Welcome,
My dream for Nia in 1981 was to create a loving culture of caring people dedicated to creating healthy social and transformational human development. That dream has not changed, but parts and pieces of my dream for Nia have changed, based on what I sense as a current urgency and timely relevance. More than ever, helping people learn, embody, and share what it means to live both in their body and in a relationship with their body is essential to any intention toward creating a healthy, purposeful, meaningful life for themselves and others.
Alignment in our Whole Being, which is what I call our body, mind, emotion, and spirit is critical to a happier and healthier future for everyone.
I believe one of the greatest challenges we face as human beings is creating a loving human culture. To achieve this means doing personal work, taking time, and looking deep to learn about oneself. While not everyone is up for this challenge, many people are eager. People who come to Nia are interested in learning about their body and life with their minds, emotions, and spirits. Along with their interest and desire to transform and grow, they might bring many personal concerns. This creates an immediate supportive and inclusive community.
In one Nia class you’ll find a diverse group of people with numerous body sizes, social and cultural backgrounds, sexual identities and orientations, nationalities and affiliations, and more that could obstruct any intention for inclusive education. Interestingly, once music is heard and body movement begins, there is a magical occurrence when each individual appears to blend together with their uniqueness. In Nia classes people usually find themselves releasing negative thoughts and emotions and welcoming positive thoughts and emotions that heal.
It takes effort to look at how you relate to yourself and to your world around you. It takes courage to find what is meaningful to you. And, it’s worth it.
A Nia class or program journey into personal truth and self actualization takes courage. It’s worth it. For seekers of something better there is always “take-two” and “re-do.” We learn we can apologize to our body and others and change course. On the Nia dance floor we quickly find a way to be guided by feel-good sensations and a philosophy that helps us take conscious action, choose love and be patient and kind to ourselves and others.
My forty plus years in a business founded in movement and personal growth has taught me there is no “right way,” there is only Your Body’s Way. In Nia, every unique individual searching for body and life mastery while guided by love, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding are all connected. Each one seeks a collaborative community that is on a path toward healing, rooting, and awakening in their own life and in the lives all around them.
I believe in the power to create extraordinary, loving, kind, gentle, patient, and tolerant collectives and communities. What do you believe?
Change requires courage and persistence to believe in something better. In a better life and in a better human being. No one can be expected to change and grow through life while learning and transforming, just as a child learns to stand and walk, without falling down. If you watch them closely, a child knows that getting back up again will lead them toward walking. Getting back up to walking in our lives requires the courage and the persistence of a small child.
In Nia, through such movement, we find health.
Awakening Body & Life 