Sacred Body: Biology and Soul

“Kindness” was the focus of class on Tuesday.
In Nia, once we set the focus, we step into the practice.  We can step into kindness again and again as our practice.  Kindness is always present.  The body is your cocoon of kindness.  Kindness is inside the body.  The body’s own kind.  Your kind of kindness.
Cultivate the [...]

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My body is exquisite.  This was the focus of Thursday’s Nia practice, chosen at random.
Your body is exquisite.
Your body is exquisite all the time — not just when you feel good, happy, in love, healthy, look a certain way or are successful.  Your body is exquisite all the time.  Your body is exquisite when you [...]

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The focus of today’s class was Nia Principle #13: Dancing What You Sense.
When we experience the essential lesson of Nia — that life is lived through sensation — we become connected, connected to the body, connected to our lives, connected to the world, and connected to the moment and to the great presence that lives [...]

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The focus of today’s class was “Acceptance.”
As promised, here is the etymology of acceptance:
Latin accipere, to receive
From ad + capere
ad, toward, near, to add
capere, to take, to capture
“Receive” is from the same Latin root, recipere, from re + capere, to take again.
We can take in the moment again and again.  We can hold it [...]

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April is National Poetry Month, and today, April 29th, is Poem In Your Pocket Day.  In honor of this, each student chose a poem at random from the basket.  Our focus for class was the cross-pollination of the first line of each person’s poem, read aloud:
Wage peace with your breath.
The same stream of life [...]

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For the last two weeks, we have been engaged in “Passion: The Practice of Form and Freedom.”

During week one — The Practice of Freedom — we have danced to the music of the Nia routine Passion, using Nia’s eight stages of FreeDance.
During week two — The Practice of Form , starting on Thursday, February 4 – we [...]

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The focus of today’s Nia practice, chosen at random from the basket of cards, was “Loving Movement.”
Loving movement – as in “I love to move!”

Loving movement – as in a gesture of love or an offering to a person or to the Holy.

Loving movement – as in a chapter, an episode, a section of music [...]

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The focus of our Nia practice today, chosen at random from the cards for 2010, was “commitment.”
Whenever we see a word with the prefix, “com-” we know we’re in the field of relationship.  ”Com-” is from the Latin, cum, meaning “with.”  We are in relationship with . . . everything.
The suffix of “commitment” is from [...]

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“I accept my brilliance.”
This was the focus of our Nia practice today, the first class of 2010.
Your mission — should you choose to accept it — is your brilliance.

Accept the wild brilliance of  your body — with all its 75 trillion cells shimmering like stars, metabolizing and burning bright in the universe of your flesh and [...]

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Happy New Year!
. . . Whatever that means.
It might mean another holy every day opportunity to be here now and celebrate together the preciousness of what is happening.  ”Happy” and “happen” are from  Middle English hap, meaning “happen,” as well as “good luck.”  So “happiness” means “happen-ness” and “lucky.”  It’s the fortunate state of being present [...]

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