Terre Pruitt's Blog

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

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Posts Tagged ‘love’

Rain Chain

Posted by terrepruitt on May 28, 2021

I have always wanted a rain chain.  They are so cool, but you have to remove your drain/gutter.  And in order for them to actually be “cool” you have to be able to see them.  They are cool and beautiful and if you are not able to see them then they are not as fun.  This one is PERFECT!  It is shiny!  It is multicolored!  It is hearts!  But for us to use it like it is supposed to be used it would be in a spot we would never see.  So for now it is just hanging outside the window not doing a portion of it’s job (being a rain gutter) but being beautiful and something we look out that makes us smile – that is the bigger part of its job anyway.

Do you like rain gutters?  I hope you can enjoy this one that is my Friday Photo.

 

Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Green Love

Posted by terrepruitt on June 12, 2020

One of the silly pictures I have wanted to post. It makes me smile because these plastic beaded necklaces sat on our counter for months (I seem to remember) and we used to make them into different shapes. I really am feeling the need for more love in the world lately. I thought it would be a good time to post this. Not that posting a picture of plastic green hearts will actually GET more love out in the world, but . . . it will make me smile. Perhaps the bit of silliness will make you smile, too.

Green hearts for today’s Friday Photo.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia online, Zoom meetings, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, Nia Technique, Yin Yoga, stretch classes, online exercise, Zoom classes, virtual yoga, City of San Jose online exercise

What do you think?

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Dance Like Everyone Is Watching

Posted by terrepruitt on March 20, 2019

When I was younger there was a dance place to go to every night of the week, except Friday, there wasn’t a good place on Friday nights. I don’t remember why, but I do remember that every other night of the week there was a place to go. And we would go, every night, except Fridays. Specifically on Sundays – dollar drink night – it wasn’t a case of calling people up and making plans to GO. The only reason you would call someone about it was if you WEREN’T going, otherwise it was just assumed you would be there. There was a small group of us that would meet up. The other nights of the week, we would usually need to make plans, but the atmospheres of the places we went to were ones that you could show up by yourself and be fine. It was easy to dance, drink, mix, and mingle with people until the core group showed up. It was pretty much always the same people at the same places so even if you weren’t friends outside you were friends inside and it was fun. But even though that were the case there was still that fear of getting up on the dance floor and dancing. That fear that people were watching you, judging you, or whatever that fear is about. One time we were out one of my friends solved that problem for me for life, he said something like, “Yeah, they are all watching – not because there is something wrong or they are making fun of us, but they are watching because they want to be us! They are watching because we are so awesome.” And from that moment on, I didn’t care who was watching.

This life changing statement/attitude is a great thing to have when dancing Nia. It really allows you to realize that dancing is not about the people who are not on the dance floor, it is about you and your body. It helps make it easy to just forget about the people who may or may not be watching and really move your body.

I just don’t agree with this thing/saying, the one that says to do all these things as if no one is watching or hearing or as if you’ve never lived before. But . . . I get the basic sentiment, I just don’t agree.

Dance like everyone is watching, but don’t worry about them – who cares? Dance anyway.

Love as though you have learned how to love and make it wonderful – Every. Single. Time.

Sing as though the whole world can hear you and STILL wants to listen.

Live in a way that makes you happy.

That is what I say . . . . today anyway.

How do you feel about the saying?

 

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit, City of San Jose Exercise Classes, Cambrian Yoga & Cardio Dance, CYCD

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Timing Of Love

Posted by terrepruitt on February 11, 2019

I was recently watching a TV show where one of the characters told another, “I wonder what would have happened if I met you later?” He went on to say that had it been five years later and they passed on the street would they have looked at each other and known. He was surmising that had they met later HE would have fallen in love with her and been ready to settle down and not practically leave her at the altar. Just like when people say, “I wish I would have met you sooner.” With that sweet sentiment they are usually saying that they wished they would have met sooner so they could have been together longer. But I don’t believe either of those ideas. I think that in both cases if the meeting would have happened at different times then they would not have fallen in love.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit, City of San Jose Exercise Classes, Cambrian Yoga & Cardio Dance, CYCDIn the case of the TV show, he literally fell in love with her (in my opinion) because of what she was doing. Had it been five years later she would have not been doing that. He fell hard when she was lovingly caring for his siblings. He decided to marry her when someone died. Had it been five years later those situations would not have been occurring and he wouldn’t have fallen in love. I believe she would have been an entirely different person. He would have too, so I think that they wouldn’t have fallen in love.

The same with the idea of meeting earlier. The person that would have been encountered years earlier is not the person you met and fell in love with. In general, I believe that people fall in love with a person as they are and in the circumstances they are currently in so they might not have been the same years earlier and they might not be the same years later.

Now I know this is all a generalization (as I said) . . . there are plenty of people who fall in love and then for a multitude of reasons never get together or don’t stay together only to get together or back together years later when they meet up and their circumstances have changed. Love is just a crazy amazing thing. Ya never really know.

This thought was just a Monday musing because of what I saw on a TV show.

What are your thoughts about the timing of love?

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Random “Love” Sightings

Posted by terrepruitt on January 20, 2017

I saw this on a chair at the community center in San Jose where I teach Nia.  I thought it was cute.  I figured I would post it later to Facebook and never got around to it.  I saved it on my phone and whenever I saw it, it made me smile.  So I thought I could post it and it would make you smile.

A random heart for a Friday Photo.

 

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit

Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Fourth Of July 2015

Posted by terrepruitt on July 4, 2015

I hope, for those of you that celebrate, you had a very wonderful and safe Fourth of July.  I have been a bit preoccupied with family things.  So I forgot about Thursday’s post as well as today’s post.  But, it is good stuff, additions not subtractions.  Saving lives, not losing lives.  Remembering those that we were honored and blessed to have as part of our lives.  Sharing the love we are bursting with.  Sharing what we work hard for and the blessings we have.  Just brace yourself because this might turn into a blog about cats.

There were cats, friends, food, fireworks, and lots of love.  I give a shout out to my hubby who helped make it all happen and sacrificed his desires because of my needs.  The cats came home to a comfortable and clean space which took me a bit to achieve.  But they are home.

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for understanding.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia at the San Jose Community Centers, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex City of San Jose, San Jose Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, PiYo, Nia Technique

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia at the San Jose Community Centers, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex City of San Jose, San Jose Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, PiYo, Nia Technique

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia at the San Jose Community Centers, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex City of San Jose, San Jose Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, PiYo, Nia Technique

Posted in Cats, Teagan and Nessa | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

I Wanna Grab The Beauty In The World

Posted by terrepruitt on December 27, 2014

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex City of San Jose, San Jose Group Ex classes, YMCATime with the family.  Time with friends.  I hope that you were able to enjoy Christmas no matter what.  There is such good energy around this time of year.  I just like to soak it all up.  Some people take this time to reflect on the sadness that has occurred throughout the year, but to me this is the time of the year to forget all that.  This is the time of year where there is so much joy I don’t want to dwell on the stuff that has happened that might be sad.  I want to take advantage of the sparkle and shine.  There is soooooo much good stuff going on, I want to grab onto it and fly.  It is like a butterfly that is flying by . . . I could sit there and put my head down and think about loss or I could stop and watch it. I can enjoy IT while it is here.  I can see the beauty and live in the moment.  There is always time for sadness and sorrow, but the world is not always so excited, so I want to be right there in THAT fun stuff.

I had some time this weekend to watch one of those old shows on Netflix.  It is one of those comedies that I can only watch for a few minutes at a time because the main character is so annoyingly dumb and causes all of her problems (why yes, that is how comedies are made).  So I usually watch about 10 minutes at a time.  But this weekend the main TV was playing movies I didn’t care to watch so I took my little device and watched my show.  It was the last few episodes.  It is soooo much better when a show has actually ended and they get to wrap it all up.  They did a good job.  This show, regardless (or irregardless — ha, ha, ha, totally a joke on the show!) of its stupidity, often made me laugh and cry.  They did a good job wrapping it all up.

The ending song though really grabbed me! I found myself thinking . . . . .”Snap!  I had to watch this entire series to get to this AWESOME song!”  Then I immediately went to iTunes to buy it, but I can’t because I am having issues . . . happens often . . . oh well, I can get it resolved, just not right now.  I will focus on this song . . . on the happy ending of the series I just watched (Ugly Betty) and of the wonderful Christmastime I had with my family, on how lucky I am.

Update 01.05.15: my original post consisted of lyrics I copied and pasted from a website.  I have edited this post to reflect the words that I hear in the version of the song I have.  (My hubby got my computer working and I was able to purchase it from iTunes!  Not much different, but with at least two lines I like what I hear better.)  Not sure about the “I know it’s fact is true now” line.

“Beauty In The World”  Macy Gray

I know you’re fed up
Like a lead up for us  Life don’t let up for us
All they talk about is
What is going down?
What’s been messed up for us?
When I look around I see blue skies
I see butterflies for us

Listen to the sound and lose it
Its sweet music and dance with me In sweet music and dance with me
‘Cuz there is beauty in the world
So much beauty in the world
Always beauty in the world
So much beauty in the world
So, shake your booty boys and girls for the beauty in the world
Pick your diamond pick your pearl there is beauty in the world
All together now

We need more lovin’
We need more money, they say
Change is gonna come
Like the weather
They say forever
They say
When they’re in between So, Baby, in between
Notice the blue skies
Notice the butterflies
Notice me

Stop and smell the flowers
And lose it the sweet music and dance with me And lose it in sweet music and dance with me
‘Cuz there is beauty in the world
So much beauty in the world
Always beauty in the world
There is beauty in the world
So, shake your booty boys and girls, yeah, beauty in the world
Pick your diamond pick your pearl ‘cuz there is beauty in the world
All together now

Heya throw your hands up and holla, “Heya!”
Throw your hands up and holla
When you don’t know what to do
Don’t know if you’ll make it through
Remember god is giving you beauty in the world Remember God, He’s given you beauty in the world
So love (Beauty in the world)
Yeah love (Beauty in the world)

There is beauty in the world (Beauty in the world)
Beauty in the world (Beauty in the world)
So, shake your booty (Boys and Girls)
All the beauty in the world (Beauty in the world)
Pick your diamond pick your pearl (Pick your pearl)
There is beauty in the world (Beauty in the world)
All together now
Yeah love
Yeah love
Oh love
All together now

Hey baby when I’m looking at you now
I know it’s fact is true now
There is hope for love There’s love, there’s hope for us and
There is beauty in the world
Hey baby
Hey baby when I’m looking at you
I know this vibe is true I know it’s fact is true now
There’s love
There’s hope for love there’s hope for us and
There’s beauty in the world

I am just so blown away that I am just hearing this song.  Believe me, if I could have downloaded it, I would be dancing to it RIGHT NOW!!!  I hope you had a great time this over this Holiday.  There is only one more regularly scheduled day to post this year for me.  I hope you will come back for my final post!  I promise nothing except that I will do one.  Thank you for being here.

How was your Christmas?  Or, if you don’t celebrate, how was your Thursday?

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

Act As If – Pretend – Fake It; Stage 3 of Nia White Belt Principle #4

Posted by terrepruitt on March 10, 2012

I have posted about Nia FreeDance before.  Nia FreeDance is meant to encourage creativity.  In Nia routines sometimes we have entire songs that are FreeDance.  Not all routines have an entire FreeDance song, but all routines have at least one part as FreeDance.  The one part could be that our feet have choreography and our arms and hands are free to move.  The creativity is released.  As the 4th Principle of the Nia White Belt it can also be used as a tool to help a Nia teacher learn a routine and/or explore his or her practice.  The principle has 8 stages.  The third stage of FreeDance is Feelings and Emotions with a catch phrase of: Pretend, Fake It, Act As If.  This is the stage where you pick an emotion and you act it out.  This is not the same as stage 4 where you draw on the real you and you act out a story you have experienced, this stage is pretend.

The idea of stage 3 of Nia FreeDance is to pick an emotion, a feeling and then act it out.  Pretend you are feeling that emotion at that moment.  This would be practice or play outside of a class setting where you are doing a routine.  So when using this tool as a way to grow and create you aren’t even expected to dance.  The exercise is to pick an emotion act it out for a bit, then pick another emotion.  Acting and explaining the feeling with your body in an exaggerated way.  If it helps create a story in order to fake that emotion.  It can be somewhat fun because normally when you are angry you probably would not throw yourself down on the floor and kick and scream, but when we are pretending to be angry and acting “as if” you can.  You can throw an angry punch.  You can run and jump for joy.  You can do anything you would like and since it probably wouldn’t be something you would be “allowed” to do in society it tends to spur creativity.  And this creativity gets your body moving in news ways.  It gets your heart pumping.  It gets your blood moving.  It gets your joints juicy.

I used this stage not too long ago as the focus of a few of my Nia Classes and it turned out to be very interesting.  So within the class setting we actually danced our pretend feelings and emotions.  We continued on with the routine we were doing at the time, but we added our “act as if”.  So it altered our movements a bit.  We allowed ourselves to follow the emotion so as we were dancing steps and hand movements might have been changed, but we still danced.  As I said it was interesting because my class did not want to act the “negative emotions”.  Some had a difficult time with some of the ones we deem as “negative” or ones that go against one’s normal self.  We danced:  keeping a secret, letting a secret go, happy, loopy, light, jealous, worry, love, angry, masculine, annoyed, bashful, brave, calm, childlike, guilty, fearless, and more.   We tend to assign negative and positive, but they just are . . .I think that we can look at an emotion and or a feeling and it can be neither, but as we live with it it could become one or the other.  If we let it affect us in a negative way, then maybe it can be perceived as a negative emotion?

The Embody and Share portion of the Nia White Belt Manual states: “Emotions are energetic responses to our experiences. We must learn to deal with our emotions to keep ourselves free and unblocked.”  So my thought process is, that if an emotion “blocks” us or causes us stress then we consider it negative.

People didn’t like the emotions they felt were negative. There was a tendency to not pick them from the list I had displayed.  But I think they are good for exploring movement.  So it’s fun to play with them all.  Remembering it is pretend, we are faking being (whatever the emotion is that we chose), we are pretending.

Well, what do you think?  I invite you to make a list of emotions and feelings, then put on some music.  Pick an emotion/feeling from your list and move to it.  Stay with it until you are ready to move on and then pick another one from your list.  Do this for a few songs.  You might be surprised at your movements.  You will probably be able to create ways to move that you didn’t realize.  When you are not thinking of your movements it allows your body to release and —- ahhhh! —- movement creativity.  Go ahead, you can do it.  Let us know how it goes!

Posted in FreeDance, Nia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Looking for . . . .Love, Purple Puppies, Marilyn Monroe

Posted by terrepruitt on October 6, 2011

Funny, I was about to type that I post mostly about Nia since I am primarily focused on teaching Nia, but right now I looked at my Categories and I have 111 post under Nia and 111 post under Misc. Funny. This post will fall under Misc.  This post is about some of the search terms I see. Sometimes I see people using a question as a search term. I always wish I could contact that person via e-mail to answer their question. I have thought about posting replies, but I haven’t done that. I am often surprised and sometimes shocked at some of the things people search for. I am laughing right now at the most popular search term since I have been blogging. It is funny because WHO thinks of these things? Why would anyone actually be searching for it? I am actually very happy — now that I think about it — that I posted about it because apparently people want to know. Do you? Have you ever wondered about a puppy that is purple? Seriously “purple puppy” is the biggest search on my blog. Hilarious, don’t you think?

dance exercise, Nia classes, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia teacherIt is especially funny since I just happened upon the purple puppy and her pink sister and I thought it was so oddly cute that I decided to post about it  Makes me laugh that other people are curious about purple puppies. Makes me wonder why people are curious about purple puppies.

The next biggest search term is relevé. See, that makes sense to me. I under stand people wanting to know what it is or how to do it. Or just wanting more information about it. There are people who dance that might have heard that term but not being a ballerina, might not know what it is. Or someone wanting to be a ballerina might want some hints and tricks. That one makes sense to me.

The next one is Voss Water. I am somewhat surprised that Voss water isn’t higher on the list. Seems as if for a long time I had been seeing that come up again and again and again. But it is number three.

Number four is Carlos AyaRosas. That is nice. Carlos is the co-creator of Nia. His name was Carlos Rosas, but near the end of his career with Nia he changed it to Carlos AyaRosas. I love that people are searching for information on him. I imagine they are people who love Nia and they are wondering where he is and how he is doing. I believe he is in Texas with his new wife. And I have faith they are doing wonderfully.

I am not sure about you, but I was surprised by number five. Are you ready? Purple puppies. Plural. So not only do people search for purple puppY, they search for purple puppIES. I wonder what they want to know? I wonder if my post gives them any information they want to know. As I scroll through the entire list of search terms I see even more searches for the purple puppies just phrased differently.

The next popular search is optical illusion. That one is big. I see that one comes up a lot with the plural version search and all of the elements of the optical illusion; horses, babies, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein. Funny. That post gets a lot of hits. I can understand that, who doesn’t love an optical illusion. They are so cool. Tricks of the eyes and brain.

Well, I was just looking at the search terms and they often make me laugh, although today there were not any funny searches, but I think the next time there are I will write a post. Maybe you can help me figure out what some of them mean. Or maybe we can just have a chuckle. I am still laughing about the purple puppies.

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

The Difference Project

Posted by terrepruitt on August 19, 2010

As a Nia teacher I am entitled to listen in on a monthly Nia Teacher Continuing Education call.   These teleconference calls are included in the cost of licensing.  So I am familiar with teleconference calls and that they have value.  I received an e-mail from “The Difference” and it was an invitation to listen in on a teleconference call.  The calls were happening at times that I was unavailable so I was unable to listen in on the live call.  But they recorded the calls and sent out an e-mail instructing us how to listen to the call.

This is a service.  Regardless of how you feel about teleconference calls, you have to know that people sign up for them and pay money to listen.  You have to know that all types of information is distributed this way.  Regardless of whether you would have paid for a call that has to do with ‘Re-energise & Fall In Love All Over Again’, you have to know that others would.  So The Difference provided a type of service.

I was not told that I could not share the information, but I don’t want to get involved in possibly disclosing something I shouldn’t have so I am not going to get into specifics.  I am certainly not going to spend my time contacting “The Difference” to see what I can disclose.  My purpose for this post is to continue the conversation about “The Difference”.  So many people are saying it is a scam and I am not ready to conclude that.  I have no proof that it is.  This is me sharing that they are doing “SOMETHING”. They offered a call that might not have value to all, but it does have value.

This phone call goes along with my original assessment that being involved as a paying collaborator on The Difference is a type of “self-improvement”/”self-help” thing.  In the call Jacqueline Bignell the Founder of The Difference™ interviewed two Australian Difference Makers.  One was Heather Yelland (her claim per her website: “Australia’s leading female personal development and mindset specialist”) and the other was Lisa Ippolito, a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner.

They brought up the main point of loving oneself will assist in the enabling of loving fully and of attracting love back.  It is not a new concept and more and more people are starting to talk about it.  I just read a post today that was about the very same thing.   The blog was saying that is what he saw in the movie  “Eat, Pray, Love”.  That Elizabeth Gilbert the author of the book came to that realization.  Funny how all of this connected in one day.  This type of thinking is what Jacqueline is trying to promote with her project The Difference.

The conference call that they did is just an example of what they are doing to help this “opening of your heart” type of thinking along.  Again, they are doing something, they are providing something of value.  I didn’t even become a collaborator and I still got something out of it.

Posted in Just stuff | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »