Terre Pruitt's Blog

In the realm of health, wellness, fitness, and the like, or whatever inspires me.

  • I teach yoga, Nia, and stretch online!

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Posts Tagged ‘life practice’

This Might Interest You

Posted by terrepruitt on March 5, 2018

I’ve been blogging for a long time. At least I think it is a long time. I know there are people out there who have been blogging for even longer, but to me nine years is a long time. In fact this month is my nine year anniversary to the blogging world. I started in March of 2009. Well, since I have been blogging so long and not all of you have been reading my blog that long, I thought I would point out some posts that you might be interested in. Keeping in mind the comments I have received and the conversations I have had with some of you. Also keeping in mind your blogs, here are a few posts that I thought I would point out in case any of you might be interested.

This is one about an amazing product that helps me with my bumps and bruises. Some of you may be interested.  The product is Zheng Gu Shui.

Foam Rollers are COOL! is a post about two stretches that you can do with a foam roller. Many of us need to stretch more often and many of us love it when we do. These are super easy ones some of you may like.

I teach Nia, you may have heard :-). One of the things I love about Nia is that a lot of our practices within the practice can be applied to life. Here is a post about Sustain, Increase, Tweak, we do it in Nia while dancing and it can easily be applied to our every day life.

I LOVE to watch birds taking a bath in our bird bath. We used to have blue jays that would come back every year to have their babies near by. One time I got a few photos of a baby taking a bath. Even though he may look big, he is a baby. The young ones usually look larger and fluffier than the adults. Pictures do not capture the joy this bird seemed to be experiencing! This post has is about a Baby Blue Jay Bath.

Hummingbirds’ beaks are not straws they suck through, they actually have really long tongues. You can see that in my Hummingbird Tongues post.

More for the bird lovers: Silhouettes

For the dog lovers: Honey, I Shrunk the Doberman Pinscher

The comments on this one are worth a read, Lyrics Gone Wrong. Too funny!

Some nice shots of a beach trip. Do you wanna see the ocean? Check out my post Santa Cruz, California

Ahh, this one I am posting just to remind myself . . . . I need a color for that! Color Me A Reminder

Ok, sorry, I have shared more than I was planning, because I want you to look at all of them, but ten might be too much. I might just have to do another post somewhere along the way to point out some of my old posts that might be of interest to you. And get them some love.

Thanks for taking a look.

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Anything Goes Is The Tagline For The First Stage Of FreeDance

Posted by terrepruitt on July 5, 2012

Nia is both a dance exercise and a life practice.  Kind of like yoga.  You can go to a class and get the exercise you want and have it end there or you can learn about its principles and take them into your life.  There are levels of the practice.  Nia has chosen to use a “belt” system as their levels.  Instead of just having numbers or names, they have assigned belt colors to the levels.  There are five levels; White Belt, Green Belt, Blue Belt, Brown Belt, and Black Belt.  The intensives to gain the belts can be taken and enjoyed by people who aren’t teaching. Each belt has 13 principles, except Green. Green does not have its own set of principles because green is the belt level that is actually designed specifically for teachers and helps them hone their teaching skills.  It delves into the 13 principles of the White Belt.  The White Belt’s principle #4 is FreeDance.  FreeDance as a practice has eight stages.  I have posted about eight through two.  This post is about stage one.  Stage #1 of Nia’s 4th White Belt Principle is Freedance – Anything Goes (movement wise).

While you are dancing any movement is great if it is authentic movement.  With Nia there is choreographed moves, but within the patterns of movement there is the ability to freedance.  Also with many routines there is sometimes just freedance where we are allowed to dance free to the music without any choreography.  Stage one:  Freedance, anything goes, allows us the greatest of freedoms.  You can dance using the wall, the mirror, a chair, the floor, or a ballet barre that might be in the room.  You can dance fast, slow, high, low, or in the middle.  Anything that you sense your body wants to do to the music.  It is up to you.

The idea with freedance is to just let the body go.  Don’t think about it.  When you think about it often comes the judgment.  Sometimes the judgment can interfere with movement, especially if it is judgment along the lines of, “Oh I must look silly doing this.”  “Oh that probably isn’t pretty.”  “Oh, I am not graceful enough to spin.”  “Oh, I need to do this or that.”  This is all inner dialog that clogs up the muscles and their movements.

Freedance also, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, in not club dancing.  We are NOT just bouncing or undulating to the beat, we are moving to the music.  We are moving our bodies towards as pleasurable sensation of health and well being.

Freedance is also not patterned dancing, we save the patterns for our choreographed movements.  Freedance is just free.  It is spinning twirling, diving and whirling.  It could be hopping or dropping.  It really is whatever your body does.

Freedance is not easy.  It takes practice.  It is not easy to just be on the floor and not think about how you are going to move and just let your body go.  It is a challenge.  But once you can stop thinking and talking in your head you will find yourself moving to the music.  Sometimes you might even notice that you are moving in a way that you didn’t think about and it is really amazing to have that sensation.  But don’t think too much, just keep moving.

I would like to invite and encourage you to make some space in your home or if you are so inclined find a space to dance outside . . . find a space turn on some music and just dance.  Let yourself go.  Let yourself be free.  Allow the time, space, frame of mind and spirit to freedance.  Remember, anything goes!

Wahoo!  I have to add that in the middle of typing this up I secured another class to sub for the City of San Jose.  So exciting to be able to share Nia through the city!  Yay!

Posted in FreeDance, Nia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »