This week’s classes focused on Principle # 1 of the Brown Belt, The Joy of Movement in the Zone ~ Expanding Awareness. Brown Belt is about Energy and how we use, abuse, increase, save, utilize, circulate, fritter, conserve, keep or spend, etc…ENERGY. The Zone is difficult to understand unless you go there. It is the place where I am energetically self-contained and comfortable but at the same time I am connected with everything else. It is a feeling of rest and support. It is slower than regular/ordinary life. It is quiet and unhassled. Really, if I could stay in the zone at all times, I would. As it is, I can slip into the zone when I realize that I am not in it. Usually, I step into the zone energy when I step into Nia class, but there are other times when I am in the zone without realizing it. Knowing that I am in the zone is the better deal than allowing it to slip my attention. I can change the way I feel if I change the way I behave. I can change my quality of life if I desire to do so, by saying, thinking and doing with the awareness of what I want.
So, the work of the first principle in brown belt is expanding awareness. This is knowing what you are doing and knowing what you aren’t doing. Avoiding not knowing what you are doing and not knowing what you aren’t doing. This might sound complex, and it is, but it is easy to sense when you consciously choose awareness of energy and stay in that awareness.
Pearls: Sense your battery, plus or minus. Fill up, spiral your energy up the spine, sense the energy of gravity, of the earth, sense the heat in your body. Hold here. Suspend before you move. Suspend before you spend. pulse, melt, fluff, get personal, free up your energy, from the top, press, fall, sink, rise, cool down, use the energy of the music, take the dance on, rest. Lean into it, send the load and unload on your feet and legs, expand contract. schmear, continuous action, never-ending, zone out, moving meditation, create your own within the choreography. Sends the energy of cool air. Sense the heat off your body. Sense the energy of the rain. Sense your pause. There is no time in the zone. You are all and you are one. So you are here and everywhere. As you are, now, here, this minute, everything is okay.