Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

People who are concerned with their health and longevity would do well for themselves to examine and be aware of how often their mouths are open.  It is more healthy to breathe through our nose.  The nose is a filter that prepares air for the body’s consumption.  The nasal hairs and the mucus therein serve as a trap for many of the impurities in the air before it reaches our lung tissues.  When this mucus accumulates enough soot, it will harden and flake off, creating boogers. If you’d ever examined how disgusting a booger is, you’d be grateful for them; they’ve prevented all of that filth from entering your lungs. Taking a breath through your mouth delivers completely unfiltered air directly into your lungs, leaving all of that impure and toxic soot for your sensitive lung tissue to deal with.  The nasal passage also serves to warm the air. The inside of our body is just under 99 degrees Fahrenheit.  Even a slight deviation from that precise temperature ca...

It’s been a while since I updated what’s been going on with my workouts. I’m still dealing with the repercussions of that one fateful day of ego. (Well... I guess I should clarify that. No, I’m not completely ego-free on the other days) But this one day, in January 2009, it was particularly strong. Apparently it was much stronger than my body, so to make a long story short, I wrecked my shoulder. If you’d like to catch up or read an interesting story of an injury, ... Here is a post I made just a few months after the incident Here is a post made ten months afterward, showing a big loss of size and symmetry.  This is the story of how I bounced back, rather than accept defeat So now It has been two years and two months since that day. And, as I have said, I’m still paying the price.  I don’t have pain anymore, which is great. And my range of motion is excellent. In fact, I actually have more flexibility on the right side now than I did before I injured it. This is partially d...

A couple months ago, I wrote about how I was interested in starting to play tennis . Someone saw that post and responded to it. So now today we’re playing tennis for the second time.  I was raised on tennis.  It was one of a few sports that my parents made sure I got a healthy diet of. Some of the others being soccer, softball and bowling. I played from my formative years all the way until my late teens, when I left the house, and the attached affiliation with the tennis club, to pursue my young, independent life.  One of the things that I didn’t appreciate about the sport was its strong emphasis on one side of the body. The right side, in my case. Serve, forehand, backhand, forehand, repeat. All on one side. Once I became aware of this, I was concerned about overdevelopment of one side over the other.   This is one of the main reasons I turned my back on all of the racquet sports in favor of others like wrestling and swimming, and why later in life I turned more tow...

Nia is an artful combination of three martial arts, three dance arts and three healing arts. Each of these contributing practices offers an important facet to the work of the Nia Technique.   T’ai Chi is one of the martial arts.  We call it the ‘Slow Dance’ and it offers quite a bit to what we know as Nia.  If you’ve been practicing Nia for a while, you may be surprised to learn what aspects of it come from T’ai Chi. In this playshop we’re going to explore the elements that T’ai Chi brings to Nia.  We’ll be mostly focused on the way that the concepts and practices of T’ai Chi helps to strengthen and support the knees and keep them safe from harm while we dance.  Once we embody the concepts of this playshop, our knees will be free to dance without fear.  T’ai Chi teaches us how to “Spring Load” our knees which unleashes all of the ease and power of the legs.  We’ll also take the opportunity to learn and practice some very specific self-massage technique...

FreeDance: The Celebration of Fools We have two different Playshops planned for April. On Friday night, April first, we’re celebrating April Fools Day with a Nia Dance Party. A Fool is a playful and silly person. So when you’re dancing to celebrate Fools, you really can’t do anything wrong. The same is true when it comes to Free Dance.  So what a perfect opportunity to celebrate the most foolish day of the year by dancing freely! Come and boogie a little, (or a lot!) We’ll explore more and less and big and small and fast and slow and so many different free dancing techniques that your dancing will expand exponentially. It will be inspired by Nia music and guided (loosely) by Jason, but it will be *your* exploration and totally free and totally foolish and totally fun. No expectations; just shenanigans.  Friday April 1, 6pm - 8pm   Gina Gibney Studios 890 Broadway, 5th Floor (@19th St.) $30 or attend both Playshops in April for $50.  with a Play-Pass. (S...

There seems to be a rumor going around that I’m leaving the Big Apple. Turning my back on New York City and returning to the green hills of Seattle. Well let me reassure that this is simply not the case.  I’m currently selling my apartment.  This is a long and drawn out process involving putting it on the market and waiting for offers to come in.  When offers do come in, we may negotiate back and forth a bit and then finally come to an agreement on price and terms, so then we’ll go into ‘escrow.’  Escrow is overseen by a disinterested third party. It’s a process where all the paperwork is put in order and all the I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed before the exchange of keys and money takes place.  It could take up to two months. So this is all way off in the future.   I mean, it was going to happen eventually. I never intended to settle down in New York. I was happy in Seattle. I really felt like I had found home when I lived there in the 90’s. But the oug...

This is the first appearance of a concept called Athletic Nia. This is meant to be an offshoot of traditional Nia for those who were athletically inclined or were familiar and confident enough with traditional Nia and wanted something more athletic. I consider this an advanced routine for many reasons. One is that the way it was presented shows very few Level 1 options. Many of the movements are plyometric in nature (jumping) and would need some modifying for someone who was less conditioned. That alone is a good reason to avoid the routine until having had some movement experience and are comfortable making your own adaptations without a lot of guidance. The routine requires a great attention to detail, especially because of the repetition of a very quick movement involving stepping on the back foot on the ball of the foot and on the whole forward foot. This quick shuffling-like motion has a lot of pitfalls that a beginning student/teacher may fall into. I have to consistent...