Teaching Nia

Nia Nudge ~ Squish Walk

suzannah — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:54:26 +0000

Base Move

Squish Walk

Say it: “squish”

Standing with feet parallel and hip-width apart, press down and rise up onto the balls of your feet using the strength of your feet and the mobility of your ankle joints.

Slowly bring one heel down to the earth. Alternate lowering one heel at a time, decelerating as you lower the heel.

When practicing Squish Walk, play with different speeds and ranges of motion to support using your foundation to power the up and down motion.

Use your core and upper extremities to support a relaxed and upright spine.

Move with the intent to strengthen your feet and ankle joints!

Benefits

Increases flexibility in the feet, legs and thighs

Builds strength in the foot, leg, thigh, and buttock muscles

Enhances flexibility, agility, mobility, strength and stability in the ankle joint

Improves balance

Squish Walk

Dance Through Life – Action Item

Lift one heel and then release it to the floor, one foot at a time in a pleasing rhythm, as if you were squishing soft ripe fruit beneath.

Practicing Squish Walk will encourage circulation, warming cold winter feet. Sense the front of your ankle and your calf: how much ease, how much effort as you squish? Are you pressing a big orange or soft grapes underfoot?

Did you know the two bones of your lower leg articulate in a spiral when you raise and sink your heel? When the heel rises the tibia and fibula spiral imperceptibly outwards laterally, closing up the space behind you, and when the heel sinks, they spiral inwards, opening the space behind. Play with an awareness of this detail of bones spiraling in Squish Walk this week.

Chris Freedman | Studio 206 Charlottesville, VA

Nia Nudge: Rock Around The Clock

suzannah — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 12:32:39 +0000

Base Move
Rock Around The Clock
Say it: “wow”

Standing with your feet hip-width apart, rock around the outside edges of both feet, moving in a circular motion from the front to the side, to the back and to the opposite side. Reverse directions.

Move from the ground up using the strength of your feet and the mobility of your ankles to create small rolling actions that mimic a hula-hoop.

When practicing Rock Around the Clock, play with motions that support increased mobility of your ankles, knees, hip joints and spine. Use your core and upper extremities to support the dynamics of continuous fluid motion.

Move with the intent to touch all edges of your feet to the earth!

Benefits
Increases flexibility, agility, mobility, stability in the feet and legs

Builds strength in the foot, leg, thigh and buttock muscles

Enhances F.A.M.S.S. in foot, ankle, knee, and hip joints

Improves balance

Rock Around the Clock
Dance Through Life – Action Item
Reflexology is the ancient Chinese art of treating the body’s energy system through pressure-point massage of the feet. Rock Around the Clock becomes self-directed reflexology when you partner with the floor. Pressure to heel, to outer edges, and to ball and toes will restore energy flow up through your body, releasing blocks.

The foot has 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles to move these bones and 100 ligaments!
Invite stretch, range, tone, flow, & glow as you Rock Around the Clock today!

Chris Freedman | Studio 206 Charlottesville, VA

Nia Nudge: Sumo Stance

suzannah — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:19:31 +0000

Base Move

Sumo or Riding Stance

Say it: “stable”

Stand in place with feet parallel and your knees slightly bent (as if riding a horse). Keep your feet, ankles, knees and hip joints relaxed and spring-loaded. To sustain upright balance, slip into the posture of holding the reins of a horse. Sense your head moving up and away from the torso with the spine relaxed.

When practicing Sumo Stance, sense the inner and outer arches of your feet connected to the earth. Play with moving at different speeds and moving through the three planes: high, middle and low. Use your core and upper extremities to support you in moving down and up and vice versa. As you lower, point your tailbone backwards, generating the movement from the balls of your hip joints. As you rise, press your feet into the ground.

Stand with the intent to balance the left and right sides !

Benefits

Increases flexibility, agility, mobility, strength and stability in the feet, legs, thighs, and buttocks

Builds strength in the muscles in the front and back of the body

Enhances agility, mobility, and stability in the foot, ankle, knee, and hip joints

Improves posture

Sumo Stance

Dance Through Life – Action Item

Pretend to be a cowboy/girl just off the horse, legs wide, as if still wrapping around the animal’s girth. Stand with your feet parallel (or slightly turned out if more comfortable) and your weight back on your heels. Sense your torso lower to the ground, sitting on a wide, firm base. Become a sumo wrestler in the ring eyeing his opponent, and let your body dance in readiness, legs spring-loaded.

Riding Stance, or Sumo Stance, Nia’s widest stance, enhances upper body power from a rock solid base. Sink deeper into Riding Stance, sending your knees away from each other and over your feet, maintaining natural length through your spine as you incline forward. This way you will experience and improve the tone of your thighs and the stability of your lower legs.

This week, take a Riding Stance to bend over to pick something up off the floor. Use Riding Stance in your kitchen to maneuver your way to low cabinets. Let yourself make natural sounds delivered through an extended exhale, to ground your stance. Invite primal, monkey energy in and PLAY!

Chris Freedman | Studio 206 Charlottesville, VA

Nia Nudge: “A” Stance

suzannah — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:15:15 +0000

Base Move

“A” Stance

Say it: “stick”

Standing in place, align your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width with both feet parallel. Keep your feet, ankles, knees and hip joints relaxed and spring-loaded. To sustain upright balance, slip into the posture of at-ease and ready, sensing your posture as if falling up towards the sky.

When practicing “A” Stance, sense the inner and outer arches of your feet connected to the earth; this will help you to avoid collapsing inward or falling outwards. Play with moving at different speeds and sinking and rising through the three planes: high, middle and low. Use your core and upper extremities to support you in moving down and up and vice versa. As you lower, point your tailbone backwards, generating the movement from the balls of your hip joints. As you rise, press your feet into the ground.

Stand with the intent to claim the space!

Benefits

Increases flexibility, strength, and stability in the feet, legs, thighs, and buttocks

Builds strength in the whole body

Enhances agility, mobility, and stability in the foot, ankle, knee and hip joints

Improves posture

“A” Stance

Dance Through Life – Action Item

When we widen our base by stepping out with our legs to form the shape of the letter “A,” we increase our stability and our feeling of empowerment.

Throughout this week, take an A Stance –legs apart, feet parallel and knees soft– and sense your grounding. Allow the energy of being rooted to flow down and the energy of personal power to flow from the ground up through your core. Play with spinal and upper extremity mobility in the middle and high planes while in A Stance. Rock slightly back on your heels, to protect your knees, and explore your mobility and flexibility in sinking and rising movements, finding your personal range and comfort.

Chris Freedman | Studio 206 Charlottesville, VA

Nia Nudge: Open Stance

suzannah — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:02:14 +0000

Base Move

Open Stance

Say it: “align”

Standing in place, align your feet in the parallel position, hip-width apart. Keep your feet, ankles, knees and hip joints relaxed and spring-loaded. To sustain upright balance, slip into the posture of at-ease and ready, sensing your posture as if falling up towards the sky.

When practicing Open Stance, sense the inner and outer arches of your feet connected to the earth; this will help you to avoid collapsing inward or falling outward. Use your core and upper extremities to support you in moving down and up and vice versa. As you lower, point your tailbone backwards, generating the movement from the balls of your hip joints. As you rise, press your feet into the ground.

Stand with the intent to be relaxed and ready to move!

Benefits

Increases agility and stability in the foot, leg, thigh and buttocks

Builds strength in the whole body

Enhances dynamic ease in the ankle, knee and hip joints

Improves posture

Open Stance

Dance Through Life – Action Item

Stand with your feet hip distance apart (feet under hip joints) and parallel to create an Open Stance. Allow your feet to lengthen and widen. With awareness, measure the space between your feet. Draw an imaginary outline of each foot. Sense the arches of your feet and imagine a bubbling spring under them.

Sense the vertical distance from sit bone to foot. Note that the thigh bone falls on a slight inward diagonal, from the top (outside of hip) to the knee. This improves our ability to bear weight. Conversely, the ball of the thigh bone is the end of an extension of the thigh bone whose direction is slightly upwards and inward from the outside of your hip. Here the ball fits snugly in the pelvic socket, enhancing both stability and mobility.

This week, become aware of the dance between your sit bones and heels, the angles of your bones and the ease of your joints, in Open Stance. Achieve both grounding and freedom.

Chris Freedman | Studio 206 Charlottesville, VA

Nia Nudge: Closed Stance

suzannah — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 17:48:48 +0000

Base Move

Closed Stance

Say it: “rest”

Standing in place, align your feet with the big toes touching and the heels slightly apart and the outer edges of your feet running parallel to each other. Keep your feet, ankles, knees and hip joints relaxed and spring-loaded. To sustain upright balance, slip into the position of at-ease and ready, sensing your posture as if falling up towards the sky.

When practicing Closed Stance, play with moving at different speeds while sinking and rising through the three planes: high, middle and low. Use your core and upper extremities to support you in moving down and up and vice versa. As you lower, point your tailbone backwards, generating the movement from the balls of your hip joints. As you rise, press your feet into the ground.

Stand with the intent to be powerful and still!

Benefits:

Increases stability in the foot, leg, thigh and buttocks

Builds strength in the whole body

Enhances dynamic ease in the ankle, knee and hip joints

Improves posture

Closed Stance

Dance Through Life – Action Item

Closed Stance is a useful practice for sensing both the stability and the instability of our vertical design. When we stand with our feet together and heels slightly apart, outer edges of our feet parallel, we have narrowed our base as small as possible.

Standing in closed stance in this way, without tightening our legs, spine releasing upwards along the vertical, breathing, we can sense subtle movement and instability in a forward direction, a readiness to go. Simultaneously we can sense rootedness where we are.

This week, play with how stability is directly related to a willingness to allow natural instability in Closed Stance.

Chris Freedman | Studio 206 Charlottesville, VA

Abs and The Three Body Weights, Three Planes, Three Levels, Three Intensities: Three, March, Cha-cha-cha!

suzannah — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:30:19 +0000

Danced Opal this morning with a focus on Abdominals. It was actually an Abs Class. Students looked terrified, but after looking at an image of the four distinct groups of ab muscles (transverse abdominal, the internal obliques, the external obliques, and the abdominus rectus) and a brief discussion about what each group does, both in terms of movement for movement sake (ex: “moves the spine laterally”) and in terms of functional movement (ex: standing up from sitting or shoveling snow”). The tension eased. Then, the whole routine sort of fell into place with a pelvis, chest, head focus. Opal wins the prize (nominated by me) for routine with the biggest aerobic bang for the buck. I forgot how intense Opal is.

Yesterday, dancing Global Unity in Nia FUNdamentals Class to work on movement in the sagittal, frontal, and transverse planes and then playing with the spine and body weights: flexion, extension, lateral bending and twisting got great responses from students.

Focusing on student attraction and retention, I’ve been going to anatomy and kinesiology and it seems to be working to attract and keep students. It felt clinical at first and not very fun-Nia-dance-free-spirit-ish, but in actuality, I’ve found that it allows me to language the class to do something more permissible, like move rather than going straight for personal expression. DC culture is a hard nut to crack and I think this may be working better than other methods I’ve used before. Structure and function make space for emotion and spirit to come out. Hope that makes sense. It’s like giving my students a coloring book rather than a blank sheet of paper and crayons and saying, “draw.”