“Life can often feel like it’s zipping by in fast forward. We feel obliged to accelerate our own speed along with it, until our productivity turns into frenzied accomplishment. We find ourselves cramming as much activity as possible into the shortest periods of time. We disregard our natural rhythms because it seems we have to just to keep up. In truth, rushing never gets you anywhere but on to the next activity or goal.
Slowing down allows you to not only savor your experiences, but also it allows you to fully focus your attention and energy on the task at hand. Moving at a slower place lets you get things done more efficiently, while rushing diminishes the quality of your work and your relationships. Slowing down also lets you be more mindful, deliberate, and fully present. When we slow down, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves to our natural rhythms. We let go of the “fast forward” stress, and allow our bodies to remain centered and grounded. Slowing down is inherent to fully savoring anything in life. Rushing to take a bath can feel like an uncomfortable dunk in hot water, while taking a slow hot bath can be luxuriant and relaxing. A student cramming for a test will often feel tired and unsure, whereas someone who really absorbs the information will be more confident and relaxed. Cooking, eating, reading, and writing can become pleasurable when done slowly. Slowing down lets you become more absorbed in whatever it is you are doing. The food you eat tastes better, and the stories you read become more alive.
Slowing down allows you to disconnect from the frenzied pace buzzing around you so you can begin moving at your own pace. The moments we choose to live in fast forward motion then become a conscious choice rather than an involuntary action. Learning to slow down in our fast-moving world can take practice, but if you slow down long enough to try it, you may surprise yourself with how natural and organic living at this pace can be.”
Dancing De-Lights,
Nia turns 30 years old this week! I found this amazing lifestyle practice 17 plus years ago… and I’ve been moving with Nia passion since that day!
We will celebrate with a wonderful oldie, but goodie, from our founder, Debbie Rosas… a routine called Fumi. Music by Loop Guru, it is flowing, it is rhythmic, it inspires the bones and joints to dance!
A special note of gratitude for all the teachers and students who have given me feedback on my upcoming routine Bailando. With 5 weeks until taping in Portland, I LOVE all the feedback. You are all an amazing community, and I am taking your energy and your spirit with me to HQ. All the advice on language (Bailando means ‘dancing’ not ‘to dance!’, thank you Sarita and Linda), the help with Spanish pronunciation and phrasing, and the creative ideas about how to be politically correct. 🙂 The “majestic matador” move is now the “fantastic flamenco”… thank you Sarah and Melissa! Keep the suggestions coming!
We will celebrate the amazing ability of our 13 joints to bring us health through movement this week. In Nia, we call the joints the ‘movers of energy,’ and when we stimulate the 13 joints of the body, we move energy that has become stagnant, stuck, dense, and we also create space for potential, possibilities, and transformation. Our body LOVES to shape-shift, and with over 200 bones and 700 muscles, there are endless variations. By moving the 13 joints, our physical body is energized, our mind is refreshed, our emotions express, and our spirit flies!
Celebrate the 13 joints! Celebrate your body! Celebrate Nia! Celebrate co-founder Debbie with Fumi! Celebrate life itself!
A GREAT week ahead… Love you all, Adelle
My classes this week:
Tuesday 6:45am
Wednesday 9:15am
Friday 5:30pm
Saturday 9:30am (subbing for Joanie)
Sunday 4:00pm
AND…
Sunday, 10:00am… a dance dedicated to the celebration of life!
Adelle Brownlee Brewer
Owner, The Synergy Studio
Nia Black Belt Somatic Educator and Trainer
Nia Black Belt Somatic Educator and Trainer
Nia 5 Stages of Healing FacilitatorNia Training Faculty
Certified Journey Dance Facilitator
Certified Journey Dance Facilitator
Transformational Breath Facilitator
Professional Fiber Artist
www.thesynergystudio.com
www.nianow.com/adelle
www.journeydance.com
www.thesynergystudio.com
www.nianow.com/adelle
www.journeydance.com
doTerra Essential Oils Representative: http://www.
Learn more and go deeper into the connection with you body and your life by taking a Nia White Belt Intensive.
Read more about upcoming opportunities to take the White Belt: http://www.nianow.com/adelle
Sharing the words today of my friend, and dancing light, Adam Barley. Adam is an amazing 5Rhythms teacher and mentor. He reflects on the beautiful Gabrielle Roth, creator of 5Rhythms, and the presence of Spirit and Love in the dance. Thank you for your words, Adam… Adelle
“Gabrielle said ‘God is the dance’ and she was spot on. But Spirit is also bright in the space between us. That is what we can lean into, and find ourselves falling deeper and deeper in love – with what might seem to be each other, but really it’s with Spirit. We’re all falling in love with Love, which is both the dance, and the space between us.”
The Spiral… the oldest symbol known to be used in spiritual practices, reflects the universal pattern of growth and evolution, the universal symbol for the spiritual journey. Reflected in the natural world, the Spiral is found in human physiology, plants, mineral, animals, energy patterns, and weather. Spiral forms are seen in nature from the great galaxies of outer space, to dust devils or whirlwinds, tornadoes, whirlpools, coiled snakes, conical seashells, new fern shoots, to the tips of the fingers, our fingerprints. Modern science has discovered the double helix structure of our DNA, the very architecture of every cell in the body!
The Spiral is a sacred symbol that reminds us of our evolving journey in life, and the one constant… change. The acceptance of change is one of the greatest freedoms a human can experience, living in the present moment.
From a child, when doodling, I’ve always drawn spirals, over and over connecting them on my paper. My first silkscreen design for my fabric creations was a series of spirals. Nine years ago, when I was designing the logo for The Synergy Studio, a spiral with stars evolved. I love Spirals!
This last weekend at the studio, we explored and discovered the new Nia routine Awake with other Nia teachers from around Texas. The focus of this routine is Spirals, Spine, and Space. It was a wonderful weekend of community and sharing, and I am deeply grateful for this lifestyle practice we call Nia. For me, Nia is the key to the door of change, evolution, growth, transformation, the Spirals of life itself.
Join me this week as we dance our DNA, focusing on Spirals, Spine, and Space. By dancing the very architecture of the body, the architecture of life itself, we open the door to the freedom of change, evolution, space itself. AWAKEn your journey!
With deep love in the Spiral, Adelle
My classes this week:
Nia: Tuesday 6:45am, Wednesday 9:15am, Friday 5:30pm, Sunday 4:00pm
Journey Dance: Sunday 10:00am
Good early morning friends! Madisyn Taylor has once again inspire-d me to ponder, take note, and reflect on my life practices. My mantra… Life is a Cause for Celebration! Every moment is precious and to be appreciated. Live it up, sing it up, dance it up! My coffee celebration in the morning! I have napkins that remind me what day it is!  Fresh flowers and glowing salt lamp to celebrate the morning! 
We all know someone who keeps plastic covers on his or her couch in order to protect it. The irony is that many of these people may live their lives without ever having actually made contact with their own furniture! This is a poignant and somewhat humorous example of the human tendency to try to save things for special occasions, as if everyday life weren’t special enough to warrant the use of nice things. Many of us have had the experience of never wearing a particular piece of clothing in order to keep it nice, only to have it go out of style in the meanwhile. It’s interesting to think of what it would mean to us if we let ourselves wear our nicest clothes and eat off the good china on a daily basis. We might be sending ourselves the message that every day we are alive is a special day and a cause for celebration, and that we are worth it. There is something uplifting about treating ourselves to the finest of what we have. It is as if we rise to the occasion when we wear our best clothes and set the table beautifully, as if for a very special guest. We are more mindful of where we place things, what we are eating, and who is with us. Using the good china, eating in the dining room, and taking the plastic off the sofa might be an invitation to be more conscious of the beauty and grace inherent in our everyday lives. If there are things you’ve stashed away for a special occasion—a bottle of special wine, a gorgeous pair of shoes, an antique lace tablecloth—consider taking them out of their hiding places and putting them to use tonight, just because you are alive now to enjoy them, and that’s a great cause for a celebration. |
Dancing Friends,
I am thrilled to be able to announce that I am choreographing one of the four Nia routines for 2013-14… and I’m excited to share it with you and get your valuable feedback!
As many of you know, I have spent years traveling up to Nia HQ in Portland, to be a principle dancer and support my fellow trainers in the filming of the four new routines that HQ releases every year. Last year, Debbie asked me if I would be a principle choreographer for this year, and I gratefully accepted. I’ve spent many many hours picking music, creating the 8BC system document for teachers, and freedancing until the ‘clicks’ began to happen… choreography was born!
We will be filming my new routine “Bailando” in September, for release later this year. I would love to share it with you, my friends and fellow dancers of life. With Latin-based tunes, and lots of fun latin-inspired moves, it is a work in progress. 🙂
Please join me Tuesday at 6:45am and Wednesday at 9:15am, as I preview “Bailando”.
After all… Bailando is ‘dance’ in Spanish… and what do we LOVE to do?!!!!
The focus of my routine is Systemic, Full-Body Movement through opening the five pathways… Heels, Hara, Heart, Hands, Head.
Then get ready for a weekend full of newness as we introduce a new Nia routine called Awake. Filmed back in September 2012, Awake has beautiful music from the town of Auroville, India. Fellow trainers who reside there were the choreographer’s, and Awake’s focus is Spine, Spiral and Space. This is a yummy routine and you can dance with us all weekend, and take an Awake Playshop on Sunday at 2:30 where you learn the katas of the routine. The Playshop includes the music and the 4:00 class! Sign up here!
If you are a Nia teacher, there is still space to learn the routine with other Nia teachers on Saturday. Email me for more information.
Awake Immersion Classes…Team teaching with Joanie!
Friday at 5:30 pm
Saturday at 9:30 am
Saturday at 9:30 am
and Sunday at 4:00 pm
all at http://www.
I LOVE this work called Nia… it is the language of the body… sensation at its best!
Loving you, Adelle
Wise Madisyn Taylor writes… Summer solstice represents a time to reflect upon the blessings we have received in seasons past and look toward new growth.
On the longest day of the year, the sun, which has on the days preceding seemed to rise higher and higher into the sky, reaches its zenith and rises no more. This day, which in the Northern Hemisphere can occur between the 20th and 23rd of June, marks the start of summer and is known as the summer solstice. From time immemorial, the coming of summer’s light and warmth has been a time of gladness and celebration. In June, the snows had long since melted, the ground had thawed, the first fruits were ripening on their vines, and Mother Nature had once again renewed herself. Though most of us have turned away from our agricultural heritage, the summer solstice remains a time of new beginnings and life-enriching endings. It is the day the sun reaches the peak of its power as well as the day that heralds the shorter days that eventually bring with them autumn’s chills.
For ancient peoples of the Americas and Europe, the summer solstice was a particularly joyous day—and one auspicious for those seeking year-long luck, fertility, abundance, and prosperity. Men and women on two continents would gather to pay tribute to the sun’s magnificence, to pray for a bountiful harvest, and to bolster the sun’s energy with bonfires and fireworks. Today, the summer solstice represents an optimal time to reflect upon the blessings we have received in seasons past and visualize the new bounties we hope to receive in the season just beginning to flourish. At noon, when the sun is at its highest point, we can pay reverence to its incredible strength and its ability to create life while also musing on the impermanence of life as represented by the impermanence of the season. You can reestablish your innate connection to nature on the summer solstice by spending time outdoors; following the sun’s procession as the day passes; burning sun oils such as orange or juniper; or decorating an altar with solar images, summer greens, or colorful blossoms.
Just as the summer solstice is symbolic of agricultural growth, so is it symbolic of personal growth. It is a wonderful time to nurture your potential as you would nurture a tiny seedling and let your creative energy express itself fully. On the summer solstice, you may feel compelled to emulate the noontime sun and be at one with the world around you or to let your inner brilliance shine forth at full strength, if only for a single day. Your life, like the seasons, follows a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, and summers, whether literal or figurative, can always be celebrated.
“Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!” ~Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss wrote all about our “thinker-upper machine.” He recognized that our minds were marvelous, miraculous machines. Amazingly, we can even think about the fact that we are capable of thought production. Whoa!
We create with our minds. We think whatever we want to think, and sometimes we forget how flexible our minds can be. We can change our minds on a dime, from ‘poor me’ to ‘abundant gratitude.’ When we recognize how flexible our minds can be, it becomes easier to shift our mind energy. When we open to a more positive, productive way of thinking, we open to the infinite possibilites… the flexibility of life itself.
Waking up in the morning and throughout our day, we stretch our muscles to gain flexibility and a healthier body less prone to injury or disease. When we open up our mind, we gain resiliency and allow for a new way of seeing things, which flows forth naturally. We have the capacity to create a flow of thoughts that can be healthier and even helpful.
Take a moment–think about it!
Continuing the Dance of Flexibility this week.
Where do you need more Flexibility in your life? Bring it to class… let’s create!
With Abundant Gratitude, Adelle
This is a great article that gives scientific research to
the heart brain…. something we intuitively know, and
science confirms.
In Journey Dance last week, we focused on electromagnetic energy… it is there, radiating from the heart and ‘knowing’ …without thinking.
Amazing.
With abundant love!
Adelle