Our health and wellness center offers a variety of classes that emphasize movement, health, and well-being. We are thrilled to introduce new classes starting this month including Full Bodied Fitness, Assisted Stretch, and Prenatal Fitness. Our classes are all designed to empower you on your journey to owning your fitness choices. With these new classes that provide tools to moderate your own intensity to promote autonomous movement, we welcome Sam Davis to our team. More about joining our Health and Wellness Center.Sam comes to the YWCA with a wealth of experience holding certifications in Contemporary Dance, Circus Fitness, Personal Training, Pre/Post Natal Fitness, and Pilates Instruction. She is certainly adding a dynamic twist to our center. Sam fell in love with movement at her first circus fitness class at Empyrean Arts in Asheville, NC in 2016. She walked into a class somewhere close to 300 lbs, with severe anxiety, and no prior dance or fitness experience. “I failed often, but I never stopped trying, and eventually I got better at it!” She learned Aerial Hoop (Lyra), Trapeze, Aerial Sling, as well as contemporary and burlesque styles of dance. She eventually became a licensed Circus Fitness and Dance instructor in 2018. After experiencing shame and fear of being a larger body in fitness classes and realizing that the fitness industry did not typically hold space for those like her she was determined to be the change and become an example of wellness in larger bodies.Sam strives to ensure no one ever feels that shame in her classes for any reason! Sam has worked towards empowering large-bodied folx and promoting body acceptance for 4 years as a dance and circus instructor and is excited to continue working towards this inclusivity with the YWCA.If she is not at the YW teaching, you can sometimes see Sam flying around as an aerial performer, as well as choreographing and producing stage shows for circus arts and sensual dance.  Learn about Sam’s classes and the rest of our group fitness classes here. Or, learn about membership to our health and wellness center here.