Terre Pruitt's Blog

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Posts Tagged ‘Nia continued education’

DVDs Nia Teachers Learn From

Posted by terrepruitt on May 30, 2013

Nia Technique’s Outstanding Routine DVDs (Part 2)

Three years ago I posted about Nia Routines and I stated in that post that I would describe what the training DVD is like.  Here I am with that information.  Also, I want to share about the whole routine teacher training package that a Nia teacher receives.  It is turning out to be three (sort of four) posts long.  This is the second post.  That is how much we get in our Nia continued education Routine Teacher Training package.  I am just sharing briefly about it.  These posts are to give you an idea of what you would receive.  As a reminder you receive a CD, DVD, and pamphlet.  The CD and DVD are shipped to you and the pamphlet you can view online, save to your computer, and/or print.

The DVD consists of the Focus, Move the Move, Learn the Move, Energize the Move, and the Music.  In post one I talked about the Focus and the Move the Move section.  Here you’ll learn a bit about Learn the Move, Energize the Move, and the music.

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, ZumbaIn the Learn the Move section they explain the move.  The way they did this morphed over the years.  I have some DVDs where they stood facing the camera and talked about the moves.  Showing you the move and going into detail about each move.  I also have some DVDs where the teacher is just dubbed over the actual class as shown in the Move the Move portion.  So you are seeing the same thing over again and the creator is talking about the moves as the routine plays.  The explanation includes both the physical description and little tips.  Sometimes they might explain alternatives even if they have not done them in the Move the Move portion of the DVD.  They also sometimes explain why we are doing a move.  “‘Holding a ball’ allows a body to move systemically, connecting the upper body with the lower body.” This portion at times can help with figuring out how to do a move if it is a little challenging to you or your students.

With Energize the Move the creator explains the energy involved.  For example “the energy at this part of the routine is meant to be focused and very intentional.”  And, “the energy of connecting to your body and space around.”  This section can help provide pearls and additional verbiage that you can use to get your class moving.

The last section of the DVD is the Move the Move with just the music.  There is no teacher instruction.  This is where you do the Nia Class without being told what to do.  You get to watch and just listen to the music.

The music portion of the DVD always makes me remember I have always wanted an option in the Move the Move portion to be able to turn up the music.  I have an exercise DVD (Turbo Jam) where you can “pump up” the music.  You can still here Chalene Johnson giving you instructions but you can make the music much louder.  I think it would be of great help to me if I could turn the music up on my Nia Routine DVDs but still listen to the teacher talking.  I have yet to suggest that to Nia HQ.  It would really be nice for me to hear the music louder so I could practice my listening to the cues, yet still get the benefit of the instruction.  I’ve tried to time the music say from my iPod to the DVD so I COULD turn up the music myself, but I can never get it synchronized.  🙂

In my post Continuing Education – Nia White Belt Principle #12, I talk about the three stages of learning a routine.  I mention there are steps in each stage.  The Learn the Move and Energize the Move are couple of the additional steps.  Watching and learning the information contained in each of these sections of the DVD can be very beneficial to leading a routine.

In my next post I share some information about the pamphlets and you’ll see how there is even MORE information to learn!

Are you getting a clearer picture of what is contained in a Nia Teacher’s Routine DVD?  Can you somewhat understand that there is a lot of good information?

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Nia Technique’s Outstanding Routine DVDs

Posted by terrepruitt on May 28, 2013

In my post about Nia Routines in February of 2010, I stated I would explain more about what we receive on a Nia Routine Teacher DVD.  A comment with questions on a recent post (Nia Routines I’ve Learned), reminded me that I needed to do that.  Over three years later, I am explaining what we get. I also wanted to share what is in the Nia Training/Continued Education package as a whole.  We get a LOT.  It is more than just music and routine.  The amount of time and effort and all that goes into our training DVD/package is awesome.  I know that even though I see the results and I think it is a lot, there is probably so much more that goes on in the background I would be even more impressed.  Since we get so much I am finding as I type this that it is a longer explanation than I like to have in one post.  So this will be part one of what is in a Nia Routine Teacher Training package.  When a Nia Teacher receives a “Nia Routine” there is a CD and a DVD.  We used to receive a pamphlet within the package, but now we have to print those out ourselves if we want a hard copy.  But basically a training routine package is CD, DVD, and pamphlet.

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, ZumbaThe CD and DVD are in a cardboard holder, one side has the list of songs with the 8BC and the time shown.  The other side has the Focus and Intent that the routine was created with.  The back of the holder states the name of the routine and the creator, along with a paragraph about Nia Technique’s thoughts on routines.

The CD is a typical music CD.  It has music on it.  But as a Nia Teacher or student you know there is nothing really typical about Nia routine music.  🙂  The songs play one after the other with no pause unless the song itself has a pause before the music begins or after the song ends.  Or I guess the engineer putting the CD together could put a pause in.

The DVD consists of five sections: the Focus, Move the Move, Learn the Move, Energize the Move, and the Music.  The “Focus” portion of the DVD is the creator (or one of them) talking about the focus and the intent of the routine.  Often times they explain a bit about how the focus relates to the choreography.  For example if the focus is “Steps and Stances” it might be mentioned that there are a lot of opportunities in the routine to experience all six stances.

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“Move the Move” is the routine filmed almost as if you were taking a class.  Sometimes they change the camera angle, but it is still basically as if you are taking a class.*  The music is playing and the teacher is teaching.  *There is one routine I have in which it was filmed with the class FACING the camera the entire time.  I do not care for that at all.  I like it when the camera is BEHIND the teacher with the mirror in the shot and it is as if I am standing behind the teacher taking a Nia class.  I don’t know if there are other routines in addition to Birth that is filmed with the teachers and the class facing the camera, but I will inquire before I purchase additional routines.

Often times in addition to the teacher demonstrating different LEVELS of a move, they will demonstrate a lot of different moves that CAN be done while doing the routine.  I always have to remind myself that just because they are showing us multiple ways to do the move or multiple ways in general to move to the music it does not mean I need to put them all into the routine when I am leading it.  They are just showing examples as to what can be done.  I find it very funny that a lot of the times Carlos was not even doing what he explained the choreography to be.  To me, he often just let his spirit go and he danced to the music that he clearly loved.  In his spirit dance he was able to show a lot of different things that could be done to the music.

As you can see this post is a bit long in itself.  I have only touched upon two of the sections included on the training DVD.  So stayed tuned for part two where I give a brief summary of the sections: Learn the Move, Energize the Move, and the Music.

Do you like to take lead follow exercise workout classes where the teacher is facing you?  Or would you rather have the teacher’s back to you?

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

Fascia a Fascinating Structure

Posted by terrepruitt on May 8, 2012

After teaching Nia a couple of weeks ago I realized I had a knot in my back.  It was one of those things that felt fine while I was moving.  So in my Nia class I didn’t notice it.  When I was moving about the house I didn’t notice.  When I stopped moving is when it starting hurting.  It was one of those body issues that is so uncomfortable it is painful.  I mean no matter which position I sat in, stood in, lied in, it was there.  It was painfully annoying.  I believe I tend to hold my stress there.  I have posted about this “spot” before.  I tried using a ball to rub it out.  I asked my husband to massage it.  Both helped but it came back the next day.  It even kept me awake the next morning.  I just wanted a few more minutes of sleep but my muscle was saying, no.

I had noticed when my husband was trying to work out the knot I had the strangest sensation.  The spot of the pain was right beneath my shoulder blade but when he was pressing on it a tingling poking kind of sensation travelled up my entire shoulder blade.  I thought that was very odd.  I thought the muscle must contain a lot of nerves that run along the scapula.  I thought it was odd that I had this disbursing sensation over my shoulder blade.

That was over the weekend and after Nia class on Monday one of my Nia students, a physical therapist, said she would look at it.  She found the knot – as it was easy to feel and she began working on it.  She said it was fascia!  Ahhhhh!  That explains why when my husband was trying to rub it out think it was a knot in the muscle I was sensing it all over my shoulder blade.  (Wiki:  “A fascia is a structure of connective tissue that surrounds muscles, groups of muscles, blood vessels, and nerves, binding some structures together, while permitting others to slide smoothly over each other.”)  She pressed on both ends of it and was able to work it out.  The next day it was sore, but I used the ball and it has been fine since.  Fascia is fascinating.  Fascia is the yellow stuff that is sometime still connected to chicken breast.  And I am sure if you work with whole chickens you can see it too.

Here is a video about “fuzzy” fascia. Below the video on YouTube, Gil Hedley has noted that since the video was made in 2005 he has somewhat changed his ideas a little bit.  But the video itself is still fascinating as it shows you the fascia in the body.

WARNING this video is of a cadaver.  Mr. Hedley is using it to show what fascia is. He stated in his updated write up “ . . . it is normal for there to be “fuzzy” tissue between “individual muscles” within the muscle layer. As with all tissues of the body, all the matter of which it consists is transitioning at various paces, some quicker, some more slowly. “Fuzzy” tissues indeed cycle more quickly then some more dense tissues.”


As we know it is not just keeping our fascia mobile as the reason for moving, but it is interesting to see another part of our bodies that benefit from movement.  I knew about fascia before discovering Nia, but I was introduced to Gil Hedley via Nia.  Nia often makes the scientific connections in our continued education.  There is a lot of continuing education material that deal with anatomy.  Moving our fascia is just one reason why we dance.

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »