Posted by terrepruitt on September 14, 2010
Presently I live in San Jose and teach Nia Classes in San Jose. I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area all my life. When I was growing up I used to tell people I lived in Santa Clara and they had no idea where that was. So I would say, “San Jose?” and if I still received that look then I would say “San Francisco?” and most of the time I would then see a spark of recognition.
When the dot com boom happened that kind of helped put “Silicon Valley” on the map and is comprised of a few places most notable cities are Cupertino, Santa Clara, San Jose, and Mountain View. A lot more people had heard of Santa Clara and San Jose after that. We weren’t known only in the shadow of San Francisco any longer. It was nice to not have to go through the entire San Francisco Bay Area to explain where I lived.
Now I find myself in that same exact “place” with Nia. I tell people I teach Nia and I get a look back. Most have not hear of it. So we go through the, “Is it like Zumba?” and I want to say:
Yes, Nia is EXACTLY LIKE Zumba: we get a workout via dance,we exercise to music, we sweat, we have fun, we work our muscles, we shimmy, shake, and gyrate, oh, except we do it in bare feet, to a variety of music, participants are encouraged to do it as their bodies allow, and there is a body-mind connection.
But most often say: It is sort of like a Zumba class and sort of like a Jazzercise class in that we move to music. Nia is a cardio workout with no impact. It is fun and unique because Nia incorporates moves and concepts from nine different movement forms a few being Tai Chi, Jazz Dance, and Yoga.
When they hear that, then they ask, “So it is Yoga?” 🙂
I was just reminded of the explaining-where-I-lived portion of my childhood when I was with a group of Nia Teachers recently. Made me laugh when I thought about the going through the same type of thing when talking about Nia. Yay, at least I am in a familiar place. 😮
Posted in Nia | Tagged: cardio workout, Dance Workout, exercise class, Jazzercise, Jazzercise class, Nia Cupertino, Nia in San Jose, Nia Mountain View, Nia San Jose, Nia Santa Clara, San Francisco Bay Area Nia Classes, San Francisco classes, San Jose classes, San Jose Nia classes, San Jose Yoga, San Jose Zumba classes, Santa Clara Classes, Silicon Valley, Tai Chi, work out class, workout class, workout class San Jose, Yoga San Jose, Zumba class, Zumba classes, Zumba in San Jose | 10 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 24, 2009
My husband and I live in San Jose. We are pretty close to Santa Cruz, I think. It is about 45 minutes away. But usually it takes longer than that to get there due to traffic. We don’t go there often.
Yesterday I went “over the hill”, we call it because we have to go over the hills to get out of the Santa Clara Valley/Silicon Valley to the ocean side.
While there, I thought, I don’t come here enough. This is beautiful. And I took a few shots, thinking I would share 
them with you. Then I was thinking I should write something to post. But then I was invited to coffee today, when I “should have” been writing my blog, I was having coffee. When I accepted the invitation I had a feeling that going to coffee was where I needed to be and posting the pictures of Santa Cruz was what I would end up doing.
Well, it turned out that I was at coffee for three hours. I had been correct. I needed to be on that coffee date making a connection with someone. And these pictures are beautiful and they really should be shared. Because California is beautiful. Santa Cruz is awesome. Yesterday was the most gorgeous day there.
The pictures are beautiful not because of the skill of the photographer, but because of the skill of the maker—-no one could have taken a bad picture of yesterday’s masterpiece. It has worked out as it should. I have been studying the Nia 5 Stages, it is a “self-healing” movement practice. I took a break from it with friends and wow—the break was another way of self healing. Friends, the ocean, coffee, conversation, an exercise in listening, it is all very healing!
Is there something you do for you that is self-healing?
Posted in Nia | Tagged: california, healing, Nia, Nia 5 Stages, Nia exercise, Nia San Jose, Nia Santa Clara, Nia self-healing, Nia workout, ocean, San Jose, San Jose exercise, San Jose Nia, San Jose Workout, Santa Clara, Santa Clara exercise, Santa Clara Nia, Santa Clara workout, Santa Cruz, self-healing, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley exercise, Silicon Valley Nia, Silicon Valley workout | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 22, 2009
I believe that positive thinking can go a long way in helping someone get better. I also believe that “happy” and “positive” can assist with improving someone’s heath and/or keeping them healthy to begin with. I believe there are a lot of things people can do to be responsible for their own health and make themselves better. But I didn’t use the term healing or self-healing. So when I first heard Nia using that term I thought, “Uh-oh, what is this?”
But it is not meant as a proclamation that any or all ills will be cured with Nia. It really is “self-healing” as in feeling better. There is always room for improvement and even just a little better is still BETTER.
More and more people, and even the medical field, are realizing that the body has its own intelligence and sometimes we need to listen to it. One BIG thing that a lot more people are paying attention to is things like “a cold”. I have recently experienced a larger number of people realizing that when they get a cold it is their body saying, “Whoa! Slow down. Rest.” And yes, most of the time that is very difficult but these people are saying, “I better take one day to rest because if I don’t it is going to be worse.” And they exercise a little self-healing, by taking one day and then taking it easy for a few more days and it seems like they can “heal” themselves faster. And taking one day off, can work out so much better than having to take a week.
See? That is self-healing? Our bodies will basically heal themselves.
Yes, there are illness and situations where we need medical attention. But there are a lot of things that we can do to feel better/self-heal.
For example: One thing I did to “heal myself” years ago was stop talking on the phone with my shoulder and head holding the phone. I used to get terrible neck aches and I talked on the phone at work a lot. It got to a point that I could no longer hold the phone like that as much as I needed to so my employer got me a headset. Ahhhh! I felt a little better. Then I realized I needed a headset for home. Ahhhhh. Totally better. Now I don’t talk on any phone holding it between my head and shoulder. Voilà! Self-healed.
So . . . Nia uses the term, self-healing, a lot because it is believed that movement is a healing act. Nia used to say: “Through Movement We Find Health”.
One of the incredible tools that Nia has (and there are many) to assist in self-healing is the Nia 5 Stages. It used to be called the Nia 5 Stages of Healing. I recently took a two day training so that I can now assist people in self-healing with the Nia 5 Stages.
I am confident that living in the Bay Area with San Jose, Mountain View, Cupertino, and Santa Clara having so many great technologies around us I can easily add the technology of the body to the Silicon Valley.
Posted in Misc, Nia | Tagged: Bay Area exericse, Bay Area Nia, Bay Area Workout, body intelligence, body technology, Cupertino exericse, Cupertino Nia, Cupertino workout, heal, heal myself, heal others, Mountain View exericse, Mountain View Nia, Mountain View workout, Nia, Nia 5 Stages, Nia 5 Stages training, Nia Bay Area, Nia Cupertino, Nia exercise, Nia Mountain View, Nia San Jose, Nia Santa Clara, Nia self-healing, Nia workout, positive thinking, San Jose exericse, San Jose Nia, San Jose Workout, Santa Clara exercise, Santa Clara Nia, Santa Clara workout, Silicon Valley exercise, Silicon Valley Nia, Silicon Valley workout | 7 Comments »
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