Nia Intensive

I love to dance!  Although I don't go out dancing at all.  My husband does not like to dance.  But that's o.k. because that isn't favorite way to dance anyway.  When I was in high school, I took jazz and ballet classes.  In college I took a ballet and modern class when I could squeeze it into my schedule. Even though I was way out of my league there, I just wanted to dance.

After college,  about the only time I danced was when I was alone in the house listening to the radio. About six years ago, somebody in my yoga class told me about Nia.  I had never heard of it, but she mentioned there was dancing.  I am a member at the Y and they had some classes there.  So, I decided to try it.  I thought it was great and have continued to take classes.

When people ask what Nia is, it is hard for me to explain.  It's not really a "dance" class as you might imagine, but you do dance.  Here is how I would describe it now. It is a fitness class that uses movements that integrate the dancing arts, martial arts and healing arts.  It is not high impact, unless you want it to be.  Everybody can do it and move to their own body's way.

I know there are other dance classes out there, like Zumba.  But what I like about Nia is that it emphasizes moving properly and paying attention to your own body (very similar in that way to yoga, I think).  I tried a Zumba class one time and I was so caught up in the fast music and doing the moves that I wasn't paying attention to how I was moving.  Consequently, after class my knees were sore.  I realized that wasn't going to be a class for me.

Borrowing from the martial arts, Nia also has a belt system.  You can take Nia Intensive trainings to earn a belt.  Last week, I took the Nia White Belt Intensive to earn my white belt.  It was all day, everyday for a week.  There was lots of information and moving and dancing.  Now, I can get licensed to teach Nia, which I am thinking about doing.  Or maybe just as a substitute teacher for a while.

White belt is just the beginning belt.  You can also go on to green belt, blue belt, brown belt and black belt.  Right now, I am pretty happy to have completed the white belt training.

This is the book we received with over 200 pages of the information we learned in the intensive. Since we all had the same book, it was suggested we put our names on them to distinguish them from each other's.  I decided some doodling would help distinguish mine even further!