Nia in Coralville
My big plan for today was a playshop on Nia FloorPlay at Body Moves in Coralville, which is 25 minutes drive from here. And that wasn't scheduled to start until 5pm, so I had all day to chillax.
Months ago, when I was planning this road trip, I scheduled myself for a visit to Lake MacBride State Park, which might have been lovely. But I failed to estimate the need for rest. It doesn't seem like I'd need that much, because all I do is drive and teach Nia, but both of those things cost energy in different ways, so when I have a day like today where I'm not required to do either one, I tend to not want to do anything else but rest.
So I slept in today and caught up on my Facebooking and blogging. I answered my emails and took River on a walk around the property. Since I had stocked up on food yesterday, and I have a microwave right in my room, I didn't need to leave. But I did; as I said, we spent a nice long time on the Motel 6 lawn.
Finally, mid- afternoon, I showered and got ready to go to Coralville to teach at BodyMoves. I'm pretty pleased with myself that I finally figured out how beneficial it is to travel with two crates. For days like this, when I'm staying in the room before and after going to class, I can leave that crate set up and just walk River into the car and drive. It's not a big deal to set up and break down the crate, but it's more of a deal sometimes to carry it. But it is definitely super nice to avoid that step when possible.
I taught a two hour FloorPlay workshop at Body Moves to a full house. I honestly wasn't expecting many attendees because of the controversial nature of FloorPlay. But I was delighted to see that not only were there plenty of participants, but at least seven or eight of them were Nia belts. So it was a good crowd and they were very receptive to the work.
I spent a bit of time last night and this morning, writing out an outline of what I was going to do for the two hours. But I left it in the motel room. And this is not the first, nor even the second time that I have done this. It is almost as though I'm doing it on purpose. I do get the benefit from creating the list and formulating the plan, but then I also get the benefit of flying off the cuff in class. Rather than be drawn into depending on what I had written, I'm able to be focused more on the students and on what's happening in the room.
I started out by asking them what they liked and didn't like about FloorPlay. And certain things that they said triggered something that I had written down, so I'd stop and address that point and then open the floor up again. We went back and forth like that for most of the first hour.
I spent a good deal of time, too, on the Nia Five Stages, taking them through a mini version of a Nia 5 Five Stages class experience. When I got back to the motel room, I checked my forgotten list and saw that I did cover everything I wanted to.
And the second hour I put on music and created a playful Nia FloorPlay class. I incorporated all the things we talked about, like how to get up and down from the floor, all the choices you have as a student, being childish and playing, stretching, getting strong, relaxing and taking care of yourself.
I felt really good afterward and I got the impression that the students did, too. I'm sorry, I forgot to turn the camera on, so I didn't get any footage of the class. Trust me though, it was beautiful and looked like so much fun. I had them making monkey noises and playing like sexy lizards. They were sliding around the floor on blankets and doing impressive acrobatics that they didn't even know they could do. I gave them a nice long relaxing self-guided meditation at the end.
After class, I took River for a few sprints around the front lawn. We found some sticks for him to destroy and a flat rock he could hop up on and bark loudly. His tongue was flapping as we drove back to the motel room.
This weekend I'm going to St. Louis (actually Edwardsville, IL) and the gang at Gaia Studio and I are going to create some choreography in a playshop I put together for the Community Network Synergy project which became the Amazing routine. So they just sent me the song they're going to use and I'm going to spend tonight with it, being relaxed, but alertly listening and waiting, and counting to eight and drawing bars.
Months ago, when I was planning this road trip, I scheduled myself for a visit to Lake MacBride State Park, which might have been lovely. But I failed to estimate the need for rest. It doesn't seem like I'd need that much, because all I do is drive and teach Nia, but both of those things cost energy in different ways, so when I have a day like today where I'm not required to do either one, I tend to not want to do anything else but rest.
Finally, mid- afternoon, I showered and got ready to go to Coralville to teach at BodyMoves. I'm pretty pleased with myself that I finally figured out how beneficial it is to travel with two crates. For days like this, when I'm staying in the room before and after going to class, I can leave that crate set up and just walk River into the car and drive. It's not a big deal to set up and break down the crate, but it's more of a deal sometimes to carry it. But it is definitely super nice to avoid that step when possible.
I taught a two hour FloorPlay workshop at Body Moves to a full house. I honestly wasn't expecting many attendees because of the controversial nature of FloorPlay. But I was delighted to see that not only were there plenty of participants, but at least seven or eight of them were Nia belts. So it was a good crowd and they were very receptive to the work.
I spent a bit of time last night and this morning, writing out an outline of what I was going to do for the two hours. But I left it in the motel room. And this is not the first, nor even the second time that I have done this. It is almost as though I'm doing it on purpose. I do get the benefit from creating the list and formulating the plan, but then I also get the benefit of flying off the cuff in class. Rather than be drawn into depending on what I had written, I'm able to be focused more on the students and on what's happening in the room.
I started out by asking them what they liked and didn't like about FloorPlay. And certain things that they said triggered something that I had written down, so I'd stop and address that point and then open the floor up again. We went back and forth like that for most of the first hour.
I spent a good deal of time, too, on the Nia Five Stages, taking them through a mini version of a Nia 5 Five Stages class experience. When I got back to the motel room, I checked my forgotten list and saw that I did cover everything I wanted to.
I felt really good afterward and I got the impression that the students did, too. I'm sorry, I forgot to turn the camera on, so I didn't get any footage of the class. Trust me though, it was beautiful and looked like so much fun. I had them making monkey noises and playing like sexy lizards. They were sliding around the floor on blankets and doing impressive acrobatics that they didn't even know they could do. I gave them a nice long relaxing self-guided meditation at the end.
After class, I took River for a few sprints around the front lawn. We found some sticks for him to destroy and a flat rock he could hop up on and bark loudly. His tongue was flapping as we drove back to the motel room.
This weekend I'm going to St. Louis (actually Edwardsville, IL) and the gang at Gaia Studio and I are going to create some choreography in a playshop I put together for the Community Network Synergy project which became the Amazing routine. So they just sent me the song they're going to use and I'm going to spend tonight with it, being relaxed, but alertly listening and waiting, and counting to eight and drawing bars.
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