Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Day 2 of 52 in my daily NIA challenge.

I’m not a big fan of dancing with my computer. NIA has always been about community, sharing joy of dance with others. But I know there will be days when I can’t get to a local class. Since my motivation right now is high, I thought I’d try a full 60-minute online routine.

I’ve tried this before, most notably when I was stuck in a Covid quarantine back in 2020, when I wanted to visit my mom in Canada and the government required a full two weeks of isolation for visitors once they’d arrived. I had lined up a nice little apartment for the quarantine. In two weeks, I danced NIA three times, and only once made it to 30 minutes. I couldn’t feel it. Today, though, I got lucky. I chose a NIA trainer I’ve never danced with before, Kelle Rae Oien and an unfamiliar routine, Cure, which turned out to be the right combination for me to make it all the way through 60 minutes of dancing with my computer.

It was great. NIA instructors all offer encouraging comments during a routine, a word here, a phrase there. It’s like a fingerprint, unique to each of them. Kelle Rae Oien’s NIA chatter kept me going and I particularly liked the “Find the step, then find you in it,” comment. Today I was working with a sore knee and trying not to do anything painful. It’s interesting when you focus on your body this way. Two things I learned: I could do a surprising number of the steps without feeling pain. “A Stance” wasn’t good for me today. But “Open Stance” worked. About 40 minutes in, standing itself wasn’t pain-free, so I sat for about 10 minutes and did the upper body movements. The second thing: I couldn’t always anticipate whether a step or stretch would be painful. Trying first then modifying if needed worked. “Find the step, then find you in it.” Thanks Kelle Rae!

Because it also offers much shorter options, I imagine I’ll also turn to NIA on Demand, when my motivation and enthusiasm for this starts to ebb (somewhere around day 20, I’m guessing.)