![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2486\/4076128334_2b59c28d66_m.jpg\" "\\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2486\/4076128334_2b59c28d66_m.jpg\\"")
<\/p>\nYesterday I went to Nia for the first time in three and half weeks! \u00a0(Who’s counting?) \u00a0Woohoo!<\/p>\n
I took the first 15 minutes of Judy Newton’s class that she was teaching for me at The DanceSpace.<\/p>\n
It was astonishingly beautiful to see all the big hearts shining out through people’s faces as I entered the studio. \u00a0I was deeply moved to be held in the space of Nia, the space of the joy of movement — ever our foundation — the space of community, the space of healing,\u00a0the space of the\u00a0holy body.<\/p>\n
I felt tentative and wide-eyed, like a newborn in a big, new world.<\/p>\n
I felt worried about how little I might actually be able to do. \u00a0I worried my breath could be as restricted as it was in 1995 when I first found Nia, when, due to the immense depth of asthma at that time, I was limited to the tiniest micromovements.<\/p>\n
What a blessing to find it not so!<\/p>\n
What a blessing to feel freedom in my body — just as it is.<\/p>\n
My Nia practice during those 15 minutes was necessarily contained and careful.<\/p>\n
I moved in natural time. \u00a0I went slowly. \u00a0I let myself be guided by my breath and the voices of my body. \u00a0I sensed and chose my level of intensity. \u00a0I didn’t compare myself to anyone else. \u00a0I asked my body if she was experiencing the joy of movement. \u00a0When she said, “Yes,” I sustained what I was doing. \u00a0When she said, “No,” I tweaked what I was doing until I felt the distinct sensation of my body relaxing and saying, “Yes.”<\/p>\n
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What a relief to\u00a0feel my fears and assumptions fall away. \u00a0What\u00a0a relief to be in the present, in the realm of the body — just as it is.<\/p>\n
The focus of class was centering.\u00a0 As I moved, I felt aware of the great and grave import of centering.\u00a0 Through centering we also become grounded.\u00a0 We ground by doing what gravity does. \u00a0We ground by dropping our body center so that it connects to the center of the Earth.<\/p>\n
As in\u00a0gravity<\/a> and the ground reaction forces<\/a> in physics, there is an ongoing energetic wave between my body center and the center of the Earth that I can ride and be exquisitely supported by.<\/p>\n The Earth is big.\u00a0 The Earth is the biggest ally we have in the physical realm and the biological realm.\u00a0 When I connect my little center with the center of the great, big, beautiful, spinning, holy Earth, I have so much more available for navigating this strange, confusing, wondrous, big, mysterious life in my body — just as it is.<\/p>\n (Seventh in a series about healing pneumonia and asthma.)<\/em><\/p>\n Yesterday I went to Nia for the first time in three and half weeks! \u00a0(Who’s counting?) \u00a0Woohoo! I took the first 15 minutes of Judy Newton’s class that she was teaching for me at The DanceSpace. It was astonishingly beautiful to see all the big hearts shining out through people’s faces as I entered the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17,21,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancing-through-life","category-healing","category-lungs","category-ongoing-nia-classes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1138"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1920,"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions\/1920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/synergy-pt.net\/niablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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