raleigh Drum Circle, Profound Sound Retreat, Oak Grove Rhythm Retreat or even the NC State Fair may be familiar with Caoleeena's Hula Hoop and Fire Spinning.

 

Caroleeena is also an experienced yogi, yoga instructor and strength trainer who has studied Kundalini yoga under Yogi Bhajan, Hatha yoga, Aerial yoga, and gymnastics and taught Yin Yoga and Strength and Flexibility Training for Circus Artists. She's a creative, methodical and encouraging teacher, mentor and coach whose focus is helping people feel good in their bodies, enhance their mobility, calm their minds and central nervous systems and experience play and joy.

 

These Classes are all $15 per class at the door. Package discounts are available through Caroleeena. All levels of ability are welcome and the classes will be designed for the level of the participants who attend. Ask her about her Hula Hoop and Silk Fan Dances classes.

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Class Schedule:

Yin Yoga for Splits -

Mondays at 6:30-7:30 pm

Don't be scared of this name. This is a stretching and strengthening class that will open up your walking and help you feel refreshed at the end of it. This class opens with some strengthening moves but most of the practice is sitting or lying and doing bends to open up the front of the pelvis and inside of the thighs to keep our legs moving freely so we can move better in our everyday lives. These practices have measurable benefits for your balance as well as your central nervous system. They help you feel calmer, more confident, and able to handle pain better.  (Most people are flexible enough to do splits right now but our central nervous system does not allow it. It goes into alarm mode and stiffens us up, telling us it's so we don't hurt ourselves. By relaxing into a place, or just before it, and staying there, we allow our muscles to relax which allows our central nervous system to begin to feel reassured this is a safe place so you can relax more and that makes you open up more.) There are so many benefits in working toward splits, even if you never do a full split. Doing a split is not even the goal. Becoming strong and flexible enough to become comfortable in some of these poses, that is our goal. Releasing our fascia that's bound and limiting our range of motion is a goal. Learning to relax when we are uncomfortable, that is a goal. To be still, to breathe, and to explore inwardly, inside our bodies, to learn ourselves from the inside out, that's our goal. Come explore.

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Morning Yin Yoga -

Tuesday Mornings at 10:30-11:30 am

This is a gentle morning opening and centering practice. We'll elongate scrunched up bodies and wake up our backs and behinds. We'll open our shoulders and release pressure around the neck. We'll center and affirm and start our day on an intentional foot. In this practice we sit or lie and hold gentle poses for :30 seconds to 3 minutes. We breathe and we relax and we let tension go! This practice also allows gentle elongation at our connective areas which allows us to work through atrophy and increase our range of motion and move better throughout the day.

 

Chair Practice -

Tuesday evenings at 6:30-7:30 pm

This is a fun strengthening and stretching program using one of the sturdy wooden chairs in the chapel. We'll be doing some conscious walking, some stretches, some gentle exercises, and some chair dance moves that make us stronger and flexier. It's a fun and creative way to get strong and have a good stretch and these moves are things you can do with a chair in your own home to relax and release your whole back or just have some fun. It's best to wear clothes like yoga pants or sweatpants that slide a little so we can easily slide on our chairs. Wearing good socks will also make it easier to slide your feet on the ground. Come play. You'll be surprised how fun it is.  .

 

Yin Yoga for End of Day -

Wednesdays at 6:30-7:30 pm

I want to offer people who can only come at night an opportunity to get in a yin yoga practice if they can. It really is life changing because of its effects on the central nervous system but it also relaxes and opens you up so you feel calm and juicy for the rest of your evening and into your sleep. Most people sleep much easier and

better after a yin yoga practice and since sleep is when most our healing happens, this practice also facilitates healing.