As I’m getting ready to host the first Nia White Belt training in Dubai (Dec 12-17) and to encourage more people to sign for the training, I reached out to Nia international community to share their stories about their experience with the training. I would like to share with you some of their stories. (The stories are left unedited)
In a previous post, I reflected on my own experience with the training and how it started a long and nourishing relationship with Nia.
“I have been very fortunate in life to have received a large amount of high-quality education. I went to a very fine high school, then got a bachelors, masters and Ph.D. degree from three good colleges and universities, in addition to many extracurricular learning experiences.
Even compared with all of that, the Nia White Belt was absolutely the most beautiful, transformative and personally consequential learning experience I have ever had.
The personal consequence has to do with learning that Sensation is the body’s voice – and the body never lies. I have always been an honest person, but I’ve been prone to question the validity of my feelings and second-guess myself. I have also been afraid, at times, to speak my truth. Maybe I know that the other person won’t like what I have to say, or maybe I need the person’s approval so much that I don’t want to risk finding out.
When I learned in WB that sensation is the body’s voice, and the body never lies, OMG, it was revolutionary for me. It solved my lifelong problem of questioning my truth. Now I simply check my sensations and trust that they are speaking the real truth. When it’s still not clear, I move – I free dance to music while thinking about the issue – and observe how I feel while moving. My sensations always reveal the truth to me, and that truth is absolutely solid.”
Paula Chambers
Black Belt Nia Instructor
www.valleynia.com
“I discovered Nia on a video by chance. Then I watched another video and another one. As I danced since I was small and I had just begun a way of personal development I was looking for teaching a dance who had a meaning for people. I sensed Nia had it. So I subscribed to the WB with Ann a few months before the training. Taking the WB changed my life. It was like a retreat. The difference for me was that there were move and dance, which is a part of who I am. Discovering Nia and dancing and moving guided was like discovering who I was inside and what I didn’t want anymore in my life. When going back home, I committed to big changes. I can say that, from this point, teaching Nia or getting Nia classes is the place and moment where I feel myself the most with authenticity.
I took a second WB in 2016 with Ann and again after that one I felt stronger and more myself. And one of the most wonderful point I love in all the Belts I’ve done (The last one was with Helen Terry in Houston, and it was wonderful) is the community. Nia is a community of nonjudging people. We are sisters and brothers and happy to help each other!
When I dance Nia I express who I am. I live emotions and free them, and peace comes inside. When peace comes, I am with myself and opened to the best for me. And when I am shining inside I am shining outside.”
Tamara Janser
http://www.nia-me.com/fr/
“White belt training was my beginning of connecting to my body and the awakening of my sensations. Surprisingly when I came back home after the training, I felt for the first time the water drops on my head scalp while taking a shower, that blew my mind away, and made me scream my body’s sensations are alive again.
When I have applied to the training, I was expecting a basic dancing workout training, but it has been beyond that. I have learned how to allow myself to be playful, live a joyful life, to appreciate others little efforts to support me, and got to know how to enjoy space. And the best thing I got the chance to see and play and dance with the little me (inner child) for the first time in my life, and that was the biggest aha moment since then I knew Nia is a self-love activity to me.”
Amal Ismail
Brown Belt Teacher
