Riding the Waves - Days 5, 6, & 7 of Nia White Belt

Day Five:

On Day five, we worked with principle #9, Creative Arm and Hand Expression with Debbie. It turns out that this was going to be our last day with her as she was flying out the next day. The level of detail amazed me and how by, again, connecting the bone and muscle functionality really gave the movements a lot of power. It was interesting to really feel some of the hand movements differently and really feel the muscles engage. For example the hand flicks. Normally I just flick my hands out thinking okay this is how it is done but after the workshop and after really engaging and providing enough tension on the out to make the noise, I could really feel my lower arm muscles getting a workout they had not gotten before. Spear fingers was another hand technique that made a lot more sense for me as Debbie had us go back and forth between holding our arms out with open palm and then engaging the spear fingers to feel the difference in support and in ease.

Afterwards we returned to FreeDance (principle #4 for those keeping track!) and worked with switching between the six different types that we were taught. Freedance, being seduced by the music, feelings and emotions, creative source, authentic movement and witness. My moment of aha came with working with the witness. The witness is invited to come in and simply observe our tendencies without judgment or manipulation. For some odd reason my critic thought this meant it was his turn giving me such fine feedback like ‘You really suck at the feelings and emotions one.’ ‘Thank you very much for your input’ and moving on. The light bulb moment came as I invited the witness as I was in a freedance stage and immediately my mind (or critic still) responded with “you always start with your arms.” (true) but I just kind of let it go when out of the blue the real witnessing happened. It was this soft gentle voice that said, “Hey, I noticed that when you freedance, you tend to keep your eyes and your head down.” Oh. Oh! I had to stop myself from immediately changing it, instead I stayed with the dance as it was and really noticed how it felt. Now I can choose to go there or not. I found my witness!

The afternoon was spent on principle #10, X-ray anatomy that was pretty interesting. Our practice is to do quick stick like drawings of people’s bones that Carlos called Zorro. This is to train our eyes to see others and ourselves in terms of lines and structure with out judgment or manipulation. There was a lot of discussion on bone, ligaments, structure, muscles both intrinsic and extrinsic but the main things I walked away with was that the 200 bones and 700 muscles (rounded not exact numbers) give us endless possibilities of movement to avoid repetitive movements that decrease our nervous systems ability to respond.

We ended with a wild card Wednesday Nia routine with Carlos focusing on creative arm and hand expression. It was a blast. He had us move like penguins with our arms behind our backs and then later we were card-shuffling kangaroos that only come out at night. What was clear was Carlo’s sheer mastery and skills with the routine combined with a balancing of joy and looseness with out ever losing control was incredible and the energy that was created was exhilarating. As I mentioned before we ended with “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” before cool down and it was just perfect.

Day Six:

Day six started with a review of as many of the 52 moves as we could get in before running out of time. Again Carlos was able to bring a level of attention and detail to each move that was very enlightening. The level and depth to the work and the awareness is endless. Afterward we went on to principle #12, continuing education as he went through the tools and processes that are available to get to the point of sharing a routine with real live students instead of bears. I did write down and really liked his comment of practice the routine in many different ways to create many different memory banks to call upon. It is important to first embody the routine and that the music it precise.

In the afternoon Liz talked to us about principle #11, business and marketing. She talked about the different ways to sharing the joy and talking about what you love. (Sort of like this blog!). We then moved on to the actually licensing part. What was interesting to me at the time was how the energy of the room changed. It felt to me as if an element of anxiety entered the room and I could see people start talking among themselves as Maria was explaining the licensing details, the same questions were being asked over and over and assumptions were being made. It is a pretty big decision. After the final person licensed, there were only a few of us around but those few of us were determined to clear the space even if there were only three of us. After a quick round up about half the class returned and we clear the space with Liz and Maria. I am really glad that we did.

Liz taught Nia class that night, giving us an opportunity to dance to Sanjana (for those that were new to the routine) with a focus on X-ray anatomy. It was a lovely, calm and almost restorative class for me. It was really great to dance Sanjana with a mindfulness that I had not given to it before and Liz was fantastic.

Day Seven:

Finally, the seventh and the last day of Nia White Belt came and it was just as full as the others. Carlos introduced the last principle, teaching what you sense and had us warm up our vocals in an active practice before taking us through a simple routine. He had us listening to the music, dancing the music, asking our bodies what we sense, waiting and then speaking “Everybody sense your …” several times in different way. All this to get practice at juggling just a fraction of what teachers will need to juggle while teaching a class. I discovered that I had to pull everything in small or I would loose my step or my ear for the music, usually the moment I tried to speak the line the second or third time (it never really felt natural to me) and this was with a song and a simple step that I know really really well. Even after pulling it in small, it took a ton of focus to say balanced even most of the time. I said it before but it bears repeating, the effort, ability and ease that Laurie and Fred bring to teaching us a song, a routine is very inspiring and appreciated. It is truly incredible what they do.

After a quick lunch we wrapped up with a discussion on taking nia home and giving thanks to everyone who held the space for us while we were gone. (Hi Chris, Hi mom,) and at the very end of the talk, the pressure got to us and we created our own little triad of Jump in the sack – write a letter – ask how the week went – which while not particularly original, amused us to no end. After another short break we were presented with our certificates and white belts, which we put on as a class in a graduation like ceremony and cleared the space one final time. Underneath my tiredness was a huge sense of accomplishment and excitement to take all of the tools, practice and knowledge from the week and go even deeper into my Nia practice. I opted to go home to my family instead of the celebration afterward and knew I made the right choice when my son came flying at me as I came through the door and my energy lifted.

Of all the pearls and insights that I got, the one that keeps coming back to me as the most important and humbling is the idea that I can get a move, and maybe even be good or excellent at it but never see it as good enough because there is always more details, more depth and more improvement to be found if you commit to the practice.

Underneath the ocean - Nia Day Four

Day four was rather interesting on a lot of levels and in many ways it was not the easiest day for me and on another it was probably the most powerful in hindsight. There was further exploration of the 8BC system and being able to flower and dress the bars to give us information to help teach. Then there was some more work with FreeDance including more work with feelings and emotions, then we were introduced to creative source and authentic movement. I was back to struggling a bit as I tried my hand at the new levels and trying to find my way and being able find the one without counting. The feelings and emotions part still felt a little foolish while the creative source less so. Definetly room for me to grow!

In the afternoon we worked the core with Debbie and we stirred up a ton of energy as I will get to in a bit. Catherine from Wednesday night classes joined us along with her Salem Nia instructor Regina. She is doing great and says hello to everyone. Debbie taught the Nia class and we got the work the core some more with Ameythist. Overall, for me today was more cerebral and less physical exhaustion so I found I had more energy for the class.

As I was driving home, I could feel this heaviness in my chest and I managed to make it until I was just across my house when I started to cry. I pulled in and sat in the garage just crying. (I just have to point out the irony that as I could feel this coming on, the song Point of No Return was playing) I didn’t really try and figure out the why at that point, I just accepted it as old junk that need to be released. When I finally got inside, my husband took one look and me and held me as I sobbed to him and apologized for not be the same size as when he married me. His response was perfect and he just let me cry and babble for a bit. After I calmed down, he asked if there was anything he could do for me. My response. “Wanna have sex?” He lights up. “Okay!” Without entering into the too much information space (which it may be too late already!) I’ll just say that it was really good.

So I am now a day late but tomorrow is an early morning so day five to be here soon. I will say that today was incredible and the Nia class was absolutely wild. Carlos ended with "The Hearts is a Lonely Hunter" and the energy was dialed up to eleven in the room. Pure heaven!