Licensed Teacher Content | November 2006
Nia Community
The concept of personal empowerment that we encourage in our classes, I believe, helps to stimulate a sense of ownership. When there is ownership there is a sense of responsibility and connection/community.
Also, I believe the passion that we, as teachers, bring and share is contagious–our passion for welcoming, sharing, accepting, and reaching out to each other.
For me, Nia is about more than being a fitness professional. It’s been a way to introduce myself into a new community and has been a way to introduce people who had no idea they had anything in common to each other. We have become a community within a community.
Love,
Catherine Ehret
Blue Belt
Downers Grove, IL, USA
Here are the ways in which I feel Nia creates community for me.
Beginning the class with a focus. This brings us all together, both individually–we are uniting our body, mind and spirit under one focus and then as a class, we are all consciously entering the same experience.
An atmosphere of celebration and intention around movement–joy of movement, through movement we find health, MMM, form and freedom, etc. Creates a sense of being on a journey together.
Teaching what we sense. Bringing ourselves to the moment, paying attention to our sensations, and teaching from that place. Creates intimacy with self and with class.
The Freedance portions of class. In these, in a more obvious way than the rest of the class. We are able to dance with each other, we can play together. Playing allows us to get to know each other in a kinesthetic way that many of us leave behind at the playground. It is easy to become friends after being playmates and after dancing together.
Floorplay. More play. It is easier to talk with people once we have rolled around the floor together.
Love,
Maria Skinner
Black Belt
Groton, MA, USA
We are having a FABulous week here in San Antonio, building community among teachers as well as students.
On Sunday, teachers from San Antonio, Austin, Waco, and Dallas came to the studio for a Nia Boot Camp. We started at 9:00am and at 4:00 we team-taught Sanjana! Riding the wave of energy, the San Antonio teachers are “premiering” Sanjana all week, and our students are loving traveling between classes/teachers and experiencing the different teaching styles of tight but loose!
This is our second “Premiere” weeklong event! We facilitated a Boot Camp and premiere of DreamWalker when it was released. These premieres are bringing our local and regional community of teachers closer, and building our wonderful student sense of community. We will continue to ride the wave with each new release. An added plus…its a great way to learn a routine!
Dancing Through Life,
Adelle B. Brewer
Black Belt
San Antonio, Texas, USA
Nia St. Louis has a fabulous brand new (1 day old) batch of White Belts via the Zesty Winalee Zeeb! Since I retook White Belt with this group, they included me in their White Study Buddy on-line group, and I am so excited to see their eagerness as they have written today about playing their DreamWalker CDs throughout the day; e.g., doing Bars, exploring teaching venues.
I am struck by the directed enthusiasm of this group, and struck by how different this was than my experience. When I first came home from my White Belt, with all this swirling Nia energy and eagerness, I was so pumped to start learning routines and doing my work, yet still had several weeks before Miracle was to show up in my mail box. Though my first routine arrived in a reasonable amount of time, there was still that highly-charged post-White Belt time spent waiting.
Watching new White Belts leave their training with the DreamWalker routine, I’m seeing how this can really help ground the energy. Bottom line: brilliant tool! To give new White Belts a routine to take home to help direct energy and enthusiasm.
I’m also appreciating how giving all White Belts the same first routine can help facilitate the bonding and community experience. It is very supportive to local communities which bring a Trainer in to train a group who lives locally.
Just wanted to share with you that the changes you are implementing are being pulsed out and felt all the way over here in St. Louis!
Tracy StamperWe’d like to hear from you…
We are always looking for writing submissions from the Nia community. If you have an article, commentary, poem, or any other piece of writing you would like to submit, please send it our way. We want to know how Nia is working in your life, and we want to share your thoughts with all of our community.
Please send all submissions to editor@nianow.com