Guest Story

This guest story is written by Susan Sloan, who is a Nia teacher and trainer based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I followed my passion and became a Nia teacher and trainer. I have been a recruitment agent for 19 years. My journey to follow my passion started eight years ago, when I discovered the Nia White Belt Training and naturally felt the pull to enroll in the training to heal my knees. However, after the training, I wanted to use the tools I had learned to start teaching Nia. I, along with two colleagues, created the first regular Nia class in Johannesburg. Within a year, we were offering three classes per week, and the classes had grown so big, the students were...

This guest post is written by Tahirih Silcock, who is a Nia teacher based in Portland, Oregon.

I started my Nia practice a little more than a year ago and had no idea the blessings yet to come. In a life that is so unpredictable, the thing that has been my constant is Nia.

I recently moved back to Portland from Boise, Idaho. While there, I searched out a Nia class. I came upon Nia Trainer Britta Von Tagen’s Nia studio, The Dojo, and made that the place of my rebirth as a Nia dancer and teacher.

The Dojo offers classes for adults and kids; I was fortunate to observe and assist in the kids classes, and learn how to adapt Nia to a younger crowd. ...

This guest post is written by Loretta Milo, who is a Nia trainer and teacher based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Today, I find myself experiencing a full range of emotions, from sadness and grief to love to comfort and consolation. Yesterday, as I drove to teach my Tuesday night Nia class at the Pikes Peak YMCA, a class that I have taught for more than eight years, I realized that it was going to be a very different class. There would be many wildfire evacuees, as the YMCA has been set up to receive evacuees. There would also be long-time students whose homes were under siege immediately.

We are very close community of Nia students an...

This guest post is written by Allison Wright, who is a Nia trainer and teacher based in Portland, Oregon.

As Ram Das said, "Practice is like a roller coaster. Each new high is usually followed by a new low. There are stages at which you feel pulled to inner work and all you seek it a quiet place to meditate and get on with it, and there are stages where you turn outward and seek to be involved with the market place. Both of these parts of the cycle are part of one’s practice. What happens to you in the market place helps your meditation. Likewise, what happens in your meditation helps you to participate in the market place without attachment. At first you will think of practice as a l...

This post is written by Nia Teacher and Trainer Sophie Marsh, who thrives on sharing her contagious passion for Nia and inspiring people to live authentically. She teaches innovative Nia classes, playshops, retreats and White Belt Trainings.

Have you ever wanted to go beyond what feels safe and shape your life into a magnificent tale of adventure and triumph?

During my childhood, the "good girl" in me gained a feeling of worth by helping and pleasing others, taking roles of responsibility (read bossy big sister!), achieving academic success and doing what I believed was expected of me. Her strengths gave me self-discipline, the power of intention, and ...

Elizabeth Kiser is a Brown Belt certified Nia teacher based in Cobourg, Ontario. 

I walked into my first Nia Technique class about 10 years ago. It was different from anything else I’d done. Looking through the glass window that separated the Nia class from the open area of the gym, I had seen a variety of women all dancing around, smiling and serious as they went through their motions. Not being able to hear the music they were dancing to, I thought they looked kind of funny, and yet, not. Each of the women were dressed in cool-looking, flowing pants, and beautiful, feminine tops. They had beads of sweat dripping down their backs and smiles on their face...

Helen Terry is a Nia trainer, teacher, studio co-owner and Nia Retreat Center proprietor based in Montgomery, Texas. She has been devoted to teaching Nia full time since 1993, and travels around the world to share the practice. 

Before I fly around the world to share and teach Nia, I sometimes question leaving my family and my studio. I also question the time and money involved in traveling. Then I arrive at the venue, see the anticipatory excitement on participants’ faces, have a blast inspiring attendees, and revel in helping others rekindle the joy of movement. It makes it all worth it.

This letter was written by White Belt trainees to Nia Trainer Yonit Lerner Ofan, in appreciation of her teaching and guidance.

Here we are at the end of our 7th week of the Nia White Belt Training (this training was structured a bit differently, as we met once per week for seven weeks in a row). We are excited and having difficulties sharing our words of closure.

This is a time of beginnings and not the end. We are just starting our journey. You, Yonit, know more than others that this White Belt training is an important and valuable milestone in our journey. Each one of us has her own life, family, friends, reasons, desires, purpose, dance and shining North...

Amy Podolsky teaches adult and kid classes at Yoga and Nia for Life in West Concord, MA, and truly aspires to share the same joy, enthusiasm and generosity of spirit that her Nia teachers have so freely given to her.

As I sit and write this essay, I am 3.5 weeks into a 4-week interruption of my “regularly scheduled” life. I am recovering from surgery (reconstruction after skin cancer removal, and all I will say is this: wear your sunblock!), and according to doctor’s orders, I am unable to perform “any activity that will raise [my] heart rate.” As both a devoted teacher and student of Nia, this mandated pause in my practice has been a big bummer, to say the least.

Wendy Roman is a Black Belt certified Nia teacher and Nia 5 Stages instructor based in Ontario, Canada. Nia continues to give Wendy a creative outlet where she can teach and inspire others to dance through life in a joyful way.

Recently, I hosted a Nia/Sound Healing retreat in Costa Rica with my co-facilitator Dennis Gaumond. Dennis is a soundwork facilitator, who I have been working with for the past three years. Our work dovetails beautifully together, and this February we took 15 of my Nia students from Canada to Finca de Vida, a healing retreat and organic farm on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It was a great success, and was even described as "life-changing" by some. Our hosts a...