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  • Find you in it

    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.)

  • 52 days of NIA

    Dancing for Pleasure

    My life changed when I embraced the dance practice known as NIA. Recently I wrote a piece about NIA for our local weekly paper. I also then shared on the blog, a more personal story of how it had helped me get control of my relationship with food.

    Now I’m giving myself a personal challenge to dance NIA every day for 52 days. I usually make it to three or four hourlong classes each week. But the NIA website also has online routines for subscribers ($16/month) for when local classes and my schedule don’t sync up.

    Why 52 days? Well, NIA uses 52 distinct stances and moves in its choreography, so I let that lead me. Why daily? I’ve learned that interesting and unexpected things happen when you commit to a daily practice or routine.

    I’m also committing to 52 blog entries because I have learned that pairing writing with an activity strengthens my commitment and focuses my attention.

    While I know people who dance a full hourlong NIA routine daily, I’m not committing to that. NIA online has five, 10, and 30-minute routines that I can try out. I don’t care if it’s just five minutes or 60 minutes. It will be daily, starting today when I danced “Fly” with Eugene NIA instructor Dael Parsons. I appreciated Parsons’ reminding us that NIA helps build flexibility, strength, mobility, stability and agility. And it enhances something unexpected: stillness.

    More about NIA: Here’s a great summary from Australian NIA instructor Sophie Marsh.

  • Dancing for joy

    NIA dance teacher Kellie Chambers

    I’ve been dancing NIA for five years. I recently wrote a piece for our local weekly newspaper that explains NIA, but since that story wasn’t about me, I didn’t describe my personal experience with it.

    Aside from the sheer love of moving to music, which I think all of us have (whether it’s foot tapping or wild leaping) NIA has helped me love my body. That happened over time and with the encouragement of NIA teachers to trust my myself. “Your body, your way,” is a NIA mantra.

    This mantra has filtered into other areas of my life. I will share just one of many examples. Roughly a year and a half ago, I was unhappy with my weight. I tipped the scales at 167 pounds. I’ve never been thin, but this was a lot for a 5’2″ woman to be packing around. I’m old enough to have seen many diet fads come and go. Some helped me knock a few pounds off, but nothing stuck. I always gained the weight back. This isn’t an unusual story and researchers who specialize in weight loss confirm that keeping off lost pounds is something just 20 percent of dieters do.

    Because I’d just spent a few years in weekly NIA classes absorbing the “my body, my way” message, I began thinking about what would work for me. I didn’t look outside myself for a weight loss strategy. And I came up with a focus and intent (another NIA thing) about eating. I began thinking of myself as someone who has a food allergy — say a nut allergy or lactose intolerance. I told myself that I would need to manage my eating differently for the rest of my life. To lose weight, I’d have to eat less. I wouldn’t eliminate any food categories, I’d just eat less.

    That was the beginning of incremental changes that allowed me to shed 17 pounds in 10 months. I’ve been able to keep those pounds from coming back over the last six months. I am not for a minute saying that the weight loss has been easy. I’ve kept a journal about it, and there are entries in my journal where the word “brutal” gets used. It has been psychologically brutal to step on the scales and see no change when I think I’ve been a responsible eater. But progress has come in my body’s time and way, and the success is sweet. I own it. And the success helps propels me forward.

    For me, NIA has been more than an exercise I do a few times a week (once a week when I’m really busy, four times a week when my schedule allows). It has changed the way I think about my body. And that change has altered the ways that I think about a lot of other things.

    The act of dancing NIA, of moving to wonderful music with a community of dancers, brings great joy in the moment. If that’s all it did, it would be more than worth it. I’m so glad I found it.