“I've always loved dancing and I've always loved yoga and I liked the idea of running them together. Nia for me is about meditation through movement. I can't think of any better way to meditate or to move, really. When you have a really busy day at work and you come to Nia you get out of your head and into your body. You reconnect with sensation and you're moving in a way that just is like...its like liquid gold! I come away from the class feeling a sense of wellbeing towards myself and towards the community I'm dancing with. I'm not just here for myself, when you're dancing together with Nia, its greater than the sum of its parts
The benefit of Nia is also for me in the future. What I'm doing now is building a really good practice to support my body in 10 or 15 years time. I want to be flexible and healthy then too and so I see Nia as a part of that. When you get older, different parts start to hurt more, so you learn how to adjust and listen and dance slightly differently but still keep moving, thats what I'd say to anyone, don't ever stop dancing or moving because then you really stiffen up! I think particularly for women Nia's fantastic for strength in your legs. What I think we see now with generations like our mother's they don’t have any strength in their legs and so mobility and stability is an issue ...I don't ever want to be like that. So yeah, I'm really paying it forward.
Acceptance is the big word in my life. Doing the Nia workshops , the White Belt and the Blue Belt, acceptance is a journey for me and I think that they definitely helped me understand my body and my relationship with my body in a … way that’s much more positive.
Absolutely number one, number one priority for me, is helping me to manage stress out of my busy job. Nia and yoga, within an hour, completely change my attitude and overall mood and absolutely take away that stress of the day. So I go home from a Nia class.... I sound a bit evangelistic...I don't mean to, but it really does feel that way, I go home feeling incredibly relaxed, where I came in feeling really slightly angry, uptight and stressed. And I'm not the only one, I look around the room and I see the change in the other women too. We come in and we start yawning and we're sort of, slow to move, and by the end of it we're really energised but also very relaxed, and so there is a harmony.
It's a no-brainer for me. Really, I think we deserve to really assist ourselves to manage our wellness and our own health. The first and most important person to support your health is you … and that’s about listening to the body and looking after yourself. Thats what I want, a future that involves less intervention and more control over my own health.”