New South Memphis Indoor Activities

Since swinging its doors open in 2007, Strike Zone Bowling Lanes has served as a community-first, family-oriented polestar for pin-pummeling action. Sphere flingers collect strikes and spares seven days per week, including during dance-fueled Boogie Bowl on Friday and Saturday evenings, and on Dollar Day Wednesdays, when $1 bills can be used to purchase single games or pooled into a bifocal fund for poor-sighted balls. In addition to hosting pickup games between friends, Strike Zone lends its alleys to globular engagements during league-play and birthday parties. Players on a break between frames can also venture into the facility's onsite pro shop, to stock up on gear, or into the arcade area, where video games and air-hockey tables help eyes and hands communicate and avoid using walkie-talkies.

Push Pilates owner Val Russell draws from her 10 years of experience studying human physiology and lifelong practice of dance, gymnastics, and circus arts to construct the studio's curriculum of movement-based workouts. During Pilates sessions, students can either learn to perform floor-based mat exercises or opt to work out on the spring-loaded Reformers, Cadillacs, and Wunda Chairs. Yoga-class instructors incorporate athletic poses into flowing Vinyasa-style sequences, linking one pose to the next with balance-challenging movement and breathing exercises. During aerial-arts lessons, students learn to reenact scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey as they dangle from ceiling-mounted silk slings or metal hoops. Outside of the classroom, the center's massage services can soothe and rejuvenate any weary muscles or vestigial wings.

The Memphis Symphony Orchestra has been breaking strings and the hearts of screaming fans since its inception in 1952. This year, the orchestra will once again resonate throughout the elegantly crafted Cannon Center, sending seasonal shivers down the tickled spines of all audience members. The Home for the Holidays performance includes vocal joys from soprano Ashley Brown, best known for her portrayal of Mary Poppins on Broadway, in addition to a medley of carol-worthy classics performed by the Memphis Symphony Chorus and the University of Memphis Concert Singers. The evening's combination of power and cheer will cause many to be moved to tears, which will likely form puddles in the theater, making exiting nearly impossible without an inflatable raft.

For each seating option, choose between the following performances:

Perched atop a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, the Metal Museum provides an opportunity for visitors to view expertly crafted metalwork every day without transforming their minivans into tree-hanging dragon feeders. As the only institution in the United States devoted exclusively to showcasing fine metalwork, the National Ornamental Metal Museum takes visitors back to a time when blacksmiths were revered as celebrities and held frontcourt season tickets to public stoning bouts. Visitors can peruse a variety of metalworking facilities, exhibits, and a gift shop while browsing delicate knives and jewelry alongside sturdy cast-iron sculptures and contemporary works. Each individual membership is good for one year and includes free admission to all exhibits. Additionally, members will receive 10% off any metal repair work performed by the museum’s capable smiths, a tuition discount for classes, special-event and newsletter mailings, and 10% off gift-store items. With three guest day passes, you’ll never get caught with no way to entertain the in-laws or pals visiting on a rainy day.

All About Yoga’s resident teacher Gabrielle Louise sought to change her life after years of stressful work in the financial industry caused her both chronic pain and emotional strife. She quit her job and hightailed it to Africa, where her studies in plant medicines along with ceremony and ritual earned her initiation as a traditional healer. Over time—some spent in India and Tibet—she found that a heightened state of well-being, enhanced by yoga and meditation, brought her above the physical pain she experienced on a daily basis. She describes this process as her Kundalini awakening. Today, she shares this effort with her students at her studio, where her classes range from three yoga modalities to kriya meditation.

Gabrielle Louise guides students through a variety of yoga poses and, in the process, shows them yoga's many benefits, including deep relaxation, boosted flexibility, increased body awareness, and increased overall physical wellness. In addition, she also taps into other Eastern arts, restoring balance and boosting memory with meditation, increasing peace of mind with tai chi's gentle movements, and activating dormant happiness energies with qi gong's focused poses.