Get Inspired with Creative Writing

Barnes Class is delighted to partner with creative writing, speech and drama expert Rachel Knightley based in SW13 to offer a 6-week creative writing course at the beautiful Olympic Studios Members’ Club. 

Rachel is a freelance writer and tutor with a background in directing and performing. Her work has been published in Swan River Press, Woman’s Weekly, Hull University, Mslexia, Starburst Magazine and Black Shuck Books. She has won the “Promise” Prize for Children‚ Fiction and first place in Writers’ Forum fiction competition. Rachel’s plays have been performed by the National Trust, Questors Youth Theatre and Endpaper Theatre. She receives her PhD in summer 2020. A former copywriter and subeditor for Telegraph Media Group, Transworld Publishers and HarveyNichols.com, Rachel now edits and teaches in a freelance capacity. She runs Green Ink Writers’ Gym for writers of all genres and levels of experience. She is a featured blogger for Bloomsbury Publishing, Writers & Artists website, reviews film and theatre and teaches Creative Writing, Speech and Drama.

Whether you’re beginning your writing journey or wanting to improve your grip on the tools of your craft, this supportive and inspiring course in character, description, dialogue, point of view, style and structure will boost your confidence and your word-count!

  • Deepen your characters
  • Develop your writing voice
  • Strengthen your plot and point-of-view
  • Structure your story

Click here to learn more about the course and to book your place!

Try Something New in 2020

Join expert Carole Marshall for a six week programme, suitable for those new to Somatic Movement and for those whom have some experience and want to learn more.

Carole’s new course runs on Wednesday mornings 10.30-11.30am, at the St. Michael and All Angels Community Centre on Elm Bank Gardens. The class dates are 8th January-12th February and will cover the following: 

  • Week 1 – Understanding how the body responds to stress, and the impact that has on the body and the benefit of a “Daily Cat Stretch”
  • Each additional week, Carole will introduce new movements addressing specific areas of the body, whilst simultaneously encouraging a full body programme of movements including:
    • The diaphragm
    • Neck & Shoulders
    • Back & Pelvis
    • Legs, Ankles & Feet
  • Week 6 – Standing & Walking

To learn more and to book, click here. 

Don’t Suffer with Painful Muscles: Try Somatic Movement

The leaves are beginning to fall and the days are becoming shorter; autumn has arrived. It’s a new season and a great opportunity to do something new for yourself – Somatic Movement!

What is Somatic Movement?  It’s a slow, safe and gentle form of therapeutic movement developed to re-educate your brain to safely release, lengthen and relax muscles. It helps you discover muscles that have become habitually contracted, learn how to release them, and reduce muscular pain.

Join expert Carole Marshall for a six-week programme to raise awareness of the way you move and respond to stress, and the impact that it has on your body. We will address a different area of the body each week, learning movements that encourage relaxation and and realignment. Building week by week, Carole will encourage and enable you to develop your own 10-15 minute daily practice.

Grow Your Business with Coaching and Mentorship

Barnes Class is delighted to announce we have teamed up with business coach and mentor Harleen Chadha. which will help you identify your next critical move in your life/career or business.

Harleen has a proven track record of helping people achieve their goals by empowering you to smash through your limiting beliefs. Just look at this quote from one of her delighted clients:

Harleen has an insightful and fearless approach to coaching, balancing gentleness and sensitivity with firmness when it is needed. She pushed me to explore my boundaries and really discover what is deep inside me. She helped me focus on what is really important, so that I could prioritise actions and move forward to make the changes that I wanted to make but in which I had felt stuck and unable to move. I would highly recommend her as a coach.

– Allison Lindsay, Business Psychologist, London

Harleen will help you find your inner voice, crystallise your vision/goals and create a strategic action plan to steer your way towards your soul-led goals.

Harleen is offering her one-to-one business and lifestyle coaching and mentorship as one-to-one sessions in either 6 or 10 blocks. These can be conducted in the manner you find most convenient to suit your busy schedule:

  • Virtual, using Skype
  • Telephone
  • Face-to-face in a local cafe

To learn more and to book, please click here.

Discover: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Many people know and practise the art of mindfulness, which is a mental state achieved by focussing one’s awareness on the present moment, whilst calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. It’s a great way to reconnect and gain new perspective.

However, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is not as well known. This article will seek to shed some light on this subject.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR, is a programme which uses a combination of mindfulness meditation, body awareness and yoga to help people become more mindful.

MBSR has been described as “a group program that focuses upon the progressive acquisition of mindful awareness.” The programme is an eight-week workshop that entails weekly group meetings (two-hour classes) and a one-day retreat (five-hour mindfulness practice) between sessions six and seven. It can also include formal home practice (a minimum of 45 minutes daily meditation, six days a week), and coaching instruction in three formal techniques: mindfulness meditation, body scanning and simple yoga postures.

Body scanning is the first prolonged formal mindfulness technique taught during the first four weeks of the workshop and entails quietly lying on one’s back and focusing one’s attention on various regions of the body, starting with the toes and moving up slowly to the top of the head.

MBSR is based on the following tenets: non-judging, non-striving, acceptance, letting go, beginner’s mind, patience, trust, acceptance, and non-centering.

Barnes Class is delighted to host this 8-week programme with local expert Ali Gilling. For more than 20 years, Ali has been practicing and teaching yoga. She has travelled extensively pursing her own spiritual development and perfecting her teaching methods. Her relaxed and encouraging manner gives students the confidence to embark on their own journey of self discovery and personal development both on and off the mat.

If you’re in need of a reset and a practical guide to eliminating stress in your life, we welcome you to join this course. It begins 7th March and will be held in the peaceful and historic St. Mary’s Church in Barnes.

To learn more about the class and book your ticket, please click here.

About Barnes Class

Barnes Class organises fun and interesting classes run by local experts at great local venues.

People Say...

“All in all a pretty perfect way to spend a Friday morning in Barnes – looking forward to trying out some other classes! ” – Sally Stephens, Barnes

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