My friends and dancers of life, 
As I prepare to guide my 9th Nia White Belt with Joanie starting tomorrow, I have been reading the just released, beautiful new WB manual that Debbie Rosas produced. It is truly a masterful, inspirational work of art.
‘Nia is for everyBody’… we say it often… and the Nia White Belt experience is also truly for everyBody… All of us who love personal growth and seek out knowledge. It is about sensation, the Art of Sensation, and learning more about the sacred gift that has been given to us for this life. Our Body.
The forward to this incredible manual is a letter by Dr. Lissa Rankin. She took her WB with Debbie two years ago, and it changed the way she conducts her life as a doctor. I invite you to read the scan I copied below. Lissa speaks eloquently about the importance of cultivating body awareness. 
I write this today in the hopes that each of you will treat yourself to this amazing week at some point. A week dedicated to you, to your body, to your life. Nia is transformational.
We have a wonderful group stepping in tomorrow, and we always welcome more. Our next WB is coming in June. Two weekends to accommodate busy schedules.
It is with deep gratitude for my body, for my community, for you, and for my life that I write this from a place of passion and abundant love in my heart.
Adelle

As a doctor you might mistakenly think I am in touch 

page9image868

with my own body, but when I did my Nia White Belt in 2011 and Debbie Rosas asked me to sense my own elbow, I was at a loss. I could feel my elbow if I touched it or rolled it on the floor, but my elbow in space was a mystery to me. As I reflected on my own body numbness, it occurred to me that my medical training had turned me into a walking cerebrum, disembodied from my body’s sensory experience. This was an adaptive mechanism at the time. During my medical training, I wasn’t able to sleep when I was tired, eat when I was hungry, pee when I needed to, or stop holding the surgical retractors that caused pain in my arms and shoulders. Numbing out was the only way I knew to survive. It’s no wonder I couldn’t feel my elbow.
I also became very aware that by dissociating from my own somatic experience, I was missing out on the wisdom of my body and how my intuition speaks to me through this awe-inspiring vehicle that transports me through life and blesses me with the richness of the human experience. Not until I did my White Belt training did I begin to really feel, to sense, to experience what my body knows.
Since that life-changing experience, which was part of what I call “the prescription” for myself, I have incorporated somatic awareness into much of my teaching about how the body can heal itself. In fact, in the 6 Steps To Healing Yourself that I teach in my book, as well as in my public television special, what I learned from Nia became Step 3, which is all about listening to your body’s prescription for what your body needs in order to heal.
Why is it important to cultivate

body awareness and move our

bodies through the 52 moves

of Nia? Because in order to

live optimally healthy, happy

lives in alignment with the

authentic truth of who we are,

we need to trust our bodies to

guide us, to signal to us when

we are out of alignment with

our truth and to teach us how

to move, how to love, how to

go after what we desire, how to receive, how to live our purpose, and how to connect spiritually.
This is what you will learn as a Nia White Belt student. Yourbody will become your constant companion, your trusted friend, your spiritual counselor, your wisest decision-maker, your vehicle for pleasure, and the cherished vessel of your spirit. May you enjoy every step of your journey, and may you, like me, finally feel your elbow.
— Lissa Rankin, MD
New York Times best-selling author of Mind Over Medicine:Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself