Nia in the Park with Jag

 I practice making any situation into a learning growing experience. What may first seem like a setback can usually be turned into a positive renewal or a discovery of new things. 

Such is the case when we went into lockdown and could no longer meet for classes. Many teachers went to electronic classes and started teaching on "Zoom", but I had to honor my intuition that it wasn't the right thing for me. Personally, on Zoom or other cyber meeting platforms, I don't feel the same connection to my students which is one of the most important elements of meeting for group classes. So while I would have loved to be able to teach to students all over the world, I felt I owed it to myself and my students to only offer as full and rich an experience as possible. So I chose instead to stop teaching. 

Several months later, things started to look better and I experimented with holding small classes indoors using face masks. And once again, I found that while that may work with other teachers, I was still missing a very important element of connection to my community and students by not being able to see their faces. I personally have a hard time understanding what peple are saying when they're masked when I can't see their facial expressions and because the sound is muffled by the fabric. I didn't want to teach that way so after a few months of teaching indoors to a private group without masks, I decided that it would be better to move all my classes outside until we can gather safely indoors without masks.

And now I absolutely love teaching Nia outside. I am a firm believer in the healing powers of being in nature. And it makes total sense to me that exercising is something that, if we want to get the maximum health benefits from it, should be done outdoors. So at this time, I have no intention of going back inside. 

I have purchased a Silent Disco System that is a blue tooth transmitter. Each student gets a headset that allows them to hear the music and my voice. Each student has an individual volume control and since I am using a microphone, I don't have to use a booming loud voice but I can speak right into the students' ear. The intimacy level has actually skyrocketed using this system! And the fringe benefits of doing the practice in an outdoor setting are manyfold, including such aspects as fresh air, sunshine, standing on the earth, working on an uneven surface to improve our core stability and many more benefits. 

If you are hesitant to come to an outdoor Nia class, I fully understand. For years, I balked at the idea for fear of not having control of the space or being fearful of what unknown elements may present itself outside the safety of the four walls of a studio.  But thanks to the pandemic, I had no choice but to explore the option and now I can say it is much better outside than inside. So I can only encourage you to take a risk and give it a chance. You may like it, you may hate it, but you should at least give yourself the opportunity to try it. 

I'll be teaching in Seattle for a couple more months before I take my show on the road. Unless the newest variant causes an even more stringent lockdown, I plan to take my annual road trip starting in April. I will be taking an RV this time and hope to arrange lots of opportunities for outdoor classes and workshops. Stay tuned for more info. 

In the meantime, please consider improving your health and wellness by getting outside more frequently and spending less time in the artificial environments of dance studios and looking at computer screens. I hope to inspire people to get back to their nature as human beings. There is health outside!!