I had 11 delightful dancers in my class this morning. 11 makes a room look VERY nice.  In the first minute, I wished that I’d had my camera and video camera out and running so I could throw an image up on the web.  In the second few minutes, I wished that I’d had listened to the awareness of the need to photograph and video tape my classes a long time ago.  In the last few seconds of writing this blog-post, I realize that that’s what I need to do pronto. So, this is the language of Awareness, Insight, and Clarity.  It came from a sensation in my Physical Body and moved into my Mental Body. Read More→

I’m falling into Blue Principle #3: Awareness, Insight, and Clarity.  I haven’t any Insight or Clarity on what I will do with this concept, but I am really aware that the moment of truth is less than 24 hours away.  I’ve been doing really well incorporating the principles in the last few months – but every once in a while, I realize that the principles are for ME to embody rather than my students.  In other words, I am the one learning the thinking, and technique (say, the awareness and the insight) and I am supposed to deliver the work (Clarity) after I have processed and gotten something out of it.

In reading the Blue Belt manual about P2 Awareness, Insight, and Clarity ~ Pearls and The Realms, I am finding that a possible focus for class this week can be: Read More→

Girl’s Night Out is a good routine for my Hot Yoga Nia class because they know it so well.  They already know the music and the moves as well as the original focus of the routine.  This is a good start for dealing with communication.  I invited them to call on their receiving powers more than usual.  I warned against already knowing what the routine had to say.  Hearing before the communication has been transmitted is a good way to stop the growth of a relationship.  I asked students to put on dog ears to hear more the sounds, words, instruments, phrases, etc… with no per-conceived notions.   Then to layer on their transmission with care and craft.  I invited them to use symbology and watch what their dance was saying. Transmit what they really wanted to say.  I suggested that if they already knew what they wanted to say (dance) their message wouldn’t be 100% in the present.  For me, it would be like preparing every single pearl that I wanted to say before class and then being hell-bent to say them all irrespective of whether the right moment came up to deliver it.  Being prepared with some ideas and a theme and an outline is one thing, but listening in the moment for the teachable situation is completely different.  Knowing the choreography is another situation that might be an, “I already heard that” situation.  I think this power of two – communication thing is what makes tight but loose possible.  In fact I think it makes loose necessary and makes tight reliable. Tight gives me the confidence to listen in the moment and then transmit the most current and applicable pearls. Read More→

Started working with Principle 2 of Blue Belt yesterday with a 52 Moves Class.  My theme was to be in a communicative relationship with each of Nia’s moves.  Each move has some story or information that can be useful to the dancer.  As it says in the Blue Belt Manual, start with the heel lead and as you step in, let your heel (and body) transmit and receive information.  “The floor is cold, my balance is good, my whole foot is in contact with the floor…” By paying attention to each move, as if the move is a being – relating to me – I can listen to its message.  I tell my body (transmit) what to do and then I listen (receive) the messages it sends back to me.  I am in relationship to my body, the 52 moves, the music, the body of work of Nia, my clothes, the air, the space, my mood, etc…  There is lots of information going out and coming in. Read More→

In class, based on Principle 2, we danced to seek out our movement form personality.  I contended that we all have shades of all the movement forms in our personalities and that some are more dominant than others and that can shift depending on where you are, who you are with, and what you are doing (as well as how much sleep you get, how long it’s been since you last had sex, if you are in a loving relationship, if your kids are around, how old you are, what you’ve eaten, etc…etc…etc…).

The 9 movement forms of Nia form a pretty well rounded list of attributes. I am pretty much a Tae Kwon Do/Jazz/Feldenkreis person.  Not a whole lot of Thai Chi in me, but wait… There are lots of times, more recently that the slow dance is playing a bigger role in my dance through life.  I like to dance to find myself, so I invited my students to do the same and then use that information (what’s dominant, and what’s slight in presence) to make choices in their life that temper or boost their movement personality into more balance.

We danced Zensation.  It made the exploration fairly easy since the movement forms are more purely showcased by the 9 songs of the routine.

My pearls were the pearls listed in The Nia Technique White Belt Learn book, page 46. hdsis