June 2006

Educational Feature

Reach out to Activate Consciousness

Your hands and arms are the messengers of your heart. Their movement gives voice to the silent world inside you. Every gesture expresses a part of you. Hands and arms feel and heal.

As a child, when you were afraid, your hands came to your face. When you needed love, you put your thumb in your mouth. When you wanted mommy or daddy, you reached out for them. However, over time, reaching out into the world may have lost its joy. Maybe no one was ever there to touch. Your environment, and the way you have responded to it, has embedded movement patterns into your arms and hands. Nia helps you break limiting patterns, and reconnect to the natural process of exploring the world and expressing yourself with your arms, hands, and fingers. It is easy, fun, playful, and efficient.

Your arms and hands have their own sense organs that inform you about pain and pleasure. The hands have energy portals that move chi in and out of the body, and they have proprioceptors that are highly sensitive to physical sensation. These proprioceptors receive information about your internal body conditions. They tell you if you need to pull back, or move more slowly, and gently. They also communicate via sensation. Pain and pleasure, comfort and discomfort are their voices. As you move your hands and arms, the proprioceptors send information to your nervous system.

Because the hands have the capacity to gather so much information, in Nia, we use them extensively. Some schools of fitness rely on hard linear arm work, and ignore the hand. Nia, however, combines both linear and fluid arm movements, as well as hand movements. The key to establishing fluidity and power comes from using the hands and arms together, in a natural and free way. Nia uses the joints of the fingers, wrists, and elbows as gateways to move energy. Opening and closing these joints "milks" the muscles and stimulates active communication between sensory organs and the nervous system. The more relaxed and efficient your movement, the better the communication. Furthermore, the better the communication, the more relaxation you experience in your movement.

In Nia, we often use imagery to inaugurate arm movements. We encourage people to pretend they're pulling strings, opening doors, wiping mirrors, tossing salads, or chopping wood. These visualizations trigger natural arm motions, which helps create a balanced energy flow. For example, if your body thinks it is actually going to lift a rock, it prepares for the lift by grounding and dropping energy. The Core of the body then engages, creating a natural, internal support structure in which to move the arms and hands. Using your hands to feel and sense will do far more for your arms than mechanical, repetitive movements. Visualizations create an engaging, familiar experience that fosters greater ease.

We also use many different kinds of arm and hand movements. Small delicate movements create dexterity and develop coordination. Larger movements help your hands, arms, and upper back muscles to become strong, defined, and flexible. Martial arts and jazzy movements require more precision, energy, practice, mental focus, and somatic attention. Combined, they allow you to gain muscle definition, flexibility, and strength without the use of external weights. You gain definition not by pumping iron, but by moving the bones, joints, muscles, and connective tissues.

In Nia, we also link arm movements to emotion. Emotion is an effective way to stimulate movement of the hands and arms. Any reach, block or strike is a direct response to a thought, intent, desire, or emotion. They are real expressions of what you feel.

Like lungs, the hands breathe. They breathe chi. They can spray and splash chi energy as if the fingers were shaking and releasing water. Closing the hands pulls energy into the arms and body, while opening the hands expands and releases energy. They can be used to consciously direct the flow of vital energy to a specific area that needs healing. From our study of Aikido, we also learned that the arms can "spiral" energy. All energy spirals begin with the hand, and move into the forearm. In fact, the forearm contains the only two bones in the body that spiral.

Never dangle your arms aimlessly, unless it is intentional. Keep the arms and hands alive and engaged. This keeps a steady and constant flow of chi moving. In Nia, every hand and arm gesture counts. Nothing is random. Every gesture has meaning.

Voices of the Arms and Hands

To your physical body, I offer you a way to touch, hug, and love. When you desire, I open like a fan and reach out to fulfill your wishes. When you are scared, I hold you. When you need love, I touch you. Use me, and discover the joy of play: throwing, grabbing, scooping, and pushing. I am alive. Awaken to my endless possibilities.

To your mental body, I offer a way to outwardly express what you are thinking and imagining. When your thoughts are free, I am open and relaxed, available to sensations of life. When your thoughts are rigid and fearful, I become tight and bound. When your thoughts are free to move, I expand and dream. I am agile, strong, and powerfully available to help you create.

To your emotional body, I offer visual aids for expressing what you feel. As you open to what is moving inside of you, I respond – without needing any thought. I speak without words. I am clear, direct, and exact. I do not lie. I cannot.

To your spiritual body, I offer ways to experience becoming the angel, the warrior, the goddess or god. My energy is magic, and fills you with the power of lightning, to become strong, or liquid, to become full and soft. My divine essence allows you to hold space for yourself and for others, through the magic of touch.

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