Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Nia dance instructor Dael Parsons gave me a gift, a method of being more fully myself. Her strategy — simply noticing what was happening with her students, then gently guiding — was what I needed.

I walked into her dance class almost seven years ago. Newly retired, I had become the boss of all my hours. The first thing I wanted from retirement was a regular dance practice. I’d drifted into a few Nia classes with other instructors over the years. I felt it was special, different from other workouts, but I didn’t know why.

I do now. Dael showed me the way. Nia, which I’ve written about many times, is about movement for joy, for pleasure, for health. It uses choreography and music, but Nia doesn’t care if you never quite master the steps. Nia wants you to be present for your whole self — brain, body, soul. It helped me get out of my brain, which is where a writer thinks the important stuff resides. This writer, anyway. For me the body was the thing carrying around the brain. A conveyance system. Because of Nia, I saw how silly that was.

I came to dance with a private loathing of my body because of its failure to meet social norms. I couldn’t look at myself in the dance studio mirror. Dael’s way of teaching helped me past that. Seven years later, I have a dance practice I adore with sister dancers I’m delighted to see. I look at myself with joy, whether I’m half a step behind the beat or forgetting what’s coming next in the day’s routine, or simply leaping around in the space, despite the choreography, because my inner 12-year-old wants to.

Dael created the psychological space within the studio and offered the deep wisdom of her own extensive experience, not just with dance but with anatomy, with the skeletal and muscular structures that we manage when we move to music.

I started retirement with the bedrock need for a healthy body practice. Dael showed me the way.

Why am I speaking in the past tense about this phenomenal teacher? Now she’s retiring. I get to dance with her three more times before she puts her shoes back on (in Nia we dance barefoot). I’m looking forward to each one of them.

The Eugene area is blessed with other fine Nia instructors. I’ve danced with several and will continue dancing with them.

But Dael will always be the embodiment of Nia practice, a north star I’ll never lose.