Bodyfulness — Seattle Nia with Dina

This week in the Deepen Your Niability workshop, we are moving from a Jazz focus, to emphasize T’ai Chi.

The Nia Technique describes T’ai Chi as ”the slow dance”.

The moments in class when we gently move are inspired by this ancient martial art.

Tonight, at the 6:30PM class, I am spinning my focus to include slow and quick movements, to exaggerate the difference.  I’m so glad Nia classes include both consciousness and enthusiasm.  

We can begin our practice with a slow music and form focus, and then alternate with up-tempo quickness. 

Here is my playlist for your listening pleasure:

Song Title; Artist

Bookstore; Jon Brion
War; Joan Osborne
The End; SugaRush Beat Company
Change (feat. Wale); Daniel Merriweather
Crabbuckit; K-OS
Little More Time; Stephanie McKay
Second Chapter; Blue Scholars
Stop Me (Kissy Sell Out Remix); Mark Ronson & Daniel Merriweather
Ganesh Is Fresh (feat. Jai Uttal); MC Yogi
She’s Got Me; Mark Ronson & Daniel Merriweather
Edge of Seventeen; Stevie Nicks
This Room; Fat Freddy’s Drop
Ladder; Akshara Weave

I was wondering what I was waiting on…

This week, I was trying to create the Jazz-inspired Nia dance class for this week’s Niability session and I kept getting distracted.

It was because I needed to wait unti the news of Michael Jackson’s death today in order to create a tribute dance. 
I’ll debut it at this Friday’s 9am and 6:30pm classes. 

Here’s the playlist:

Remember the Time; Michael Jackson
Brotha; Jill Scott
Train In Vain; Annie Lennox
Coast 2 Coast (Suavamente); Angie Martinez & Wyclef Jean
Adouma; Angelique Kidjo
I wish; Patti LaBelle
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’; Michael Jackson
Freedom; George Michael
Bad; Michael Jackson
Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground); Michael Jackson
Bluey; Fat Freddy’s Drop

Let’s keep a fire burning for Michael through full body groovin’!

Friday night’s Niability session focused the martial art of TaeKwonDo and how it has inspired Nia. Man, I created a kick-butt routine…and I mean KICK BUTT, and as one student said, “relentless!”. It is definatley for those people who love to pant.

Check out the music I used:

Song title; Artist

Gin And Juice (as made famous by Snoop Doggy Dogg); Hip Hop DJs United
Ghetto; Leela James
Numb / Encore; Jay-Z & Linkin Park
Beware of the Boyz; Jay Z
Lovers of Light; Afro Celt Sound System
Move Any Mountain; The Shamen
Hi Ya; Kung Flude
Maniac (BOF Flashdance); Michael Sembello
Lip Gloss; Lil Mama
Love Is a Battlefield; Pat Benatar
Fighter; Christina Aguilera
Let’s Get It Started; Black Eyed Peas
Poison; Bell Biv DeVoe
Drop It Like It’s Hot (as made famous by Snoop Dogg); Hip Hop DJs United
Why You Wanna (as made famous by T.I.); Hip Hop DJs United

This afternoon, in our Deepen Your Niability 10-week workshop series, our focus moves from Aikido (last week) to Duncan Dance.  We will be learning about this revolutionary Movement Form and the creator, Isadora Duncan, pictured here.

I hope you enjoy the following playlist which was inspired by Isadora’s spirit: rebellious, free-spirited, bold, courageous, captivating, emotional.

Enjoy and share with your friends.

Join us at 6:30pm tonight as I facilitate a Duncan Dance inspired Nia class.  

Pearls Sade
O Ronco Da Cuíca CéU
Rafiki Zap Mama
Clean Up Woman Leela James
Iko-Iko Zap Mama
Crabbuckit K-OS
Say What You Feel (feat. Stephanie McKay) Katalyst
Gone Daddy Gone/I Just Want to Make Love to You Gnarls Barkley
Little More Time Stephanie McKay
Mystery of Life Nickodemus & Andrea Monteiro
Djin Djin Angélique Kidjo Feat. Alicia Keys & Branford Marsalis
W’Happy Mama Zap Mama
Mrs. Officer (as Made Famous By Lil Wayne) Instrumental Hip Hop Beat Makers

Tonight, we blend the past week’s Alexander focus with a new focus: Aikido.  We start out in a community dojo called Emerald City Aikido.  Joanne, Chief Instructor at her dojo, is one of my Nia students.  Cool!

And here is part of what I am contributing, given gratefully.  Please enjoy and pass along.  Wish many of you could be here to experience it with us.

Song title; Artist

Kotodama; Takashi Wada
Angels (Original); Wax Poetic featuring Norah Jones
Feel Free; Mozez
Robert Campbell’s Lament; Paul Mounsley
Japanese Garden; Japanese Koto Harp and Shakuhachi Flute Music
In My Heart; Moby 
Fever; Stereo MC’s
Eyes Like Yours (Ojos Así); Shakira
Nomah’s Land; Metisse
Brush on Silk; John Williams
Lagu Lagu; Dingding Sa
Spinning Top; Mozez
Walking Into the Himalaya to Meditate; Nawang Khechog

This week, as a part of the Niability series, we are learning about the Alexander Technique.  I’m loving this new awareness!!

Can you notice the difference in these “before and after” shots?

The photo on the left is my posture habit. The photo on the right is me “inhibiting” my unconscious pattern.
The photo on the left reveals that I crank my head back a bit, lifting my chin, like I am looking up to the sky. Perhaps this is a pattern that I’ve developed since I’ve been teaching to project my voice.

When I look at the photo on the right, it seems to me like I have much more length in my spine and I am more upright. I think my posture looks better, more natural, and definatley more aesthetic. So interesting!

Even though the start date is still several weeks away, our perfect Niability group has come together. That was so easy!

I’m thrilled to have time to get to know each and every one of the ladies who will be communing at my house on Sunday mornings over the next six months! Oh, the places we’ll go!

So officially: We’re SOLD OUT!

We have started a waiting list for the Spring start of Niability. If you want to be a part of that perfect group, let us know soon.

YAY!!!

I’m so jazzed about the special announcement we made at last week’s funky Friday am class — a workshop series where you’ll learn to increase your ability to do Nia – your “Niability”!

In this series you will:    
• Get a better Nia workout – in whatever unique way you define it.
• Improve your fitness level in all the “ilities” defined in the Nia technique: mobility, flexibility, stability, agility, and strength-ility.
• Reduce potential injuries — because you’ll learn how to do even the trickiest Nia moves in Your Body’s Way. 

This material isn’t covered anywhere else–not in any of the Nia belts and not in any other workshop we’ve heard of. There are only 3 spots left in the workshop series, so hurry and sign up!

You can learn more details (where, when, etc) on the special page I set up on my site (the tab in the menu bar that says “Niability“).

I hope you join us at my house with more amazing people, dive into the legacy and spirit that makes up Nia, and transform your dance!

Morihei Ueshiba regarded by many to be the greatest martial artist in modern times, deeply understood the larger flow of balancing. O’Sensei, the founder of the martial art of Aikido, was once asked by his students, “How do you keep your balance all the time?

The master laughed and said: “The art is not in trying to keep your balance, but in losing it and seeing how fast you can regain it. The reason you don’t see me out of balance is because I regain it so quickly!”

Turn up the juice on your mindfulness so that you notice when you are beginning to lose your balance, and then return again, and again, and again. Remember, “choice follows awareness” and in those moments when you “wake-up” and return to mindful awareness you have the choice to move toward or away from balance.
  — Joel & Michelle Levey in “Living in Balance” (Conari Press, 1998)