Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

Like so many things I do in my life, I jumped in with both feet. Now having had the experience twice, I realize it wasn’t the right time or the right idea, so I have decided to “Close the Vault” and no longer offer playshops teaching the old, retired routines. What I learned was that there wasn’t enough interest in the older routines to make the venture worthwhile. I think because the new routines are always coming out and offering so much good material, there isn’t really time or a need for the older routines. Sure, they were great. And I’m so glad I have some of the more esoteric ones under my belt, as it seems like the ones coming out now are more homologous. I will still maintain my teaching license and of course still travel around the country and the world teaching both old and new routines, as well as some that I have created myself, but I will no longer be attempting to put together a monthly Routine From the Vault playshop in Seattle. I'll never forget, at my Black ...

        (That is the Question.) In early 2011, I decided to temporarily retire. People love to tell me, ‘You’re too young to retire.” But I’ve always done things when I was too young. When I was in third grade, I opened up a candy store in my bedroom and sold to the neighborhood kids. In junior high I was also an enterpriser, but this time I delivered gum and was usually sold out daily by second period. At 15, I was driving a car and had a job, both things that the state of California said I couldn’t do until I was 16. I bought my first car the same month I got my license (as soon as it was legal). When I was twenty years old, I already owned two condo units and ran a branch office of an auto insurance agency. At 25 I branched out and started to sell life insurance, too. At the age of 26 I walked away from that business and all of my real estate investments and moved from California to Washington state without a clue what I was going to do with my...

February’s Routine From the Vault will be in the format of an 8BC Playshop. The focus of the weekend will be on the AO routine, and my intent is to transmit and assist the students in receiving the routine using Nia’s 8BC music and choreography notation system. AO, short for Alpha Omega, is a retired Carlos routine using the profound sounds of Bob Holroyd’s “A Difference Space” album. I often refer to this as a Perfect Routine because of it’s cohesiveness and sense of completeness and resolution. It’s a perfect example of dynamic ease and balance. The focus of the routine is on “the beginning and the end” of each movement, (hence the Alpha and Omega; the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet). The earthy/spaciness of the music provides a mystic soundtrack to this very satisfying Nia masterpiece. Listen to snippets from the album, here. The choreography in AO is wonderfully fun and grounded, which lends to using it for self healing or increasing strength and allows for a ...