Nia, More than a Dance Class

Eileen Brady is Nia student and Nia White Belt. By day she is Vice President of Ecotrust, and co-owner of New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregon.
“I’m off to dance class,” I shout to my husband as I race out of the house Saturday mornings to my Nia class with Debby Rosas. The students in our class seem to have an unspoken understanding that to the outside world we call Nia our “dance class,” knowing full well that this is mere code for something much more profound. However, to explain to our friends and family that Nia is a mind, body, energy program that is something more akin to what church is supposed to be like than to a dance class simply takes too much patience. So “dance class” suffices as our shorthand.
I was 32 before I discovered Nia. With two young children, a waistline to prove it and a marriage that I was beginning to realize was emotionally abusive, I set off to rekindle the spirit of the girl who at 12 years old walked daily to the YMCA for after school jazz dance and modern dance classes. Never an aspiring professional dancer, I was always happiest moving to music. But somewhere between seventh grade and my wedding day, I lost the time or the ability to prioritize movement.
One morning holding one child on my lap as the other played at my feet, I read in the Oregonian that a prominent woman in the community had tried to kill her ex-husband for among other reasons continuing to attend the same dance class as she did even after they had separated. I was fascinated that someone could be so passionate about their dance studio. This must be some dance program. So, I called the studio for more information. Vinnie, a big friendly voice, answered the phone and told me the studio was a great community of people and, by the way, when I come there is no need to bring my shoes. “We all dance barefoot,” he said. This was something different, something I wanted to try.
I showed up at my first Nia class in Oct, 1992. My marriage was obviously in crisis and I needed to take care of myself. Outwardly I seemed fine to most people. I had a job as a personnel director at a local company in town. My children seemed happy and well cared for. But something was missing. A deep longing in my heart, a certainty that I had not reached the potential I was capable of seemed to hang over me daily. The dance steps were not impossible, but did take some getting used to. Debbie, the instructor, told me to give it six full classes before I gave up on it. So I did and the rest, as they say, is history.
Ten years later remarried to a man I love dearly in a job I am passionate about, Nia continues to comfort and challenge me. Nia has been with me through the discovery of my dear love, the risk it took to get what I wanted, my father’s death, the raising of two teenagers, knee surgery, a new house, three jobs, and a development of a successful family business. I often say, “Nia is a lot cheaper and just as effective as therapy.”
Looking back ten years I see a young, searching woman that could have become a bitter old lady. Today I am confident that I have made choices that have put me on the path I needed to be on. Nia gave me the confidence in my power, a sense of balance, permission to feel pleasure and validation of my personal journey. Debbie used to say, “Come to class even if you are tired or sad. Move happy, move with energy, move exhausted, move sick, move sad, but move.” The invitation was to bring whoever I was that day to class. I can remember spinning in circles back and forth across the room to Loreena McKennitt’s eerie album, the Visit. Tears were streaming down my facing. I couldn’t stop crying, but I kept spinning. I found myself that day in a way I hadn’t before. No matter what I felt, it was OK. I could just move through it. No one in the room seemed to mind (much less notice).
So, I kept showing up – three days a week. One day working to find the stillness in my center as the movement increased in speed. Debbie talked of finding the eye of the storm, the quiet center, in our bodies. It’s there she’d say. “Find it.” It is like riding a bike. The faster you ride, the more you find the balance in the speed. Practice. Keep at it. Another day we worked on pure balance. “Be a child. Stand on one foot. Lean over. Knock yourself over. Start over. It’s a game.” We’d look for the point at which we could balance and the limits we could push ourselves to before losing balance and finally, the joy in falling out of balance and starting over again.
These games somehow profoundly mirrored the risks I was taking in my life. In class, we would work on not being in the teacher’s body. Stop watching the teacher after you get the move down, Debbie would say. Find “what we call 2nd attention”. This is the space where you are aware of only yourself, letting your body lead. If I was lucky I could find 2nd attention for 30 seconds to a minute out of each class. Then Debbie would say, try this new move, but find the pleasure in it. Don’t do it for me. Do it for you. This is not a workout for pain. Each person can find the pleasure in each movement for themselves. If your back needs special focus, stretch your back a little more. Make it feel good. To give myself permission to feel good – hmm? This seemed like an altogether impossible notion for awhile. I tried it in dance class and then I tried it in my life. Of course, as it turned out, even a Catholic girl could seek pleasure and the world would not fall apart.
Have you ever spent an entire hour focused on your pelvis, the weight of your head, the stiffness in your shoulders? Nia gives you this opportunity. Attending to the details of your body, your breadth, your lightness, your heaviness, allows for a deeper sensation of yourself. To attend to the small sounds, the subtle sensual moments, bring a very satisfying understanding that you have truly participated in the moment, the class, the day. “There is so much to experience. Don’t miss it.” This is one of the messages of Nia.
On the day, Debbie told the class, “seduction is 90% intent. Go get what you want. The job. The lover. The adventure,” I think I graduated level one of Nia. Our movements led with intention that day. Those watching at the doors would have simply seen a group of students in a dance class reaching their arms forward to the pulsing music. But if those same observers could look inside the students, feel what they feel, they might understand that these students were hard at work developing the tools for mastery of living life fully.
Nia, while full of messages and learnings, is not burdened with dogma or seriousness. Debbie might start out a class suggesting that the students try cleaning their houses naked or wearing $100 silk underpants to make themselves feel good. Laughter breaks out and the dance class begins.
My goal ten years ago was to balance my life and be as sensual and strong as Debbie was then at 42. Now ten years later, almost 42 myself, my body is in terrific condition, but Debbie is has set the bar higher. At 52, she’s slender, sensual and now able to do endless one-handed push-ups. Will I ever catch up?
A dance class. Perhaps. But, oh so much more.
Nia, meaning “with purpose,” provides the opportunity to bring more meaning, more joy, more health into our lives. Thank you Debbie.