I can’t believe it. I was just agreeing with a Nia friend via Facebook that the time in our Nia training went really fast when we thought it would be a long training. Sixteen weeks. We started in June and we are approaching our last meeting. It just proves to me that time really is relative. I don’t know what the last meeting will be like because the most recent meeting we just had was the introduction to the 13th and LAST Nia White Belt Principle – 2020. So we have been through all 13 principles. The last one is Nia White Belt P13 – Living What You Sense, with a tagline of Crafting With Sensation. A Sensory Study of Somatic Leadership.
Live what you sense through your body. As a top level example: if you sense you are cold, put on a jacket. 🙂 Somewhat basically what we do daily. Listen to the body and express yourself accordingly. And, actually a lot of us don’t do that. Some of us can’t do that for many reasons. One could be something as necessary as a job. Sadly sometimes we have to ignore our bodies to do our jobs. A person may not be able to go to the bathroom because of their job . . . if you are out in the field or can’t leave your post. A person many not be able to eat when they are hungry because they can’t eat on the job. So sadly, in our society, sometimes we have to repress our body’s communications with us. But hopefully when we are able we can listen to it.
This principle has three triads, the main one: Listen, Sense, Express and two others. P13 (t1) is Wait, Receive, Act so a drill down of the way we can respond to a body’s message from “taste, touch, listen, look, smell”. And P13 (t2) which I think can be applied to life and students of Nia, but has a big impact on Nia teachers as it is Listen, Dance, and Share. In between the Dance and Share corners is a little insert triad of Ask, Wait, Receive. So a Nia teacher is taught to dance what s/he senses. So we listen to the music and really dance to it. We are taught that the choreography is important. We are told that everything is crafted with science in mind, with the BMES and the FAMSS in mind, and with the choreography in mind so it is very important, but it is not as important as DANCING to the music. And so we are taught to “ask” our bodies what we sense, then we wait allowing us to receive and answer and THEN we share. So while we are dancing we might ask for some information and then notice that our hip is tight so we invite our students to sense THEIR OWN HIPS, by saying, “Everybody sense your hips . . ” , or our shoulders seem tense, so we can say, “Everybody sense your scapulae or your wings” or that our feet are light with a sense of ease and we may say, “Everybody sense the energy in your feet” . . . . We invite everyBODY to sense any number of things to help everybody to bring awareness to their body.
Also included in this portion of the book aligned with this principle are the 7 Cycles of Nia.
This is one of the principles that has changed, the core of it is the same, but it has changed to be more of an”anyone and everyone type of principle” instead of just being geared towards people who want to teach. Keep in mind this belt, the Nia White Belt is what needs to be taken in order to teach Nia, but not everyone that takes it goes onto teach Nia. It is NOT just for those that want to teach. So the principles have been morphed over the years to be more broad. There is a specific belt that may be taken for those that want to teach or are teaching, but it is not required only the white belt is required to teach Nia.
I want to again remind you and invite you to look into Nia further. Maybe buy the book – keeping in mind it is from 2004. Definitely take Nia classes.
As always, I am sure that as I keep learning I will keep sharing, so stayed tuned.
Terre Pruitt's Blog 