Capoeira Kickboxing Pilates Yoga Nia Dancing Gyrotonic

Mary Hunter, Farah Nousheen and Marti Morrison were bored with aerobics. Duane Best wanted to gain strength but kept getting injured lifting weights. Gregg Rogers felt chronic pain in both shoulders. Reynaldo Burmudez was expanding a lifelong passion. Rose Burns was looking for energy. Syed Taqi just wanted to get into shape.

The fastest-growing segment of the fitness world - not counting the dropouts - just might be those people exploring alternatives to conventional weights-and-cardio workouts. Yoga studios have stretched into neighborhood shopping areas and suburban strip malls. Pilates is common enough that people are more likely to correctly pronounce it "puh-LAH-teez" instead of "PIE-lats." Among the 146 listings under martial-arts instruction in the local yellow pages are judo, karate, kung-fu, kickboxing, tai chi, taekwondo, aikido, hapkido and chung moo doe. There are dance clubs, swimming clubs, bicycle clubs, golf clubs, tennis clubs and rock-climbing clubs.

Fitness isn't like a pair of tube socks - one size does not fit all. Fortunately, the more researchers learn about the benefits of movement, the broader exercise recommendations become. In 1973 the American College of Sports Medicine told us that for cardiorespiratory fitness, we should exercise three times a week, 20 to 30 minutes at a time, at 60 to 90 percent of our "heart rate reserve," whatever that is. Its 1995 guidelines, for general health promotion, advised moderate to hard intensity all or most days of the week, 30 minutes or more each time, which could be broken into bouts of eight to 10 minutes. Recommendations tailor-made for fitness alternatives.

In one sense of the word, "alternative" isn't a fair description of some of these approaches; after all, yoga is 2,500 years older than, say, step aerobics. "Exercise" doesn't adequately describe many of them, either, since mind as well as body often are emphasized (as if they ever were really separated) and some interweave spiritual and cultural components.

They attract people of all ages, from all communities, from nonexercisers to elite competitors. Different approaches suit different bodies, temperaments, inclinations. They offer variety for the mind and cross-training for the body. Some systems take no special equipment or classes, others have custom-made machines, private trainers and infomercials for home equipment. Many involve slowing down, identifying and remedying weaknesses, paying attention to breath, altering the way we think about exercise.

Perhaps this kind of "alternative," then, is simply a fitness choice that suits the individual. On the following pages are just a few local people who have found something that works for them.

Syed Taqi, left, and his sister, Farah Nousheen, play a "ground game" at Capoeira Angola Palmares in the Central Area.

TO ESCAPE the humdrum of aerobics, Farah Nousheen had tried yoga, martial arts and a string of dance forms, including modern, hula, African, Indian classical, contact improv and bellydancing. Then she read about Capoeira in a hip-hop magazine.

"Capoeira combines all the different things I've tried before, and it goes beyond - with music, singing, culture. It uses all of me: the social, spiritual, physical, emotional, cultural, even community," Nousheen says. "It's so much more fulfilling."

African slaves in Brazil, forbidden from training to defend themselves, developed Capoeira (cop-oh-AIR-uh, with a rolled "r") 400 years ago as a fighting art disguised as playful dance with music and song. At Capoeira Angola Palmares, an academy run by Eric Johnson - Contra-Mestre Pererâe - in Seattle's Central Area, Nousheen and her brother, Syed Taki, practice four days a week. Each session consists of group practice followed by a roda (HO-da), in which students form a circle, play music and sing ritual songs in Portuguese while taking turns in one-on-one games.

In the "ground game," a beautiful dance of strategy evolves as two players stand, duck, squat, spin and roll while exchanging slow, flowing sweeps of arms and legs, balancing on always-changing combinations of hands, feet and even head as each tries to cause the other to fall, step out of the circle or become immobile. The moves can be stunning: From a squat an experienced Capoeirista can evade a threat by slowly reaching back over his head with one hand and uncoiling into a handstand and without hesitation begin a counter move.

"Before I got into the class, I couldn't stand on my hands, I couldn't even put my legs up to go upside down," says Nousheen, a Web developer with Saltmine, a Seattle company, who started Capoeira last July. "Now I can stand on my hands and I can see myself walking on my hands. Everything is so much stronger, I'm toner - even my face, there's a change in it."

Want to try it? Classes at Capoeira Angola Palmares of Seattle (1404 18th Ave.; 206-325-1730) range from $10 for drop-ins to $85 a month unlimited; after-class "circles" are free. Other information is at www.geocities.com.

She was so impressed she told her brother about Capoeira. "We were always close," Nousheen says, "but this just really brought us together, because we're sharing the same passion."

"I just first was trying to get stronger," says Taki, a sophomore at Nathan Hale High School. "After I found out what it's about, I liked the art more." Golf and skateboarding have gone by the wayside as he develops his handstand presses and back bridges.

"Capoeira can be used in different ways," Taki says, "as a martial art, a dance, a game, just hanging out with your friends, or playing a 'hard game,'" which is faster and more acrobatic. Lessons learned spill over to daily life. "It's made me more aware of my surroundings, and helps you not be taken advantage of. If someone's trying to trick you or get something out of you, you won't really fall for it - it makes you street smart."

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The Morrisons - clockwise from lower left, Arielle, Marti, Rick and Yael - work on their kickboxing skills as a family.

WORKOUT TIME is family time for the Morrisons, who otherwise might struggle to get in regular exercise.

Marti, a manager for Garden Design, an event-coordinating company, and Rick, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Washington, started martial arts in New York City 15 years ago. She took to it immediately. "I was always a tomboy from day one. It's more me. I like the exertion; it lets out a lot of frustration from a hectic day."

In aerobics class, she says, the music was OK but the classes became boring. "Here you're setting different goals. There's always a give-and-take in this gym," AMC Kickboxing and Pankration in Kirkland. "The people are wonderful, very supportive, and they're always pushing you a little further." She estimates that 90 percent of others there train for fighting, unlike the Morrisons, who kickbox for exercise. "As you train with different people at different levels, you learn something different all the time. It's so different than lifting 30 pounds this week instead of 20."

Want to try it? Membership fees at AMC Kickboxing & Pankration (427 Sixth St. S., Kirkland; 425-822-9656) are from $85 to $115 monthly. For other kickboxing and martial-arts clubs and studios, check the Yellow Pages under "Martial Arts."

When their parents used to go to a fitness club, the girls went to on-site day care. "I never got a workout," says Yael. Now she and Arielle take a one-hour group class with their folks twice a week. "It's wonderful family time together," says Rick, as parents and children work on learning the same skills. During no-contact sparring, the girls practice on each other, and when it's time for impact, their parents hold pads they can kick and punch. While Marti and Rick squeeze in a second hour, the girls play around the gym, enjoying a treadmill as few adults do.

Arielle likes to punch but "I'm basically having trouble with my kicks, because I'm not making that 'Poom!' sound."

Yael likes kicking better than boxing. "I'm very good at my '10,' which is my right leg," she says. "I need to work on my punching skills, my hooks." Though the classes can be hard, she likes the exercise, and thinks these skills should help her down the road: "It's good for when I get into college. I may end up in New York, where you really need to know it."

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Pilates has become Duane Best's strength-training method of choice.

"I USED TO DO the whole weights thing," says Duane Best, "and over the years I just came to hate it" - either it was too hard or he got too injured. He still wanted to do more strengthening exercises, though, and a year ago, at the suggestion of his yoga teacher, he tried Pilates.

Developed by Joseph Pilates starting in the early 1900s, this system of concentrated exercises is designed to stretch and strengthen without building bulk. Long popular with dancers, it's been embraced in recent years by the fitness community partly for the benefits of its "core" or torso strengthening. Though it can be practiced alone or without specialized equipment, many people learn in a studio from someone trained to observe subtle details in body positions.

Want to try it? Instruction at The Pilates Studio of Seattle (413 Fairview Ave. N.; 206-405-3560) ranges from $10 for a single mat class to $50 for private lessons, with semi-private workouts and packages in between. An introductory package of four private lessons is $150. For other Pilates studios check the Yellow Pages under "Exercise & Physical Fitness Programs" or go to www.bodymind.net.

That kind of attention wasn't enticing at first for Best, who is company manager for the Seattle Men's Chorus. A year ago he gave himself a birthday present of some sessions at the Pilates Studio of Seattle. "I thought, 'Wow, this is really kind of fascist,' where you have to put your feet and hands in certain ways. But then I saw that it does make a huge difference if my feet are at this angle or that angle." Because of yoga he was familiar with stretching and strengthening; still, "It was really hard."

The one-hour sessions still can be hard, as recently when instructor and studio co-owner Lauren Stephen guided Best through only a few repetitions each of precise, controlled movements on three different machines.

Within a month of twice-weekly, one-hour sessions, Best noticed how his body had changed. "I've always been rather thin, but I turned 40 last year and had been getting that 40-year-old paunchy thing. That went away like almost immediately. My posture really improved. I had pretty poor posture since I was a teenager, and now it was more comfortable to be more erect and actually use my body more wisely." His injuries are down, his balance is better, his yoga practice improved and he even notices the difference when riding his bike: "You think it's all legs, but if you can use your stomach and abs and butt - actually put your whole body into it - you can go faster and longer."

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Rose Burns, right, has been attending yoga class at Jefferson Community Center taught by Nirmal Kaur Khalsa, left, for more than a dozen years.

SHE HASN'T BEEN attending yoga class at Jefferson Community Center for very long, Rose Burns says. "Oh, only since about 1988."

She took up yoga in 1974. "I started out doing aerobics and it seemed like that was so hard on my legs. A friend of mine said, 'Why don't you try yoga?'" Burns started out at Rainier Beach and even traveled to Renton and Maple Valley before getting wind of the one at Jefferson, where Nirmal Kaur Khalsa has taught once a week for more than two decades.

In an upstairs multipurpose room, walls covered with children's crafts projects, Burns and eight others lay their towels or rugs on mats lining the room and follow Khalsa's quiet directions through an hour of Kundalini yoga positions.

"I just wanted energy and strength, to stay energized," says Burns, who is retired after 32 years with the U.S. Postal Service. "At first yoga was very slow-paced but I did find that it was strengthening to me, and I just stayed with it."

She'd had a bum leg all her life - "I don't know why I limped on that leg, unless I hurt it as a child." But thanks to yoga, she says, "I don't limp anymore."

Want to try it? Nirmal Kaur Khalsa's Monday night yoga class at Jefferson Community Center (3801 Beacon Ave. S.; 206-684-7481) costs $45 for 10 weeks. For other classes and studios, look in the Yellow Pages under "Yoga."

Burns sometimes does a little yoga at her Beacon Hill home, where she gets plenty of other exercise: "I love gardening and I love yard work and I love walking," she says, "but I don't walk a long distance, maybe four or five blocks."

She finds the spiritual aspect of yoga complements her Methodist upbringing. "To me, it works. It's really a relaxation in both ways. At the exercise class and at the church service, it seems I'm able to just relax and forget about any problems at home."

Some postures are a bit harder than others for Burns, but "I don't just give up on 'em, I try 'em all." One in particular gives her trouble: "It's when you catch your ankles from the backside, arch up, and you rock on your stomach," she says, chuckling. "I don't know if I don't have enough stomach to rock on, or what."

She persists. After all, she's been doing it only since the late 1980s.

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Mary Hunter, front, listens to Erin Storey's lead in a NIA class at the All-Star Fitness club in downtown Seattle.

FOR MORE THAN 15 years Mary Hunter faithfully attended aerobics class at a local community center. Two years ago, she was ready for a change. Her landscaping business had her seeing a massage therapist regularly for back and hip problems. "I was just finding that my body hurt and I was bored silly with aerobics," she says. "I knew I needed to find something that would keep me moving or I'd never feel better."

A friend took her to a NIA class. Nia is Swahili for "with purpose." It's also an acronym for Neuromuscular Integrative Action, which blends yoga, tai chi, dance and the martial and healing arts into low-impact cardiovascular, strengthening and stretching workouts that explore awareness, self-expression and creativity. Though you can get books and videos on NIA, it is founded on instructor-led classes such as Erin Storey's, which Hunter attends three times a week at All-Star Fitness clubs in downtown Seattle and on lower Queen Anne.

With custom NIA music at a pleasing level, Storey uses as much imagery as instruction. Toss away any of that extra burden you're carrying today ... Paint the space with your fingertips ... Let the head float up like a helium balloon ... Let the body know that it has all the time in the world to complete and enjoy each moment ... Stylize!

Want to try it? Erin Storey teaches at seven locations in Seattle. Classes are $8 to $10 a session (niasea@earthlink.net; 206-363-7042). Other instructors, local classes and additional information can be found at www.nia-nia.com

Class newcomers can look a little stiff and strain to imitate Storey precisely. Veterans such as Hunter watch and listen relaxedly, sometimes with eyes closed, often improvising off the basic steps, movements and occasional shouts - Yes! ... No! ... Hey! Many peel down to tights through the one-hour class, and all work up a sweat from the nonstop motion.

"You have to engage on every level of awareness - sight, sound, you do it barefoot - it requires a lot of concentration," says Hunter, who also practices NIA at home to videotapes once or twice a week, and has begun training to be an instructor. "I couldn't do all those things at the same time at first. But I stuck with it, and I have become addicted to it. I was very rigid, very tight when I started. The change in my body and my body's ability to be flexible and to move with comfort and ease has really been dramatic."

Now retired from landscaping, Hunter has also retired from something else. "About a year ago, the massage person I'd been going to for probably seven or eight years said, 'You don't need to come to me anymore; whatever you have found to do is working for you; your body is taking care of yourself.'"

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The Filipino Community Center is just one of Reynaldo Burmudez's many dance venues around town.

THOUGH HE'D STARTED dancing as a young man growing up in the Philippines and never let up, Reynaldo Burmudez didn't take a lesson until 1987, when he was 65. Between retirements - in 1975 from the federal government, working in transportation at the U.S. military port in Manila and again in 1991 from the personnel department at Harborview Medical Center - he and his wife Adonida signed up for lessons at the Fred Astaire studio then at Fourth and Lenora downtown.

"We were both working, so we divided our time," says Burmudez, a longtime member of Seattle's Filipino Community Council. "We'd take at least an hour a day; three times a week. What we'd do at home, we'd move our table and put it aside, we got our own tapes, and we'd dance. After three months, we learned some of the steps." Enough so the studio director would book them into local hotels to showcase their tango, rumba and cha-cha moves.

"It's good exercise for our body and our mind," he says.

Now, each Tuesday and Thursday, the couple usually can be found at the Filipino Community Center on Martin Luther King Way South, where a lunchtime nutrition program is sandwiched by calisthenics before and line dancing after, to music from a boom box near the stage. Some men play cards, other people watch or visit instead of dance, but Burmudez, eyes twinkling, is in constant motion, demonstrating moves, cajoling reticent dancers, even busing tables.

Want to try it? The Filipino Community Center is at 5740 Martin Luther King Way, Seattle; 206-722-9372). For information on dancing at the Seattle Center House ($2 donation), call 206-684-7200. For more dance options, check the Yellow Pages under "Dance."

The Burmudezes have danced nearly around the world, via three guided tours and 11 cruises, most recently to South America, including Argentina, home of the tango. "We're always very popular whenever we go on a cruise," he says. "A lot of dancing we do on the ship." Even illness after their last trip couldn't keep him still. "My voice has not quite returned, but we always dance. I just make it a point that when tired and perspiring, I sit down."

They also dance Mondays and Wednesdays at the Seattle Center. "We dance different kinds of dances there; we've learned some Spanish, some Norwegian." Some Fridays, as part of the group Young Once, they're invited to perform Filipino folk dance. They're at a community dance nearly every Saturday night.

And Sundays? That's reserved for his other passion. "I do a lot of gardening!"

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Gregg Rogers, front, says golf became fun again after just a couple months of Gyrotonic training with instructor Karen Scherwood.

THE CHRONIC PAIN in his neck and shoulders had gotten so bad Gregg Rogers couldn't sleep well and didn't like to practice golf: "It had stopped being fun." Which was a problem, considering he's an assistant pro at Overlake Golf and Country Club.

Earlier this year he got a call from Karen Scherwood, who teaches the Gyrotonic Expansion System out of her Bellevue studio, Kinese. Developed by Juliu Horvath, a Romanian dancer, Gyrotonic (or GXS) uses principles of dance, yoga, tai chi, swimming and gymnastics in rotational exercises designed to stretch and strengthen muscles, mobilize joints and develop coordinated movements. Though there is a no-equipment version (Gyrokinesis) and a new home machine, learning the exercises requires one-on-one attention.

In search of golfers she thought would benefit from Gyrotonic, Scherwood needed look no further than Rogers. He stopped playing golf and began Gyrotonic twice a week.

Usually preceded by two other methods Scherwood uses, Laban Movement Analysis and Touch For Health, Rogers' 90-minute sessions are spent largely using two machines of sculpted wood. Seated on a bench, he turns handles on two flat wheels with a series of torso-twisting gyrations. Grabbing loops attached by cables to a tower with weight plates and pulleys, he circles his arms and legs through a range of movements with attention to posture and breath.

Want to try it? Sessions at Karen Scherwood's Kinese studio (10220 N.E. First Place, Suite 200, Bellevue; 425-462-9886; workout@kinese.net) range from $29 for 90 minutes of independent work to $63 an hour; an introductory package of four 1-hour sessions is $325. The other studio in the area is Gyrotonic Seattle, 7409 Greenwood Ave. N., Seattle; 206-784-7895). For general information: www.gyrotonic.com.

After two months, Rogers says, his shoulder pain was pretty much gone, he'd stopped taking his 10 to 12 Advils daily, and he could sleep through the night. "Not only that, my golf swing has gotten a lot better. I've got increased power, and I think it's increasing consistency as far as accuracy goes."

Rogers, who has increased to three Gyrotonic sessions a week, says he didn't realize that by using other muscles to compensate for his shoulder problems, he might have been throwing himself out of balance.

"The amount of shoulder turn I can make in my backswing is definitely improved due to my improved posture," which helps accuracy and distance. "I can make a more complete finish that is in balance - before I was always kind of out of sync - and still have strength there."

On his first day playing in two months, "I thought I'd be really rusty, and I wasn't. I felt really strong on the golf course and had really good balance. I haven't taught anyone in the past two months who wouldn't have benefited from this."

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Molly Martin is the assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Benjamin Benschneider is the magazine's staff photographer.