ROCKIN: a rockin' Nia routine

I was inspired by a recent event at Soma Ranch called Men of Nia. In this weekend event, Helen Terry taught a whole Nia class to the Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd album while we watched The Wizard of Oz on a big screen. And William taught a couple of songs that weekend, too. The ones that stuck with me were Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf and Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin.

In all honesty, I was struggling with whether or not I was going to continue to be a Nia teacher after about 16 years of teaching. This weekend fired me up again not only to the point where I relicensed as a teacher, but I also was inspired to put together a new routine based on what I mentioned above.

I set out to create an entire Nia routine out of 70's classic rock songs. And ROCKIN is the result.

The playlist is:

Speak To Me/Breathe      Pink Floyd
On The Run                              Pink Floyd
Time                                      Pink Floyd
Low Rider                              War
Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo      Rick Derringer
Light My Fire                              The Doors
Magic Carpet Ride                      Steppenwolf
Immigrant Song                      Led Zeppelin
Highway Star                              Deep Purple
Eclipse                                      Pink Floyd
The Great Gig In The Sky      Pink Floyd
Stairway to Heaven                      Led Zeppelin

This is the playlist I used when I recorded myself rehearsing this routine in my home studio.
I've made this rehearsal available for purchase because of the popularity of the routine.
This is not a professional video, and it will not stand up to scrutiny compared to professionally made and edited videos.  This is literally a camera turned on and aimed in my general direction as I practice.  And later, i went back and recorded a very minimal voice-over.

It seems to me that someone could learn the routine by watching this video, or, if they watched a few times, someone could conceivable do the routine right along with the recording.

When I teach the routine live now, I've added a final song because I've found that the way Stairway to Heaven ends, doesn't give us enough time to cool down and end the class. After Stairway to Heaven we were still breathing hard and our hearts were racing.  So I added

We Will Rock You                       Queen

using some very basic choreography to give our bodies a chance to return to a resting state.

If you're interested in this routine you can either contact me and arrange a way for me to come and teach it to you, or you could simply download the video right here and now and learn it for yourself.





The video below shows some clips from my home tapes as I practiced and created the routine in my home studio. Yes, I don't wear any clothes when I'm practicing at home, but don't worry, I'll have clothes on when I teach it. :) This video is no more revealing than Olympic diving and contains a variety of very short clips from the routine. Enjoy

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