@jdistraction I've seen too many tweets from you. I think I'm gonna have to put down the pom poms and put on the boots.1500's GREAT, but . . 14 hours ago
I am having some friends over tomorrow to do the Nia 5 Stages. So I better go clean my floor. 17 hours ago
@MVLainey I always think of you when I post a Spot pic because you are always so kind to look and comment. She is my baby! 17 hours ago
@MVLainey I know. There is NOTHING like the Bay Area weather. We are so blessed! 17 hours ago
There is always something Nia going on. Often times visting instructors will host a workshop or two. When they are in an area doing a workshop they often tack on a class or two so that even if you are not going to partake in the workshop you still can do Nia with them. It is a great way to other teachers from all over. This weekend there is a workshop that I am able to attend but I was able to go to the Nia class that was held the night before the workshop.
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It was an hour and a half class. Due to the huge amount of commute traffic from San Jose to Concord we missed the first 20 minutes, but we were able to jump right in and get a great workout in the time we had.
The visiting instructor was Winalee Zeeb. She has been doing Nia since 1991. She is a first degree Nia Black Belt, a Nia White Belt Trainer, and she has her own studio in Michigan called Heartdance.
The event is being held at The Big C Athletic Club. The class I went to was also at that location. I had a great time moving on carpeted thick padded floor. We moved fast and slow, and experienced fire and soul. It was a great workout. Always amazing me because it never feels like exercise. I am always amazed when the class ends. It was the first time I had the pleasure of meeting Winalee. She said we did a bit of Aya and a bit of Velvet. I am not sure what other routines were in there, but it was a great time.
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I often post events on my site so if you are interested in attending Nia workshops and events in my area check my site.
I was still trying to get in the swing of things when I decided to snap a few photos. I was planning on taking more, but since we had missed a few minutes already I didn’t want to take time standing around taking the pictures, but I snapped it and a couple more just to give you an idea.
Recently I posted a bit about Focus and Intent. One comment on that post was from someone who sets a daily intent, but hadn’t thought to carry the focus she has during her workout into her day. She brought up that during her morning Yoga she is able to focus on her shoulders but during the day she forgets.
Well, a lot of us might do that, not remember to carry our focus and intent into the day. There is so much going on it is easy to forget. So there is a little helpful reminder that Nia’s co-creator does. I heard her share it on one of the monthly teleconferences that Nia offers. She said when she wakes up she thinks of a color. I believe she indicated that the color presented itself or just came to her, as a thought. If that doesn’t necessarily happen for you, pick one. (I am amending this because the co-creator of Nia, Debbie Rosas, did say that she used a color for something, but it was not to assist her with the focus and intent. It was for something else . . . . I don’t want to bring up what it was for because that is a subject that requires another post entirely. I was reminded about picking a color in a Nia teleconference.) So . . . Here is a little something to help you remember, when you wake up . . . . .
Pick a color. Now what you do with that color is: throughout the day, when you see that color think of your focus and remember your intent.
So if your focus is to remember to keep your shoulders down and in their place (this is something I struggle with, that is why I bring it up) you can be reminded of it every time you see your chosen color. Doesn’t mean you have to stop what you are doing and examine yourself or rearrange yourself, it is just a gentle nudge. Green (for example) whispering, “shoulders”.
Or let’s say you’ve decided to drink more water. So every time you see the color that you decided upon for the day you take a sip of water (or drink a glass—whatever you set your intention to be).
You get the point? You can set your focus and intent on whatever you would like, by having chosen a color is a tool to help remind you of your focus and intent. Choosing a color can assist you in taking your focus and intent from your workout and/or from your exercise class into your day.
In a Nia workout class* there are seven cycles. The first cycle is setting your focus and intent. In my classes before we step in, cycle two, I state the focus and the intent of the class. Every once in awhile I do remind my students that they are welcome to set their own focus and intent, but there is always a class focus and intent.
Nia teachers are supplied with and can purchase routines. With our routines comes a focus and intent. We receive the routine DVD along with a pamphlet that explains what the routine’s original focus and intent was. Nia teachers are encouraged to change focuses and intents. In fact, in addition to the one main focus and intent, there is a list of optional foci and intents.
I was reminded on a Nia teleconference call recently, that a focus is what you give your attention to, in order to get a desired result. And not only can you have a focus and intent for the workout, but you can carry that focus and intent throughout the day.
As an example, let’s say the focus of the class is set on shoulders, with the intent of remembering to keep them down and not scrunch them up toward the ears. So during the entire Nia class, I will remind myself and the class that we are focusing on our shoulders. When we lift our arms to part the clouds we will be conscious of keep our shoulders down. When we swim as we do our side steps I might remind the class to keep a long graceful neck (which can be achieved by holding the shoulders down). Throughout the class with each movement we will be focusing on our shoulders which could assist in strengthening the muscles in our back and enable us to keep them down where they belong. Then after class the focus and intent can be carried out into the day.
If you find yourself holding your phone with your shoulder hunched up toward your ear you have the opportunity to stop, which would help you keep the intent. Since you have set your shoulders as a focus you would be more likely to notice. Or while you are on the computer you might notice your shoulders bunched up around your ears and you could be aware of that and choose to sit up straight and pull your shoulders down.
In class we move to music and sometimes students might be concerned that the first time they participate they cannot move their feet AND their arms, so I often set the focus as one or the other. I might set the focus on the upper extremities, with the intent to move them in a conscious manner connecting to the music. Then I remind them that as they concentrate on their hands and arms it is ok if their feet are not perfect. That sometimes helps people to move more freely and actually focus on the focus.
These are just examples of foci and intents. There are an endless number of foci and intents. These examples are body related, but you can, of course, make your focus anything to get the intent you desire. If you were setting a focus and intent for your workout, what would it be? What would it be if you were going to carry it from your workout into your day?
I teach my Nia classes in a studio in San Jose that is next to a pet store. The groomer that works there usually gets there before the shop is open so she sits outside in front waiting. Often she has a puppy or a dog that she has rescued and is trying to adopt out. She seems to be able to rescue them and it works out that she can find someone to adopt them pretty quick.
This time she had her own animals. I heard them yelping and realized they were puppies so I peeked out. Imagine my surprise when I saw a purple puppy with black patches. Her sister was black and pink. They were jumping and yelping and vying for attention. They were obviously cute little girls, but with their bright colors it made them even more adorable.
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Keep in mind these animals are puppies and you know how puppies are. It was a miracle that they were still long enough to get a shot, but having them be in a particular spot for correct lighting was not possible. In fact I don’t think the little one was still at all. I did not retouch the puppies, but I did blur some of the background.
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The sun was really bright when it was shining on the purple puppy. The sun almost washed out the purple. It definitely made her color seem less bright.
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But she was pretty purple. And her sister had a pink muzzle, chest, and pink feet.
It was really cute. They were really cute. Full of energy.
Since it is Halloween, I thought it would be cute to post pictures of Purple and Pink puppies!
On Wednesday, October 28, 2009, TechKaraoke SV and Silicon Valley Tweet-Up joined forces and held one major party at Rosie McCann’s in Santana Row near the heart San Jose. There was talking, dancing, drinking, eating, singing, laughing, networking, and all of it going on at a very high decibel.
Some great prizes were raffled off:
- a bluetooth headset (a Plantronics Discovery 975)
- a portable storage drive from Seagate
- a cookie basket filled with Halloween cookies from Cookies By Design
- Archos/Viliv Mobile Internet Device (MID) powered by the Intel Atom Processor
There was so much excitement about these prizes that I barely heard the numbers being called and I didn’t hear who won anY of the fabulous prizes. This even was also raising money for Anissa Lopez Foundation / George Mark Children’s House.
I met several people and connected with some people I have had the privilege of meeting before. I love tweetups because it shows that the internet’s social media network is really a social network. People coming together in real life after having met and communicated via the internet is really an amazing thing. This was the first SV Tweetup that I was able to attend because I didn’t have a class. I think I have missed the ones in the past because I was teaching. I knew I had been missing out, but now I truly understand what I was missing. I am hoping that it will workout that I am available for the next one because I really enjoyed myself at this one. Also, I believe I heard Michael announce it will be a book signing for Shel Israel, but then again, it was so loud I could have heard wrong. You will have to stay tuned to see . . . .
There were a lot of great costumes there, but this was my favorite!
I am not aware of how many DVDs there are in the Turbo Jam Library. I have the Five Workout Series, Cardio Party Mix 2, Cardio Party Mix 3, Fat Blaster, and Punch, Kick & Jam.
In this post I am going to give you a breakdown of the workout times for the “Learn & Burn” and the “20 Minute” (Workout). First let me say that I bought my DVDs a few years ago. Then, not long after I bought mine, a co-worker bought hers and while I think the workouts are the same hers were arranged differently. She had one DVD where I had two.
1) Learn & Burn
The DVD cover states the “Learn & Burn” portion of the DVD is “approx. 25 min.” It states that in the burn portion you will get a 15 minute workout. So that would be 10 minutes of her explaining the “Elite Eleven”. My computer timer shows the “Burn” portion starting at 12 minutes.
Now learning the moves might not be a cardio workout, but it would be a short toning workout if you are actually participating as Chalene Johnson suggests. Then when you get to the “burn” part the timer on the bottom* (something I LOVE about the Turbo DVDs) shows that there is 16 minutes and 54 seconds (16:54) to the “burn” portion.
There is about 4:40 minutes worth of warm-up.
Then there is 6:00 minutes worth of “Knees and Punches”.
Then there is about 4:50 minutes of “Kicks”.
Lastly there is about 40 seconds of cool down.
This is a great little start to learning Turbo Jam, I think. I think that it is one of those workouts that you can do when you want to move, but don’t want to go all out. And you can do it twice to make it about 30 minutes of movement.
2) 20 Minute Workout
Timer shows 19:18, but you start the workout at about 18:50.
You get about 3:25 of warm-up.
About 3:30 of “Upper Cuts & Punches”.
Then 4:00 of “Crosses and Kicks”.
Then you have your “Turbo” which is the anaerobic portion of the DVD. She says it is 1:30, but the timer shows 1:30 and the first 15 seconds is jumping rope while she talks. (About 1:15 of “Turbo”)
After the anaerobic portion there is a 25 second break. So remember that when you want to quit the Turbo portion, just power through it and then you will have a water break after. During the break keep moving, but you made it through the anaerobic part and the rest is a piece of cake.
The next part is 3:55 of “Recovery Dance Party”. Which is Turbo twists, jabs, crosses, knee lifts, punches and kicks.
Then the timer says 1:58 “Finesse / Cool Down”.
I have to say that watching this to get the break down as I type on my computer makes me want to get up and do it. I actually haven’t looked at this DVD for a long time. I seem to gravitate toward Cardio Party Mix 2. But in all of the ones I have, Chalene makes me laugh every time.
Do you have any Turbo Jam DVDs? If so, which ones? What is your favorite?
*The DVDs show a timer in the form of a “grow bar” at the bottom of the screen. It shows you the full time as a count down. As the video progresses through each section it indicates the time of each section.
P.S. Regarding the photos: It is really difficult to take a photo of a DVD cover because of the plastic. Without a flash it is blurry, with a flash you get the bright flash spot. So, these photos are not great, they’re just to let you know what the cover looks like.
There is no substitute for going to an exercise class. The energy and the camaraderie you get from BEING IN a class is uncomparable, but sometimes class schedules don’t mix with yours or you want to just get a quick workout in.
Like me recently, my husband and I were going to go see a play at the last minute at a little theater in downtown San Jose, but before we went I wanted to do a workout. I pulled out a few of my videos to see the “total workout time” and did a few quick calculations. I decided on Turbo Jam Cardio Party two. But it got me thinking about how I love Collage Video because they do a great job of breaking down the “total workout time” on a DVD.
Do you know what I am talking about? Has something like the following happened to you? You want an Aerobic workout DVD because you want to get your cardio done at home, you buy a DVD and that states it is a 60 minute workout. You put it in your machine and what it actuually turns out to be is 15 minutes of warm up and 15 minutes of cool down leaving you really with only 30 minutes of an aerobic workout. When you were expecting 60 minutes or at least 50 minutes and you only get 30, it doesn’t make for a satisfying purchase (or workout).
Unfortunately you can’t get Turbo Jam from Collage Video so you can’t see a breakdown of workout cycles of those DVDs, but Collage Video has hundreds of other DVDs. One way you can pick the DVD is by workout type: Aerobics, Muscle Toning, Both (Aerobics & Toning), Stretch/Yoga/Tai Chi, Pilates, Interval training, Dance, Kickboxing, Latin & Salsa, Bootcamp.
Collage, then gives a detailed breakdown of the total workout time, just as I had mentioned before. Which can be really helpful, when planning your workouts. If you want to get a combo DVD with Aerobics and toning it is good to know how much you will get of each. Here is an example.
The above shows you will get 4 minutes of warm-up, 37 minutes of floor aerobics, 11 minutes of standing toning, 6 minutes of toning, and 4 minutes of stretching. This allows you to plan both your purchases and your workouts better. You can see exactly how much time you will be spending on each cycle. I think that is very important.
If you are going to be able to make it to your favorite class, do you have a favorite workout DVD that you do instead?
Do you take advantage of the free song that they offer on iTunes. It is a weekly song, but I am not sure when they post it, if it is Monday or Sunday. I don’t always remember to get it, do you? I just now set my calendar to remind me.
I actually haven’t remember that often, I have less than 40 songs, but of those 40 I have six that I absolutely love and listen to over and over. There are more out of the 40 that I like but there are 6 that I think are worth mentioning. And they range across the board and I like them for various reasons. Here they are in no particular order:
Song: Artist:
Neo Violence The Tough Alliance
Mr. Hurricane Beast
Already Home Ha-Ash
Cheater, Cheater Joey & Rory
The Stoop Little Jackie
Wonderful Gary Go
I actually bought the entire Beast CD. It is very moving, I mean, for me, it makes me get up and dance. But not like bounce on your toes disco dance, more like pound-the-ground-get-up-get-down tribal dance or something.
I throw Neo Violence into my Nia routines because it has a very dicernible beat. Very catchy tune. Easy to dance, exercise, and workout too. (So is music from the Beast, but . . . the words might be a bit distracting in a Nia class.)
And the latest is Wonderful by Gary Go, kind of sounds like a lot artists out there now, but I love the words. “Say: ‘I am wonderful.’ You are a miracle.” “Don’t Stop to let it pass you by you gotta look yourself in the eye and say, I am wonderful!” “We are all miracles . . . .we are incredible.” Oh, I just love that!
So, what great find have you downloaded for free off of iTunes? Any you love? Any you would like to tell us about?
Everyone can pretty much go out there and look at all the videos that are posted regarding the Google Wave, but since I have a previous post regarding it, I thought I would add some additional information on my blog that I have since learned. Plus I will link to some of the videos that I have seen.
The first video created by EpipheoStudios.com is a great little explanation of what the wave is. The video is cute. It also sounds like a plea to get an invitation. (Which after watching the Google Wave Overview, I can’t really blame him for begging.)
The next video is from Google and it is almost 8 minutes, but if you watch it, it will have you going, “WHOOOOOAAAAA!”
Here I’ve typed up a summary in case you don’t want to watch the video, but I included a time stamp for each point in case you want to zap to it to see what it is about.
E-mail is 40 years old. Google is trying to “update it”. An e-mail sent is somewhat like a letter. If you send an e-mail to five people there are five copies of the “letter”. But a wave is a “hosted conversation”. There is only one copy and it is in one place. So when people comment on it the comments are stored on one wave and there are not multiple copies floating about. (Time stamp 0:30 of the Google video)
One use could be: You can open a wave to plan a party (Time stamp 0:58). Adding your contacts to the wave allows people to see and comment. You can add a gadget to use it as an invite to a party (Time stamp 1:47) and your invitees can RSVP in the wave. While in the wave you can click on your address which will pop a google map right into your wave (Time stamp 2:19).
After your party, everyone can drag and drop their pictures into the wave (Time stamp 2:39).
You can embed a wave into your blog (Time stamp 3:20)! In an embedded wave comments can be on the blog or the wave (Time stamp 3:35). (UI*)
There is a feature called “Playback” that allows you to see the wave in order of how it was created. So you can see comments added in order even if they were added after a new blip (comment). (Time stamp 4:35)
“Robots” can be added to a wave (Time stamp 5:06). You can tweet and see the people you follow from a wave using a “Robot” (Time stamp 5:25). The video says “Robots can be used to interface with other systems–anything with an API.” (Time stamp 6:41)
There is translation in a wave using Rosy the robot. You can type in English and your contact can receive it in his/her language. (Time stamp 6:49)
*UI = User Interface
Well, if you watched the video, I bet you can see some of the possibilites that the Google Wave has to offer. As the video begins the 80 minute video is mentioned so I am sure that you can imagine there are a lot of other things that wave can do. I will learn about them a little at a time. I am excited about the possibilites.
When I first heard about this I filed it away under “good for big companies”, but as I was watching the video I had some ideas on how I could use it to help grow my business and to help get the word out about Nia. Using the internet to market a local business is very different than using it to market a business where product is shipped or can be downloaded. So this would be a valuable tool . . . . . I can see that now. I am ready to catch the wave!
It really just might be the wave of the future. It is a real time communication tool. Right now it is preview mode – maybe what used to be called beta. You actually have to get an invitation from Google in order to have access to the preview.
Oh, don’t be all jealous, I didn’t get an invitation, I don’t actually have access. I can’t give you first hand screen shots or pictures (which you KNOW I love to do). All I can tell you is that I watched two of their videos and I saw it in action. (SOMEONE I know has it.) I didn’t get to play with it, and that is how I really learn, so bear with me when I try to give you a glimpse of the future wave that is about to wash over us . . . .
This is beyond e-mail and beyond chat. It is beyond whatever type of work sharing program that I have ever seen. It is cool . . . .I think . . . I still need to get my hands on it to see for myself, but the IDEA sounds cool. Well, more accurately, it seems very cool for work situations. I can see how this would have really been awesome when I had a corporate job, but I want to see how it works in the non-corporate-every-day-world.
What is it? Well, from what I understand, it is cloud computing*. The information is stored on a server that people (your contacts) have access to. So instead of e-mail that is downloaded to your computer and instead of web based e-mail which has to be sent and retrieved, it is a bit like chat. Real time. Except with this you can put videos, documents, maps, photos, and text in the “wave”. While you are typing your contact can see it. And, unlike, chat it is recorded, like a . . . .I am not sure what to call it because it can contain documents, videos, text, photos, and maps, so it is recorded like a record of the “meeting” that you had.
Because it is more than a conversation, because like I said (it warrants repeating) it can contain documents, videos, text, photos, and map it can’t really just be called a conversation or an e-mail.
So for example let’s say, you open a wave with a contact and you can start chatting. If you need to you can add a document or whatever. Then you realize that you should have included another contact so you add that person. Well, that person missed half the “conversation”, but . . . . (whoa!) he can go back and re-play it. And it will appear on his computer as it happened. He will see the first portion of the wave, all the way through to the last. If he misses something or wants to jump ahead, there is a scrub bar.
So it can be real time communication and collaboration or people can play it when they need to catch up. It is like an e-mail but organized so it actually makes sense. And to properly use it people could add their two cents into it right where they needed to, or add a document or a video or a photo right in the middle where it might actually make sense, and then there wouldn’t be that annoying forgetting to “reply to all” that we all have either done ourselves or been the non/recipient of.
Whew. It does so much and it is difficult to explain. When it was first explained to me, I was not having any of it. Then when I saw it in action I changed my mind. But I still want to try it as a “layman”, I am not corporate so I am not convinced it has its uses for those of use that don’t have jobs and “teams” to collaborate with.
I am way over my self-imposed work limit and I didn’t even get to tell you some of what I learned. Sigh . . . another blog perhaps.
*Cloud computing is the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources as a service over the Internet on a utility basis.
Terre Pruitt
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