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SUZWORKS PRESENTS Nia Events and Classes
Moving the studio to a new location will be a piece of cake compared to the rest of this summer. So far we’ve had a heat wave, an earthquake and a hurricane. Now, we’re changing lodgings and gearing up for Back to School.
Hot Yoga is Moving New Studio Same Great Nia Classes Opening September 1st Opening: Thursday | Sept 1st Classes: Nia | Tuesdays and Thursdays | 10:30am Teacher: Suzannah Weiss Address: 4000 Albemarle St, NW, Wash, DC Parking: 2-hour street parking | Whole Foods Garage Metro: Red Line, Tenleytown/AU Other: Shops|Restaurants|Library|
MARK YOUR CALENDARS Nia Jam: Back to Old School September 9th | 7:30 – 9pm
Focus: Old School Intent: Experience the Teacher ~ Student relationship in a whole new way. Attire: Wear something you wish you could have worn to school. Location: The Mindfulness Center, Bethesda, MD
Guest Teacher: Green Belt, LesLee Ames Dreamwalker Playshop This October
Focus: The focus is Expanding Your Creativity: Ignite the sacred spark within and step into your dreams more fully: A new career, writing, teaching your first Nia class, or living more joyfully each day. Intent: Set the stage for transformation with the Nia Routine Dreamwalker, 5 stages, and A “Soul Collage.”
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| SUZWORKS NIA CLASSES (Suzworks website)
Nia Class Date: Tuesdays | 10:30am Cost: Drop in – $20 | 10 pack – $180
Nia Class Date: Tuesdays | 7pm Date: Sundays | 11am Location: The Mindfulness Center | 4969 Elm Street, Bethesda, MD 20817 Cost: See TMC (website) |
It was a blustery night and all the activity in the branches of the trees was scary, but very peaceful in a weird way. We experienced gusts and swirls of wind, rather than sustained hurricane force winds and what I saw was the trees take an aikido-like approach to dealing with the wind. The branches twisted and swayed and bend with the wind. They looked relaxed in a way which allowed the wind to push the big branches around, but not break them off the trees. My living room window looks out on some very old big, tall trees with long reaching branches. There was a beautiful cacophony of movement during the night with the branches dancing with the wind. Fantastic way to learn how to deal with conflict and adversity; bend and go with it. The trees looked like they were emphatically conducting an orchestra. 
I was going for the Joy thing. I spoke about choosing sensation and Joy and sustaining and tweaking and all that. It was a decent intro. I reviewed the DVD before class. I really took my time going over a few sequences that I always get stuck on. I believed I was in a great place for delivering the Promise of Joy and Nia. Well….. I sucked. I sucked out loud. I was off my music cues, I was cueing stuff that wasn’t supposed to happen, I stopped one song – tempted to start it over and I just flubbed the whole thing. I am sure that no one else in the room could have possibly been experiencing Joy since the whole thing was incredibly hard to follow and fast and steppy and all the rest. If there was any joy it was when I said step out. What to do about this? I am looking for the lesson. I wonder if there is any gift, small or large to be gleaned from that experience. I suppose I could chalk the determination to be “In Joy” in spite of difficulty and discomfort could be a joy enhancing nugget to take away from this, but somehow I think that is pushing it. I didn’t feel any joy. The routing hurts me. It is complex. The music is great, but matching to the steps to the fractioned music make a mess of my leadership ability. There is a lot of cross back and front cha, cha, chas and that really hurts my foot. I have not (in a year) found decent ownership of this routine and it’s possibilities and I think I will provide myself with some joy by taking it off my play list for a while. 
Class today was focused on this triad. I invited the students to choose sensation, make it pleasurable, if it wasn’t what they ultimately wanted for pleasure sensation, they were to tweak it and choose something else until pleasure was in their grasp. Choose, sustain, increase, tweak as necessary…
Isn’t it time that you felt better? Seasonal changes might cause a little discomfort – as all changes do – but then suddenly you’re in the midst of a beautifully transformed environment. You may have allergies. You may hate the cold weather. You may even be dreading that yearly blue feeling that comes with less daylight. But, BUT, look around you! Colors are everywhere, the air smells different, there are new options in the produce department, there are even new shoe styles to take advantage of. Change isn’t that bad. If you are in doubt that change can feel good, read on. You may have to seek no further than your own body to enjoy the fall of this year (and every year from now on). This month’s Suzworks focus is on self-healing. In Nia, we use X-Ray Anatomy for this purpose. X-Ray Anatomy is more than just knowing your bones, muscles and organs. It’s using your knowledge of those things to sense deeper into yourself, to know more, to feel better, to turn up the pleasure dial, to increase the intensity of the joy of living in your body the way it is today; at your age, in this season, with your current circumstances. If your “circumstances” include some challenges, look inward for a cure/solution. Your body is designed to seek and keep pleasure. Use your practice of being in sensation to seek and keep yourpleasure state.