Terre Pruitt's Blog

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

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Posts Tagged ‘Sacred Athlete’

Changes For Nia Members And Teachers

Posted by terrepruitt on October 12, 2020

Ahhh, today there were two meetings on Zoom to introduce the new options for Members and Teachers.  There was one for brand new Nia White Belt Graduates, since I just attended that training I was able to listen to that one.  Then there was one for people who are current Nia Members and I am a current Nia member.  So in light of those meetings I feel like it is the perfect time to post this post that has been sitting on my desktop.  I want to remind readers that I am a Nia teacher, I teach a dance exercise class called Nia.  Nia is really much, much more than that, but that is how I describe it when talking about what I teach.  I have written many posts about it and I have a lot of information about it on my website.  Nia was initially created by two people, Debbie Rosas and Carlos AyaRosas.  Carlos left the organization in, I believe it was 2010.  Debbie has continued the work.  It is so difficult to describe what “the work” means.  She continues to learn about the body and why it needs to move and then applies that to trainings.  It is multi-dimensional.  I am posting this as a reminder that anything I post about Nia has come from their/her teachings.  As I have said many times before not everything in Nia is new . . . they did not invent the moves we do in Nia, but they have added their own way of doing them and learning them and showing how they can help you move in your body more comfortably.  In addition to that reminder I want to remind people that many of the movement class forms (Zumba, PiYo, etc.) that you may take require the teacher to be licensed.  Nia is one of those things.  I pay a fee in order to market my class as “Nia”.  And Nia is introducing new ways that people can be licensed.

When I directly quote Debbie or the material I state it.  As a Nia teacher we are encouraged to share information about Nia.  I have taken pictures of our routine covers and I have created documents myself.  I have also used pages of The Nia Technique Book.  But I don’t post pictures of the training material from the belts.  ANYONE can buy The Nia Technique Book, but only a participant receives the training material – well, now I can say only a graduate as a current member receives the training material.  🙂 (This is part of the new options.)  I share the information about the belt trainings to entice you into wanting more.

Nia is giving options on licensing.  It used to be that if you wanted to teach you paid a licensing fee – either monthly or annually.  That fee came with a lot of things . . . DVDs of the routines (music, the choreography, and the additional training for a routine), teleconference calls, written articles, handouts, and various stuff, now the routines are on NiaTV and there are podcasts and other recorded things.  There are meditations and various types of movements including routines with the 52 Moves and Moving to Heal . . . there is a plethora of stuff.  Nia is going to have three tiers in which people can stay connected to the wealth of Nia training, they will still have the monthly NiaTV subscription if you just want access to Nia Workout Videos, Music, and Podcasts. The tiers just relate to the additional stuff that is part of Nia.

They are putting up a new website this week (hopefully Wednesday, 10/14/20) so you will be able to get all the details there.  I do not want to start to list them because I don’t want to misstate anything.  It is better for you to get the information from the source.  I am just giving you a heads up to let you know that there are options now.  And with Nia there is always a huge amount of material to access.  So as a member you can get a lot of information and if you want to teach you get more.  Each tier adds on stuff we will have access too.

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Since the old website is going away and it will have a new look, I thought I would post my profile page as a photo for this post.  I really hope that you will look into Nia . . . you can look into as a movement practice (if you like to dance) or if you want more.  Keep in mind the new website should be up this week.

So exciting!  Who wants to talk about Nia with me?

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Tweaking Nia White Belt P11 – 2020

Posted by terrepruitt on September 17, 2020

Normally I post on Wednesdays.  I have this self-imposed posting schedule.  I thought it was important to be consistent.  I have eased up a bit and try to cut myself some slack when I miss a day.  Sometimes I forget, sometimes I can’t think of anything to write, sometimes I just get busy, sometimes I wanna break . . . . I try to let it go.  And NORMALLY, I wouldn’t post on Thursday, because . . . well, so many reasons, but I decided to post today.  As many of you know I am taking an online training.  It is THE FIRST EVER Nia Belt training online.  It is amazing to be a part of the FIRST EVER Nia Belt Training ONLINE – but I don’t think we are that special because a couple of weeks in (if even that many) other trainers starting teaching Nia Belts online and Debbie started other belts online.  We were just the first by a couple of weeks or so.  But they learned a lot in those first couple of weeks.  Anyway . . . I started with that because part of the training is POD meetings.  I know I mentioned the PODs before, but it was in the beginning and I didn’t know exactly what they would be.  Well, it is great.  I don’t think that POD stands for anything in fact it should probably be Pod, but I got POD stuck in my head so that is how I think of it.  Anyway (again) . . . my POD meets on Thursdays and I wanted to share somethings that came out of my meeting today.

First of all the PODs are led by Nia Trainers.  Nia Trainers train for years.  I am not sure how many years – if there even is a requirement – one has to be involved with Nia before asked to be a trainer, but I do know that becoming a trainer is a long commitment.  I think it is about two years.  A Nia TRAINER is someone who can deliver Nia Training, so one of the belts or one of the other modes Nia has.  The trainers are volunteering their time to be POD leaders and to mentor us students.  With all of that said, I believe that all of the POD leaders are great, I mean they have to be because they are Nia Trainers, but I know I am very lucky to have a FABULOUS mentor.  My POD leader is Laurie Bass.  If you are looking at anything Nia you will more than likely see Laurie.  She has been used as a model for many of the promotional material.  You can see her at 2:34 in the Debbie Rosas and the Nia 5 Stages video.  She is an amazing trainer.  I feel very fortunate to have been assigned to her POD.  She is very generous with her knowledge and her time.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia online, San Jose Virtual classes, 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, live classes via Zoom, Nia White Belt training via ZoomIn my last post I wrote about how the term “Sacred Athlete” didn’t really resonate with me.  Well, Laurie gave me some suggestions and ideas on how to make it work for me.  As I have said over and over, Nia changes the language a lot so she reminded me that I could do that.  I could just use something else instead of “Sacred Athlete”.  If I use something that DOES resonate with me then I can work with the principle and use it to further my relationship with Nia.  Sticking with a term that I just can’t get on board with made me want to shrug off the entire principle.

The first thing she said helped too, “Where do I want to expend my energy?”  I feel this is a great question to start off the study of Nia White Belt P11 – 2020.  Then she threw out the idea of “sacred” meaning “with purpose” and “athlete” aligning more with “training to reach greatness”.  So trying to shed the definitions that bother me does help, but I really liked her suggestion to just let the “Sacred Athlete” phrase be “your goal/your ideal”.  Not the words “your goal/your ideal”, but the ideal YOU or the goal YOU.  And, to me that tied in to what I mentioned Debbie said . . . she said she had different philosophies for the different Debbie’s in her life . . . different for WifeDebbie, MomDebbie, CEODebbie, etc.  Ahhhhhh!

So that scrunchy face (the one I mentioned in my last post) relaxed.  My whole body went, “Ahhhh!” Being able to just dispense with that term made me feel much better about this principle.  Laurie also had more wisdom to dispense that is helping me cringe less, I am not saying that I won’t tense up when someone uses that term (ICK!!!!), I am just saying that I can now dig into Nia White Belt P11 – Creating A Sensory Life – 2020. because her take on it is making it less and less distasteful.

Do you have any phrases that bother you?  Do you have substitutes for those phrases?

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Nia White Belt P11 – Creating A Sensory Life – 2020

Posted by terrepruitt on September 14, 2020

So this is one of the principles that has changed a bit.  The true core of it hasn’t, but I feel that Nia is trying to make it more accessible to everyone instead of just people that want to teach Nia.  This shift was introduced not too long after I took the Nia White Belt training.  So instead of focusing on the business and marketing required as a Nia teacher, the Nia White Belt Principle #11 focuses on your “life’s purpose”.  So this week we were introduced to Nia White Belt P11 – Creating a Sensory Life.  This is a great principle for when someone is looking for their life’s purpose or when someone wants to hone their purpose or goals.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia online, San Jose Virtual classes, 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, live classes via Zoom, Nia White Belt training via ZoomThe triad consists of Body, Nia, and Life with corresponding Purpose, Potential, and Possibility.  Then we have Purpose again as one of the wings along with Philosophy expanding out from the middle which is Sacred Athlete.  That term just does not resonate with me in any way.  In fact if you watch me when someone says it or I read it you may detect a scrunch in my face.  I cannot reconcile any definition of sacred to this principle and certainly not when it is combined with athlete.  But that is ok.  I do not have to agree with everything Nia teaches, nor all of the language they choose to use.  I get the gist of it and that is what is important.

This principal has other language that makes me (somewhat) cringe so I will just share what I understand the core of this principal to be . . . basically search your soul for your purpose and then live daily to move yourself toward that purpose.  When you are living your purpose you will be happy.  In the training today we did some exercises to help guide us towards determining our purpose/goal.  In addition to what we did in class Debbie shared some other tools and exercise to help.

She shared that she has a separate philosophy that she applies to each area of her life.  Her philosophy for her marriage is not the same as for raising her kids . . . that kind of thing.  She also reminded us that our purpose can change.  She encouraged everyone to keep searching and checking in (with ourselves) to always make sure we are moving toward our purpose . . . even if we examine what we are doing and realize that if we keep doing it we will not reach our original goal . . . so that is when we may need to adjust what we are doing or it could even mean we need to re-write our purpose.  It can somewhat be related to how we dance.  We want to move to have pleasurable sensations in our body (for example walking without pain) so we take inventory of our body and our body’s movements and then move in ways that will enable us to reach our goal of pain free (as per my example) walking.  We may at times need to tweak how we are moving in order to reach our goal.

So, to me, this principle is what makes Nia “a holistic fitness practice addressing each aspect of your life – body, mind and soul.”

Do you know what your life’s purpose is?  Do you take steps daily towards it?

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