I love the photos that they have in the Nia Technique book. And mine don’t compare, but, I don’t want to take everything from the book. I do want to add a bit of my own stuff. So I am trying to do my own pictures. I would like to continue to encourage people to buy the book though. It is a great book. (As I know you know because you said you have a couple of copies and they are “well loved”.)

I have experienced a lot of people that don’t know what the Releve is. It would be because I don’t know how to add that accent on it so they don’t realize what the word is. I don’t know. So I thought I would put it in a post to help. Of course a still photo of each portion of still might make it a challenge for people to know how to do it, but maybe now they have an idea. Oooo, maybe I should do a video too, so people can see that it is usually done rather quickly.

I am so glad that you mentioned inflexibility of your toes because a lot of people don’t even realize that your toes need to flex. Kind of like you are saying. And that is why Nia is so awesome because of our “barefootedness” which allows our feet to bend and flex. I think that because my foot looks like one limb (like an forearm) I forget that it is really made up of a bunch of bones and joints and then need to move and flex to be healthy. So barefeet is so great because a shoe is not holding my foot ridged and all the moves we do really get our feet moving and grooving and flexing and bending.

So now that you can execute a releve do you think your foot is more healthy?

Several years ago, I became aware that although I thought I was doing the releve properly, I was actually really missing the “end point” of it. I absolutely love the end photo you’ve provided, high onto the toes and the upper ball of the foot. When I used to do them, because it is a quick move usually (not a move that is held for any length of time normally) I would find myself more on the lower ball of the foot which would put pressure on my ankle and knee. I find many of my students do this, too.

And this may sound kind of weird, but when I first started taking Nia classes, I had no flexibility in my toes. One does not necessarily think of toes being flexible, but when I think back 9 years ago, I could not perform the end move shown in your photos. Now I Am able to do that effectively. Releves are so beautiful!

Thank you, as always, for your posts Terre.

Love,

Jill