Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

River and I are hitting the road again. This time we're going from Seattle, across the northern US to the Great Lakes, then down to Texas, and then west to the Pacific Coast and back up to Seattle. Check out our exact itinerary here: While in town, I'd love to teach some Nia in your community. I have put together a super-fun classic Nia routine using all Classic Rock & Roll music.  The routine has such favorites as Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and many others. I can easily expand the format of the class to a 90 minute Master Class. I can tone the intensity down or up depending on the community I'm teaching it in. And I can also teach many different workshops while I'm in town.In the past, I've taught: The Art of FreeDance The Five Sensations of Fitness - Strength, Flexibility, Stability, Mobility and Agility The Nine Movement Forms: the Healing Arts, Dance Arts and Martial Arts of Nia Mastering Your Levels 1, 2 and 3 ...

On this last trip, we added the following states: IDAHO MONTANA WYOMING COLORADO NEW MEXICO ARIZONA NEVADA UTAH We stayed in, enjoyed, or drove through such cities as: Boise Missoula Dillon Jackson Cheyenne Boulder Pueblo Taos Santa Fe Albuquerque Flagstaff Las Vegas Zion Salt Lake City Pullman I'm losing track of how many forests we've visited, and the same with rivers and other bodies of water. But we've seen and enjoyed plenty of those all along the way. In a couple of months, we're planning to head out again on another road trip adventure. Take a look here to see what cities we plan to hit. Click here to see schedule for the Great Lakes and Texas Tour: 2013 If you are anywhere along the route and would like a visit from JAG & River, please contact me and we can arrange it.

I’ve been toying around with more food testing. I have to admit, I haven’t been following the program to the letter, like I was before, so any results referred to on this page must be taken with a grain of salt, as there may be many factors involved that could affect the outcome. 

I spent a day eating the way I learned to on The Plan, favoring all friendly foods and only having one animal protein per day. On the first weigh-in, I wasn’t surprised to show a significant weight loss. 
The second day, I continued on the same basic trajectory, but with dinner, I had a slice of lasagna. I think it’s important to note that it was fresh-made lasagna. All of the ingredients were hand-made with organic and humanely raised, local ingredients. I was surprised to show a weight loss for that day as well. I suspect that a similarly sized piece of lasagna from the frozen section of the grocery store may have shown different results. 

The following day, the wild card I chose was to eat Thai food from...

This Blog Post was written by Beth Waddell at my request. I am so inspired and encouraged by this woman, that when I met her, I asked her to write her story for you, my readers, because I felt she would have many enlightened insights and there could be possible lessons to be learned just from what little I knew of her experience. I honestly had no idea how deep her story went. So here it is: Summer of 2008 I discovered Nia. From the moment I “stepped in” I felt the connection. Danielle Eastman became my Nia mentor that summer, eventually inspiring me to take my White Belt and Green Belt.  I found that Nia aided me in my continued healing following the loss of my husband. In August 2005 Rob was a vital 55-year-old psychologist at the peak of his academic career. He went in for a “ simple outpatient “, same-day sinus surgery and was declared dead 12 hours later. A surgeon’s “oops” changed my life forever. Prior to Rob’s death I had envisioned closing my 20-year private psychology pr...

Our last Motel 6 stay of the journey, Clarkston, Washington I didn’t expect the drive through Washington to be so amazing, but it’s clear now where it gets its nickname, The Evergreen State. The first part of the drive was through The Palouse Scenic Byway. As near as I can figure, the Palouse is a region callously named for the native people that were murdered and robbed of their land. The land itself is mostly grass-covered hills. The vegetation that covers the hills might be hay, might be sage, and might be some other type of grass. I did pass a street called Hay Road and one called Sage Road, which is where I get my presumptions, but in any case, the hills are covered with a thick, lush grassy like plant that ranged in color from yellow, to golden amber, to light green to dark green.  I tried to capture the palouse on camera, but once again, I'm not a photographer, and I didn't seem to capture the true splendor of the grass. When the wind hit the grass it gave it a rippl...

Today was the penultimate leg of our Summer Mountain States tour. I’m so thrilled that I was able to pull off my goal of teaching my ROCKIN routine in all of the mountain states, ending with Boise, yesterday. I still had one more class to go, back in Washington. A dear, passionate woman named Beth Waddell had just opened a new movement studio called Living Sage and she moved forward the date of her Grand Opening to coincide with my being in the area. I was honored to be there for the inauguration.  Well, in truth, I had a little trouble finding the address, so I actually missed the inauguration ceremony, but I was part of the symbolic ribbon-cutting in that I was the first to teach a class on the new floor. The day before, I mentioned that the drive from Ogden to Boise was lame, but today more than made up for. The drive from Boise to Clarkston, Washington is one of my favorite drives of this whole trip. It was long; five and a half hours, but it was all beautiful, so that makes a ...

The drive from Ogden to Boise was B. O. R. I. N. G. and long. How many farms can one drive past?  There were no interesting rest areas, either. The best one was just a shelter with some grass.  And to add insult to injury, the grass was marked as off limits for dog. The “Pet Area” was some dirt with occasional dried up shrubs in it. I didn’t have the heart to walk River in that, so I broke the rules and took him to the human picnic area. I did some stretches on the grass while he sniffed a little bit and rolled around a little bit. No one seemed to care or notice. The most interesting thing I saw on the drive was in this shelter. There was bird poop on the wall. I was wondering how it got there. There was no place for a bird to be perched above these droppings, so I figured they must have been released in flight. Even so, I couldn’t figure out how so many different birds managed to get this trajectory just right. The highlight of the day was certainly meeting up with my frie...

Last night I slept with the window open and it was so nice to feel the cool air this morning. It was a mild 70 degrees at 8am, but it started rising quickly. It was over 100 degrees by 10:00. I could have taken I-15, but it looked like such a straight shot and I had lots of time today, so I decided to take a less direct route. I turned on I-70 and I’m so glad I did.

The first place I saw a brown sign was some kind of historic fort. I didn’t know what to expect, so I took the detour. The sign said it was only a mile. It was a fort. Nothing too exciting. I turned around and got back on the highway. The next brown sign was for the Fremont Indian National Park. And that was well worth the detour. The craggy rocks were such pretty colors. I’m running out of words to describe the feelings I got from seeing the beauteous nature. But I took some pictures, so if you think of some words, you can leave them in the comments below. 

I also took a little detour on a dirt road toward Castle R...