blissful fitness

Good morning! Today let’s spend a little more time once again with our base (feet and legs)… This time, let’s focus on our base specifically with the intent of creating a foundation that allows the rest of our body to move with eeeeeease.

Stable Base = Free Core and Arms
How we step, stand, and kick with our feet and legs can greatly affect the freedom and comfort of our core and upper extremities. If our base is unstable, the rest of the body may react by “bracing itself” (tensing up) to avoid falling. If you have ever had to walk on ice or a shaky foot bridge, you know what I mean. If the core and upper extremities are “bracing themselves” then it becomes quite difficult for them to dance (imagine doing hip bumps, chest isolations, shimmys, upward blocks, or freedance) as you walk across the ice. In my head, it’s not a pretty picture. In Nia, we want our whoooooole body (including our core and arms) to be able to dance freely and with ease! We can help to make this happen by setting up a strong, relaxed, grounded, and stable foundation (yep – even when we are stepping quickly!). read more about why and how

Hello! This morning, let’s spend a little quality time with our Base, shall we?

The Base of the Body
In Nia, the “base” refers to our feet, ankle joints, lower legs (shinbones), knee joints, upper legs (thighbones), and hip joints (basically, our feet and legs). Our base is our foundation. At any moment we might have a wobbly foundation, a hesitant foundation, a tired foundation, a stable foundation, a grounded foundation, etc. So today, let’s really notice the foundation we create with our feet and legs.

Why
How we step, stand, and kick with our feet and legs greatly impacts the safety, comfort, and conditioning of our base. We therefore want to pay attention to our base in order to keep our feet and legs happy and healthy! read more

In 1983, Debbie and Carlos (co-founders of Nia) stopped leading aerobics classes full of jumping jacks and jogging in place and decided instead to kick off their shoes and find ways to move that felt better.

It is generally believed that each foot has over 7000 nerve endings that talk amongst themselves and with the rest of your body. Some are there to activate the muscles. Some of these nerves communicate via the language of Pleasure (“yay, I like this – this feels good”) and Pain (“ouch”). Some nerves let you know which part of your foot is currently supporting your weight or contacting the ground. Some are more reflexive in nature, signaling “HOT!,” “Brrrrrrr!,” or “I’m about to fall so you better reach for something, QUICK!” Some nerves are more subtle, telling your body that more fluid is needed in your knees due to the current forces being put on them. What’s my point? Our feet are awesome… read more

Today, we are going to give a little love to our ankle joints. Why? Our ankle joints are awesome. Active ankle joints allow our feet to best do their thing (support us). Movement of the ankle joint is what allows us to step directly on one part of the foot (heel, ball, etc.) or to transfer our weight across the foot (releve, rock around the clock, etc.). read more

Today we will continue our focus on sensing our “stances.” We will…

1. sense it – notice the pause
2. ground it – sense our feet plugging into the earth
3. dance it – bring the stance to life through energizing the base, core, and upper extremities!

Just for a moment, sense what it is like to “stand” in your body. Sense your feet… your leg muscles… your spine… your fingertips… your shoulders and neck… your jaw… the crown of your head… Is your weight even on both feet? Are your feet parallel? Do your toes turn in or out? Is your pelvis tilted forward, back, or to one side? read more