I come from New York, and after living in the West Village for 5 years, I am pretty wary of strangers, even here in the Southwest.

I arrived at Studio Sway today for my noon class to find a stranger waiting at the door. Dressed in jeans and a red white and blue Nike basketball jersey, he didn’t look like a lover of barefoot movement.  With a shy smile, he shook my hand and said he was waiting for his sister and niece – they wanted to try my class.

They never came and he eventually left, 20 minutes into Clarity, a wonderful routine developed by Carlos Rosas, a co-founder of The Nia Technique®.  

The focus of Clarity is steps and stances, the intention, using steps and stances to explore the 5 sensations of Nia, agility, mobility, stability, flexibility and strength.Today, I asked the students to use this focus and intention and pay particular attention to their bodies’ base, namely the feet and legs. Six students and I moved through the 7 cycles of a Nia workout: focus, step in, warm up, get moving, cool down, floorplay and step out.

At the end we felt sweaty, but completely refreshed. My son Sandy, recently returned from Japan, came to the class.  It is the first time he has done a Nia class.  He danced close to me and I could sense the brush of his energy. 

The energy brush of individuals in the group is a great sensation – it can enhance and add to the intensity of the workout, in all four realms. EveryBody felt great as they left the class.

Tomorrow I will see these students again at 9:30 for a completely new and equally refreshing Nia experience.

As for Johnny, the man who showed up before class, he and his sister and niece remind me of many potential students who hear of Nia, think it would be fun, and then wait months or years before actually trying a class. It makes me wonder who will sign up as participants for our Nia clinical study at the Center for Life.  As I get ready for sleep my mind asks just how intense will the recruitment process be to get 64 students?



Advertisement