Foci for May and June - Beautiful Day and Woodstock

 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 to come because you wanted to get something out of the experience. We may all want different things but I"m going to guide us in a way that will allow us all to have our distinct, discreet, ideal experience. It begins with a focus on your feet. Sesne the way they rest of the floor. Pick them and put them down with care and intention. Allow the FOOT-FLOOR CONNECTION to give you stability so that the stability can support all of your movement. Adjust your steps and stances to maximize comfort and freedom. Let your mind be fully occupied by perpetual assessment and adjustment. Fine tuning your moves is an ongoing process of the BODY MIND CONNECTION. The body gives requests in the form of sensation and the mind hears and responds in the form of adjustments. Get creative to fully appreciate your true potential. There is no need to struggle here. No benefit comes from forcing. Instead, I encourage you to feel confident in whatever you choose. Trust that your choice is correct and enough. Change often, but move yourself toward more pleasure and take pride in your choices. This will lead you to a profound feeling of inner peacefulness in your as you move. Feel the PEACE PRIDE CONNECTION swelling in you and enjoy it. Your uniqueness is your spirit. We are connected as spirits by being in this space together, hearing this music and doing these moves. Even though we may all use them differently we can take great human comfort in our SPIRIT TO SPIRIT CONNECTION as we do. Allow this high plane connection to energize us on this Beautiful Day. 

June 6 - Mental Energy. Today we're going to focus on the mind. Using your mental energy to be aware of the collaboration on your health and fitness. The collaboration between you and me. I create the space and the opportunity and present you with the tools and guidance, but doing the routine isn't where the benefit lies. That comes from how you apply what I bring to yourself. Become aware right now of the back of your body. Now become aware of the windows. Now become aware of something that happened to you yesterday. No becomes aware of me. Now think about what you might do later today. Now someone you love. Now something that irritated you. Now become aware of your feet. This is an example of your wild mental energy. Harness that energy to unlock the magic of this class. Don't harness it and it will pingpong randomly like we just demonstrated. During class set your focus on satisfying your needs moment to moment. Be aware of YES/NO sensations. Yes sensations are pleasure, comfort, enjoyment, peace, clarity... and NO sensations are pain, frustration, confusion, irritation,...  With your mind, choose what needs your attention and allow your movement to reflect that need. 

June 13 - The Base. Before we start I want to introduce you to "recapitulation". More than just remembering, it's the act of reliving, re-sensing and re-feeling a past experience. So as we stand here, spend a minute recapitulating everything you can recall about your day yesterday. Great. Recapitulating is a great tool for monitoring whether you are living up to your potential. You can measure your actions against your philosophy of what you believe to be true and important, and ask yourself what you could have done differently to better support yourself. There is nothing more important than knowing where you stand and making a conscious connection to what supports you - your foundation. In Nia we lay the foundation by setting a focus and intention in each class. Today we will focus on the base with the intention of using sensation in the base to know where we stand and being proud and confident asking for and receiving guidance for support.   The base is the pelvis, hips, thighs, knees, ankles and feet and is responsible mainly for steps, stances and kicks. Hips move by circling, titling, bumping and swaying. We use our hips to measure distance to the floor. Knees spring and stay open to foster a communication link between the hips and the feet. The ankles and feet contain 25% of all the bones in our entire body. This tells us that they're meant to do a lot of movement. Let your feet and ankles move freely and receive information from the feet about where you are on the floor. Seek comfort and stability in each stance. Focusing on the base is an opportunity to be here. Now. In our feet. In this moment. To allow ourselves to ask for help from whatever guides us spiritually. To be willing, proud, eager and confident in receiving that support, to trust that by slowing down our thoughts and simplifying everything down to communication with your base, you will be so free to enjoy life on this Beautiful Day. 

And on the Summer Solstice, June 20, we did the Woodstock Experience routine in the park. 

Here is the script for setting the focus of that class:

This is the Woodstock Experience. I chose it to kick off Nia in the Park because it was created to be enjoyed outside, or to at least pretend we were outside if we were not. The idea was to emulate the experience of attending the festival. In my dreams, I envisioned doing it outside, in the mud, with crowds of uninvited people joining in, and jokingly, I hoped we'd all be getting high and drunk and sunburned and dehydrated and pregnant. HAHA. But seriously, The playlist features all bands that were invited to attend the festival. And with the exception of the Moody Blues, who were invited and featured on the promotional posters, but backed out at the last minute due to a booking in Paris, all of the bands did play at the festival in 1969. Today is the Summer Solstice and Fathers Day. Yesterday was Juneteenth and last week was my birthday, so there is a celebratory spirit in the air. The focus is on FreeDance energy, which means "anything goes-movement wise". You may notice my choreography and join me, or you may connect to the music and move you body however you wish. Focus on the spirit of "Anything Goes, Movement Wise". The intent is to experience the Nia Promise. Nia promises a workout with creative expression, inspirational music and a community that is welcoming to all. It promises a practice of deep care and love for the human body based on the belief that every person can can bring deep meaning to their lives and to the world. And it promises sustainability in the body. So get  high on peace, Love yourself and each other, Dance to the music and celebrate the Woodstock Experience.