Phoenix Indoor Activities

Founded by fourth-dan black belt Richard Poage, Peaceful Warrior Martial Arts & Healing Center continues his mission to help students build discipline and learn self-defense through classes that teach shorin-ryu karate, jujitsu, and kobudo weapons training. Camps and after-school programs keep kids from spending their days sprawled in front of the TV or taking catnaps behind it. The school's healing center keeps students in top shape with holistic health services such as massage, acupuncture, and shiatsu massage.

On her quest to further understand the relationship between physical motion and energy flow, certified personal trainer and Pilates instructor Angella M. Hamilton began studying the ancient technique of tai chi under the tutelage of master David Dorian Ross. Her fascination with the time-honored practice led her to forge her own variation, combining healing elements of tai chi and qI gong to create the free-flowing Zen Method. When stricken with breast cancer at the age of 36, Angella practiced the Zen Method to keep herself healthy and empowered. Through regularly scheduled classes and workshops, she now imparts the lessons she's learned both in terms of fitness and mental strength.

The Arizona Republic and its online reviewers love the Phoenix Symphony, and Kudzu users give it five stars:

Step beneath the domed, packed-mud ceiling of a traditional Navajo family dwelling. Weave a Yavapi burden basket. Explore a secluded garden filled with bronze sculptures of women in prayer. By immersing visitors in Native American artifacts and artworks, the Heard Museum's exhibits strive to illuminate the cultural legacy of Arizona’s indigenous peoples. The collections emphasize first-person accounts of Native cultures, not only through artwork, but also in interviews with Native Americans, portraits by Navajo photographers, and monthly lectures. In addition to showcasing historical artifacts, the Heard Museum exhibits contemporary American Indian artwork. Like a ballerina trapped on a carousel, exhibits rotate often, and have included collections of Native American bolo ties, Hopi pottery, and 20th-century paintings depicting Native ceremony. Passing on cultural traditions to future generations, the staff educates children with tours, and brings Native American presentations and curricula to area schools.

Moving Breath Pilates' owner and master teacher, Virginia Nicholas, teams up with a posse of skilled Pilates virtuosos to sculpt svelte physiques and strengthen cores with private 55-minute Pilates sessions. In a breezy studio bedecked with ivory walls and fully stocked with Pilates machines, wellness gurus coach students one on one, acquainting them with fundamental Pilates techniques, tweaked according to each pupil's personal fitness goals and astrological chart. The experienced instructor acquaints Pilates protégés with such traditional Pilates equipment as the Universal Reformer, trapeze table, and Wunda chair, training them to master proper form and memorize each of the apparatuses' birthdays and anniversaries. Following the intensive private session, students emerge energized and flexible enough to race a rocket-fueled rubber-band ball home.

Celebrity Theatre's distinctive in-the-round construction keeps show-goers close to the action, with no seat more than 70 feet from the performers. The slowly rotating stage ensures each audience member can bask in singers' flashing smiles and search the backs of their heads for bonus flashing smiles.