Nia as cross training is a topic I’ve been thinking and moving with for several years.

I teach and have taught Nia primarily in ‘gyms’ for two reasons: it’s brilliant cross training work and gyms are the places that need what Nia has to offer.

This is a journey I have recently committed to taking. It is my intention to take you along with me!

I am going to explore both of the statements above and we’re going to ‘talk’ about it.

When I took the ACE personal trainer’s exam I wanted to train athletes. I started offering training and I realized that I didn’t really have anything different from any of the other personal trainers. Yes, I am a different human and more and more personal trainers also have degrees in physiology and kinesiology and I don’t. In the end, the training was the same. At that time, specificity training was the main concept. Cross training went mainstream and the ideas about training began to shift.

I taught one of the first Pilates mat classes in Charleston and people laughed. Yes, I taught it properly – everybody moaned and groaned, some had to take breaks and mostly they crawled out – but they said it was weird and wouldn’t catch on. When was the last time you talked to someone who doesn’t know what Pilates is? No one’s laughing now…

I have spent the better part of my Nia teaching career playing it relatively safe and promoting Nia as a wellness and fitness movement practice for body, mind, spirit and emotions. I’ve run hot and cold with my use of the word ‘dance’ – it often depends on my audience.

Nia is a physical fitness program that offers me increased access to creativity, self-awareness, and authenticity in all aspects of my life. My personal Nia practice also feeds and nurtures my life force energy, my awareness of energy around me and my willingness to be vulnerable and honest. My professional practice has also been instrumental in developing my self-discipline and grounding my ability to commit and follow through.

All of the above is available to me and more.

I haven’t even begun to talk about how the physical practice has affected my body.

It is as though my creativity comes from multiple aspects. I used to consider creativity a mental process. Now, not only do I receive ideas in the form of sensation and emotion, but I will often take a concept into movement before my mind has completely processed it. I am and I will always differentiate between my brain and my mind. In the previous statement, I alluded to a brain/body processing preceding a conscious process.

What’s my point?

I don’t know about anybody else excluding Nia Trainers, I do know that until now I have been offering a limited menu of Nia. There is so much more to this work than I can share in the 60-minute classes.

An invitation to move in our body’s way is one of the life-changing aspects of Nia.  An invitation to lead through my gifts, skills and passion is another.  How many different ways are there to share this work?

I want to find out…