Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

One of the things that I learned during the 2020 pandemic was how healing it is to be in touch with nature.  My first inclination when we were asked to isolate ourselves was not to connect electronically, which I thought seemed artificial and unnatural, but to truly isolate and to take this as a strong nudge from nature to self reflect and reexamine the choices that got me to where I am. I felt like this is what the whole world needed to do, but I was only in charge of myself so I did it quietly. I removed myself from my work and from social media and read philosophy books and meditated a lot. I also found myself taking my dog to the park a lot and noticing how just a few minutes in the park could totally change my day.  I was once opposed to teaching my Nia classes outside. I felt I needed a controlled indoor environment so that I could properly deliver the type of experience I was accustomed to. But gradually, with the help of some clients who I was training in the park twice weekly,

 Jag has been teaching and loving Nia for 25 years. In addition to having his own classes, he has taught for months in a country where he didn't speak the language and learned a great deal from that experience about how to communicate and deliver a rich rewarding experience to the student. He has also, on a number of occasions, taken a single routine on the road and taught it to a different unfamiliar group in a different unfamiliar space every day for months at a time. That also gave him a lot of unexpected insight into the student experience of a Nia class. Watching how students do or don't adjust and adapt, and seeing which ones seem to be having the best experiences, led to a deep understanding of what some of the best student techniques are. Now Jag wants to share the wisdom from a quarter century of teaching in diverse situations. He has broken it down into what he likes to think of as the essentials. The 13 Principles of Being a Nia Student present 13 very important poin

 In May and June we used the Beautiful Day routine four times.  Here are the scripts I wrote for setting the focus of each class: May 23 - Joy of Movement.  Welcome. And thank you for joining me on this inaugural relaunch of my Nia classes. Today we're doing a routine I created called Beautiful Day. The goal of today is to experience the Joy of Movement. This means that your success is not measured by what or how much you do but by how you feel doing it. In Nia, "Joy" is defined as moving towards pleasure. Enjoying what you can do is emphasized over struggling to do more. Changing any of my moves to better suit yourself is an example of the Joy of Movement. Allowing yourself to be perfectly the way you are right now is the Joy of Movement. We may all be a little rusty and we all deserve a bit of permission and the space to explore, play and rediscover The Joy of Movement on this Beautiful Day.  May 30 - Connection. Thank you for choosing to come this morning. You chose