6/6/2007 10:33:00 AM Nia dance finds home at Fort Worden
Nia Port Townsend instructor Michelle Hensel leads an enthusiastic crowd in some energetic stretching, while Jane Champion (right), another certified Nia instructor, looks on. This “jam” was in the JFK Building at Fort Worden State Park, temporary home until the park’s old gym is ready to host the exercise program. – Photo by David Conklin
Whether they're looking to shed pounds, alleviate arthritis pain or lose those post-partum blues, many Jefferson County women - and a handful of men - are finding Nia.
And what they're finding is that this instructor-led blend of dance, martial arts and yoga - done barefoot and to music - makes them happy.
"It's honestly a joyful experience," says Laura Lawless, who's been attending classes in the new form of fitness since December. She and three friends started "doing Nia" with the goal of losing weight, and six months later, "there's 100 pounds of cumulative weight loss between us," Lawless reports.
"If we ever waffle about going, our mantra is, 'You always feel better after Nia.'"
Describing herself as someone who never before exercised regularly, Lawless, a 37-year-old single mom, is now a Nia addict, squeezing three to four classes per week into her 40-hour work week as the grocery manager at The Food Co-op.
"My clothes fit differently, I stand differently, I'm less stressed out," she says. "But most of all, I'm happier."
Lawless was one of 40 Nia enthusiasts who congregated at Fort Worden State Park last Thursday to participate in an hour-and-a-half Nia jam that showcased all four local instructors and celebrated Nia's move to Studio Port Townsend - a new movement arts venue housed in the park's 99-year-old gym building.
Officially open as of June 4, Studio PT will be a permanent home for Nia PT, which has bounced from studio to studio since classes started here in January 2005.
Allison Dey, director of Studio PT and the founder of Nia PT, uncorked the champagne and led a tour of the ongoing gym remodel for the approving crowd, most of whom would probably describe themselves as Allison fans as well as Nia fans.
"We're growing, and I'm not even sure completely what the future looks like," said Dey. "But I know that I'm excited to be able to offer Nia to more people with more teaching staff and more room."
Growing trend
In a little more than two years, the community of Nia students in the Port Townsend area has grown from a few people who traveled to Bainbridge Island to attend classes to about 75 active participants. Most are women ages 30 to 60; most have been recruited by word of mouth. Dey says her email list of individuals who have attended one or more classes contains 125 names.
At the end of 2006, three students passed the tests to become certified first-level Nia instructors. In addition to Dey, who is blue-belt certified - the second of four levels - and teaches five days a week, Jane Champion, Michelle Hensel and Heidi Mattern have their white belts and teach one to two classes a week.
"After my first class, I knew this was a form of exercise I could enjoy for the rest of my life," says Mattern.
"For me, it's a way you can dance without fear of injury because it's self-healing," adds Hensel, echoing the Nia tagline of "Through Movement We Find Health."
"Self-healing" is an important concept in Nia but can be difficult to grasp. The Nia technique supposedly blends three forms of "healing arts," of which yoga is the most commonly known. Dey describes this facet of Nia as being "about sensing how your body is feeling and healing it through the way it's naturally meant to."
Relatedly, Nia supports the pleasure principle: If it feels good, keep doing it; if it hurts, stop.
Nia was created by two West Coast aerobics instructors, Debbie and Carlos Rosas, who in the early 1980s - the era of "no pain, no gain" - began advocating "slowing down, expressing feelings, reducing impact and taking the shoes off."
"Nia was initially an acronym for 'Non-Impact Aerobics,'" explains Dey. "The Rosases were some of the first people to say, 'Take off your shoes, we're not going to jump around.' Then the movement became much more than just aerobics, so the founders updated the acronym to be 'Neuromuscular Integrative Action.' But now it's just Nia."
Today Nia's headquarters are in Portland, Ore., and the company claims to have certified more than 1,500 instructors in 31 countries. The national website, www.nianow.com, states that 25 years after its inception, Nia "is recognized as one of the most innovative and safe cardiovascular programs to date."
Nia is certainly unique in its blend of nine separate movement arts. Dey points out that in Port Townsend you can find all the separate pieces that fuse to create Nia - such as modern dance, jazz dance, aikido, t'ai chi, tae kwon do and yoga, to name the six most common forms.
"But finding that blend where in one hour you can get your cardiovascular workout but also stretch your mind and address your spiritual well-being - you won't find another class that does that," she says.
Testimonials
Hilary Metzger, 54, a nurse at the county's Public Health Department and a Nia devotee, says Nia offers significant health benefits, all wrapped up in a package deal.
"For all people, especially women, you need strength training of some sort for your long bones, and you need aerobics for your heart, and you also need stretching to be limber," Metzger says. "Even more so when you're over 50. Nia is supposedly a combination of all of three activities. It's a very good workout."
She continues, "I'm not a New-Agey kind of person, so when they talk about inner healing, I'm like, 'So what?' But it's really true. Nia makes me feel good. I always have a smile on my face."
"I think of it as a fountain of youth, personally," says Nancy Van Allen, 57. "I wish I would've done it when I was much younger because I wouldn't have gotten arthritis, I know it."
Van Allen has been practicing Nia for three years, and she noticed a lessening of her sciatica pain after the first two weeks. "I go to Nia religiously because it really does heal my body," she says.
For Jessica Plumb, who enjoyed dance before having her first child at age 36, Nia was a way to recover from the demands of childbirth. Nia's flexible structure meant she could ease into the routines at her own pace, slowly building her strength, until today the proud mother of 1-year-old Zia feels she is at home in her body again.
"It's meant a lot in my life," says Plumb. "It's put the joy back in my life as a post-partum mom. And it's been transformational, physically."
Metzger sums it up. "Something Allison said has really stuck with me: You don't start from a place of 'I've got to change my body,' no, you love the body you have, and as you love your body, it will change."
Founder and teacher
There's no denying a cult of personality surrounding local founder Allison Dey. As much as she speaks the "body-mind-emotion-spirit" talk, she's remarkably down-to-earth. And she's slightly amazed to have gone from being "a mom at home with my kids" to being someone people stop on the street because she is the face of Nia in the community.
Dey, 43, has been involved with Nia for 10 years. Yet it wasn't until October 2004 - five years after moving to Port Townsend - that she became certified to teach Nia.
For 20 years before that, she did social work: serving in a shelter for battered women, taking at-risk kids on wilderness adventures, and training teachers and parents of kids with developmental disabilities, autism in particular.
"I come from a family of social workers, and it's part of how I think about holding the community of Nia students in a way that's supportive to their whole being," says Dey.
She readily admits her own life has been transformed by Nia. For the first two years after she founded Nia PT, Dey waited tables to make ends meet, but as of the end of 2006, she's shifted to Nia full time.
"I could have never imagined that I'd be in a place where I'm a director of a studio, but I feel completely blessed to be able to do this for my livelihood," says Dey, the mother of two boys, ages 5 and 7.
Fort Worden expansion
Dey is the sole proprietor of Nia PT, which has signed a 2½-year contract for the gym building at Fort Worden State Park and Conference Center and is spearheading its transformation to Studio Port Townsend.
Dey noted park maintenance staff support for the volunteer-led renovations organized by Nia PT. Kate Burke, Fort Worden area parks manager, is excited to be adding Nia classes and workshops to the park's mix of onsite activities. All classes are open to drop-ins, which will now include visitors and exhibitors at Fort Worden.
"With our long-range plan to make Fort Worden a lifelong learning center, [Studio PT] is fitting in with our mission, vision and values," says Burke. "It's providing a healthy outlook and an amenity for people who are staying here. It's a good fit."
Last Thursday, Dey told the Nia crowd gathered in the gym, "We're in the middle of a work in progress. You see all the beauty that has been created and all there still is to do."
Two months of work have resulted in replacement of the entry stairs and banister, partial removal of vinyl flooring and sanding of the underlying wood floors, and the painting of warm and inviting hues of orange and yellow on the walls, colors selected by Nia volunteer Judi Bird.
There are three possible studio spaces: on the upper level, two airy rooms with tall windows, 500 and 800 square feet respectively, plus the 2,500-square-foot gymnasium, built as U.S. Army recreation, which the youth Twisters gymnastics team will soon vacate. On the lower level is a full locker room with showers.
The gym will eventually become the Nia studio space, while the upstairs rooms will be subcontracted to other movement arts instructors and events. Dean Deb Johnson confirms that Peninsula College will be teaching its noncredit yoga classes in Studio PT starting this fall.
"It's quite a building," said Karen Crouse, a tireless Nia volunteer who has been dubbed the "manager" of the remodel. "It will be 100 years old in 2008. We're hoping to have the floors and the gym redone by that time.
"It's a monumental task and we're looking for more volunteers," she added.
With these expanded facilities and the momentum they provide, there seems little doubt that the Nia trend should expand in Jefferson County, transforming lives and spreading well-being.
"It was the right path for me," says Jane Champion, who recently became a Nia instructor.
"It's obvious that Nia is on the right path here in our community."
(Shelly Randall attended three Nia classes in advance of this article and personally experienced the "happiness factor." She can be reached at shelly@shellyrandall.com.)
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