Cross-Training Body Mind Emotions Spirit | Rachael R. Resch

WhIte Belt Principle #9:  Creative Arm and Hand Expressions

In Nia we say our feet are the hands that touch the Earth.  Our feet and toes sense the ground, provide our foundation and a way to move our bodies through life.  Hands and fingers orient us in space and in relationship to the world around us through physical and energetic touch.   They are feelers and tentacles.  Hands can direct energy in precise directions and ways: in, out, up, down, squeeze, push, pull, caress, point, tap, pray . . .

I noticed today while freedancing with fully extended fingers, the web spaces stretched wide open between each of my fingers, that my energy field felt large and full, like a radiant sphere.  You know, the Glinda the Good Witch of the North thing happening very strongly.  When I freedanced and let my hands go limp, my field also went limp. The contrast was dramatic!  You might want to try it yourself.

Many of you have heard me talk in class about how energetically the hands represent the center.  My experience is a good example of that: whatever I intend through my hands in turn effects my whole system. 

Afternoon session with Debbie.

What fun!  Debbie used a life-sized skeleton model plus line drawings from Ida Rolf’s book to talk about physical and energetic anatomy.  I love bones!  I love to look at and think about and be curious about bones.

Debbie said when we look at the shapes and the lines of the bones, they show us how energy moves in the body.  For example, the back of the large flat bones of the illium of the pelvis (the ones that look like a butterfly from behind) flare out, so the energy circulates out behind us horizontally and back toward the sacrum, just like when we walk through water and make two spirals in the water behind us as we go. 

I felt Debbie direct her attention at me as she talked, which gave me the sense that this could be a very good practice for me.  So I worked with it in class tonight.  

Debbie taught an awesome version of Opal with the focus on pelvis, chest and head.  Each time, albeit briefly, I was able to synch into that bilateral circular energy supporting me from behind and underneath, I felt my whole state of being change.  I felt I was being carried forward by my hara, totally open to the moment and to change, yet fully strong.  I felt the sensation of meeting life head on while being fluid, loving and passionate. 

Morning session with Carlos.

Here we are, the Sensational Seven, in StudioNia at Nia Headquarters.  From left to right we are: Karen Northrup from Florida, Helen Attridge, born in Ireland, Janet Oglethorpe from San Antonio, myself, Roné Prinz from LA (who is a student of my Blue and Brown Belt sister, Kate Nash), Sarah Karr from Seattle and Marcia Barr from Eugene.

This morning, we worked some more with Nia Principle #3, Music and the 8BC System.   Carlos is a genius, a master of listening to music and listening to the being Music.  While Debbie teaches how to see, feel and listen to the being of the Body, Carlos teaches how to see, feel and listen and be in relationship to the being of Music. 

I am practicing the art of listening to sound and silence.  I am mapping the music and developing intimacy with each song, each instrument, each note, each pause, each silence.  It parallels the practices for Principle #5, Awareness, through which I deepen my intimacy with my body by bringing attention to sensations; it parallels the practices of FreeDance stages 3 and 4 — which we also did this morning — to feel and express my emotions.

When I practice the Art of Listening, the light of my awareness widens and becomes more sphere-like, with me in the center and sound coming into my system from all directions.  It feels like being in a great cathedral and yet very intimate.

Afternoon session with Debbie.

Principle 6:  The Base.  Feet, the hands that touch the Earth.  Ankles, shins, knees, thighs, hips, pelvis, L5 and L4.  In class tonight, Carlos quoted the Buddha:  "When the feet sense the Earth, they sense themselves."  The feet draw energy into the body so we can circulate it through our system.

Principle 7:  Three Planes and Intensity Levels.  The three planes, low, middle and high, allow us to be in relationship with gravity by descending and ascending along the vertical line, moving energy between heaven and earth as we develop functional strength and flexibility.  The three intensity levels build sensitivity in our systems to nuance our movement.

Several of us have White Belt syndrome: digestive difficulties.  I didn’t know I was going to have to repeat that part of the training, too.

 Morning session.

I awoke this morning, tired and happy, to a thin dusting of snow, just the smallest draft from the pinky feather of the wing of the White Goddess who is cloaking my friends and family in Ashland.  My mind has been keeping me awake the last two nights, excitedly reviewing the events of the day and worrying over my altered morning routine.

I rode the bus downtown and felt like a Portlander again.  I got off at Yamhill Marketplace, where I held my first job in Portland, working in a French restaurant called Savoir Faire when I was 23, and then walked eight blocks to Nia headquarters

Awareness:  What if I could sense my body all the time?  What is happening to my attention when I am not sensning my body?  Can I grow my attention such that I have 100% awareness of my my body sensations regardless of what else is going on around me?

This morning Carlos said, “Awareness is the way we connect with the body.  The body is already aware.  The body itself is awareness.”  

The body itself is awareness!  My body is the warm, curious attention of the mystery itself, manifesting as me and my 75 trillion cells.  My several million proprioceptors are so faithful, always sensing what is happening.  I desire to hear their voices, to hear their devotional song, singing pleasure, singing pain, guiding me how to move, how to be a human animal, how to live, how to heal, singing me awake,  guiding me how to be, in turn, devoted right back to the mystery.

The Feast of Movement it should be!  Today we actually delved into four of the 13 principles:  The Joy of Movement; Natural Time and the Movement Forms; Music and the 8BC System; FreeDance.  Our group is lovely.  Debbie and Carlos are relaxed and masterful.  And the sensation of stepping into the river of White again for me is exquisite, intimate, tender, playful, inspiring and sacred.  

For me, each principle and each of its accompanying practices is a unique being who I am invited to meet, to get to know, to listen to, to dance with, to experience life from that point of view, to honor, to love — and in so doing be transformed by the relationship, become more in love with the mystery as it manifests in the human body and grow my attention ever deeper, ever wider, ever kinder.

Somehow I am surprised by this — I think because really being curious means that everything, everything is new.

I’ve arrived in Portland, miraculously flying through atmospheres, winds and wisps of watery clouds, the sun’s thousands of sparkling photons lighting up the world, riding on silver wings of polished earth, past Three Sisters, elegant in snowy dresses, past craggy Mt. Jefferson and more distant Mt. Adams, past Wy’East or Mt. Hood, within sight of old lady Loowit, Mt. St. Helens, over the waters of the great Columbia and the sturdy Willamette, to be remembered and welcomed, taken in by friends, given hot tea, food and love and shelter under the night sky, in the arms of the Mystery.

When Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas gave birth to Nia in 1983, they had journeyed through dance arts (jazz, modern and Duncan), martial arts (Tai Chi, Tai Kwon Do, Aikido) and healing arts (Alexander, Feldenkrais, yoga) guided by their bodies’ natural desire for the joy of movement.  As they began training other Nia teachers, they took inspiration from the martial arts belt system.

There are four levels of Nia training:  White Belt, Blue Belt, Brown Belt and Black Belt.  People participate in Nia intensives for personal growth or to become a Nia teacher.  Everyone begins with White Belt.

The focus of the White Belt training is the physical body.  White Belt Principle #1 is The Joy of Movement.  The focus of Blue Belt is relationship.  Brown Belt is the energy body.  And the focus of Black Belt is stepping into the river of the unknown.  

White Belt is the foundation; it is the web upon which all the other belts are woven.  The practice of being in the physical body is the heart of our Nia practice.

Today, like every other day, we wake up, empty
and afraid. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the Earth.

— Jelaluddin Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Sometimes my mind gets ahead of me, thinking about this and that, wondering about plans and ideas, hopes and dreams. If I’m lucky, if I’m awake, I remember. I remember this poem by Rumi, or at least the spirit of this poem. I remember to love the mystery right now.

Even as my excellent brain makes plans, I want to sense and feel my life as it is actually happening, moment by moment. As I prepare for my Black Belt training in July, and all that it involves, I remember why I began the practice of Nia in the first place, on a rainy spring day in Portland in 1995: Joy of Movement. And I promise to bring that golden thread of Joy with me, as I venture forth into what is happening and what is to come.