“How many years has it been since we were at the harvest dance? – at any dance? And I don’t care how young they are, how drunk and dirty and sweaty they are. I want to dance, Kate. It’s the festival of Lughnasa. I’m only thirty-five. I want to dance.”

Agnes Mundy, Dancing at Lughnasa

Stepping In

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body” Martha Graham.

March 2018

When I stepped in with Mel at her impromtu taster Nia class in the sunroom at Lendrick Lodge deep in the Scottish Trossachs on that March evening in 2018, it was a bolt from the blue. Tears of sheer joy bubbled up.

We were on a coaching retreat and Mel had flown in from Colorado. She told us over Breakfast about being a black belt in Nia. “Nia? What’s Nia?” our curiosity piqued. ‘It’s best I just show you!’ she said. That evening we spread out and Mel kicked off the session. The music, the moves! One minute a shoal of fish moving in directions, the next kicking out martial art moves feeling fierce. I felt so exhilarated I thought I was going to explode with joy, biting back the tears one minute and the next feeling like a strong warrior woman who had just re-connected with her ancient roots. Either way I did not want it to end. Mel’s ease and fun in her delivery made this seem so natural and for everyone. It hit me somewhere primal and at the same time felt like a home-coming. I couldn’t believe this existed and that I didn’t know about it! It felt SO DAMN GOOD. I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt something had opened up, something had shifted. I felt trickles of energy surge up from my back through my body. Next morning I couldn’t sit still with the excitement still in my body. We were settling into a meditation led by one of the group members but I caught Mel’s eye across the room and mouthed ‘WE.NEED.TO.TALK.ABOUT.NIA’. And we did. I knew I had to explore this further and dig a little deeper.

And so I did.

‘And you can dance…for inspiration’ Madonna.

1985

It was probably before Madonna that dance inspired me but I can’t claim to have been, as a 6 year old on stage, dancing the reel for the customary annual feis. Irish dance just didn’t grab me back then. It filled me with dread trying to get the moves right to please my dance teacher and according to my mum I didn’t like the dresses nor the pumps. Plus I was chronically shy so anything stage related didn’t appeal. The arrival of 80’s pop and hip hop though, that got me moooving.

Get into the Groove. 

We danced a lot as young girls from the estate, making up routines in our all-in-one luridly coloured gym suits (mine acid green as I recollect) and carefully selected, equally blinding neon leg warmers hugging our angles. Carefree, high-spirited with an absence of self-consciousness marked those days, natural dancers and choreographers.

“Dance First think Later’ Samuel Beckett

A little later in the 80’s, once allowed, weekend discos dominated our weekends and dancing was the main lure, but perhaps a drink or two was required first for dutch courage. It was quite a circular, round the handbag event ‘Ooh I wanna dance with somebody…’. Get the picture?

The club scene took over in the 90’s and dancing was taken to a whole new, albeit hedonistic level continuing into the wee small hours. Enter the rave generation. You no longer needed a person to dance with because you were dancing with the masses. I loved the hype but the reality of looking around at foamed up at the mouth pill poppers eventually put me off and I became wary of the dance floor. I couldn’t keep up with this synthetically sustained drug-fuelled dance culture and gradually left the floor, thinking it wasn’t for me. It was a movement that started with good intentions. Tribal dancing and ambient music and the energy created by that felt new, exciting and something out of this world, especially for a teen/twenty something looking for freedom and release, but unfortunately it took an excessive and sinister turn. However, while carried along by it I felt that sheer exhilaration when I danced; that hook, that uncontrollable urge to get stuck in and immersed and keep going, the dance feeding itself and the body just wanting more. It activated the joy muscles and feelings that cannot even be expressed but felt necessary to be expressed. It was primal it was ecstasy. No synthetic drug required. The Sufi whirling dervishes knew this. We were our own mystical dancers standing between the material and cosmic worlds. But then I danced to lose myself not to find myself.

During my 20’s I took a weekly, less hedonistic path to a contemporary dance class in Derry to explore that avenue, even performing for the public from the beautiful gardens of Glenveagh Forest Park in County Donegal. It was quite avant-garde, no music involved in fact. I learned a lot about the the freedom of movement and personal expression through movement. I definatley felt much more attracted to freedance than a strictly disciplined form and loved the space that was created for that.

Then as I moved for work purposes dance just seemed to peter out of my life. With the odd club scene dance in my 30’s it became associated with how the ‘young’ enjoy themselves and I was career oriented in my 30’s and gaining a ‘serious bent’. Dance almost came to a halt in my 40’s bar the odd wedding dance floor (which is never a comfortable dance, let’s be honest, unless you kick off the heels ) and weekend evenings in the kitchen whilst listening to the radio, making dinner and sipping a glass of wine. Multi-tasking at its best. I did have my 90’s Ibiza Club Anthems CD’s still on a loop in the car and a few trips to Ibiza (dance nation) where I found I literally could not wait till 5am for the main DJ to appear and retired early, danced out, rarely making the headline act. It somehow started to feel outdated, or was that just me?

How had dance become so inaccessible?

12th July 2018

Stepping into…Burntisland

I walked down the hill from the train station, wheeling my 10kg bag behind me and turned the corner into the delightful, old-worldly seaside village of Burntisland. Many of the shop signs were either purposefully retro or literally old. I had the space upstairs on my google maps so followed the blue dotted line. A sign above an old inn swung in the breeze and conjured up images of twinkly eyed toothy seamen drinking their ale with hearty boisterousness. I wondered momentarily was I in the right place. Close by I spotted the steamy windows in a welcoming looking café ‘Potter About’ and headed towards it, noticing the space upstairs above it. As I drew closer I heard the beats and a few lively yelps from what I knew was a Nia class being delivered by Britta Von Tagen, one of my two to-be- instructors for the next week. They were dancing Dragon, a routine I had yet to dance to. I didn’t make the class in time so went into the café to wait and have a coffee. At the counter there was a box with magazines in it and the magazine facing me had a picture of Botticelli’s Primavera … the same one I had up in my office at home. The one with the ladies dancing in a circle in a forest with cupid above. The one I felt so drawn to as a tapestry in Bruges on a school trip that I later ordered it online. Big gush of feels. I knew I was in the right place.

While waiting for my drink, two high energy ladies bundle in all in black and all-a-chatter. I know they are Nia-phytes. Their ALIVE-ness is palpable. They find their way to my table and it turns out one is the lady I am to stay with for the week, Mags! Within seconds I am at ease as we talk excitedly about Nia. I text Trevor ‘I found my tribe’.

21st July 2018 Post White Belt (Journal)

It is two days since I got off the plane at Belfast International from Edinburgh and I haven’t left the house yet, afraid that once I do I break the spell of this post-white-belt–Nia-glow. Still immersed.

Immersion is the only way to really embody Nia. Eleven of us ladies, two New Zealanders, one German, one Irish (me), one English and six Scottish kicked off our shoes at 5pm on Friday evening and from there spent over 60 hours together dancing, learning, observing, laughing, crying and celebrating a most earth moving, life-changing (I can only speak for myself) 7 days of gorgeous sacred space and transformation.

It’s pretty special when women get together and share their joys and pains but when women get together, do that, AND dance. Whoosh!

Although majorly resistant, I may eventually come out from my Nia bubble. Safe to say I am smitten. I can’t think on anything else. All desire for things has seemingly gone. Poof! I have no need of anything right now. I am still in a state of euphoria.

All I know is that once I come out of this state of bliss I have a lot of ground to cover, new ground. And I suddenly remember the words that fill some space on my vision board ‘Cover New Ground’. It was MY desire. And that desire has been satisfied, as a whole new journey opens up ahead of me. Where do I begin? I have 52 steps to learn, 13 principles, 9 movement forms to explore, routines to learn and a first new public class to deliver. I like my homework. I know 10 new fantastic women and 2 out-of-this-world, exceptional teachers, Britta Von Tagen from Idaho and Letizia Accinelli from Italy.

I think Nia may have changed my life. Learning to BE in my body (and not just my mind) is not as easy as it sounds. So far, as I start out on my Nia journey I know I feel different, I see things differently, I have a new lens on living and that is living in my body. I want people to feel this too, to know that every experience you have ever had is recorded in your body and that by moving it, by dancing, we release, we reconfigure, we recalibrate, we heal, we awaken joy that may be long buried by responsibilities, an over active mind or culture. We get in touch with how we REALLY feel, who we really are. Our body is our first informant, our closest and best ally. It reminds us of our own truth. It shakes us up, it asserts us, gives us clarity. It is healing , it is scary sometimes, it is magic. It can awaken a forgotten you.

I feel so grateful. Grateful to my journey, the people I am meeting on my way and I know not only am I grateful for my body, my body is grateful to me for taking it on this wonderful trip, for acknowledging it. It has been given it’s own voice now and I respect it so much more.

From that retreat in Lendrick Lodge in 2018 I arrived home seeking a Nia class. It turned out there was none to be found in the north and so I turned to Dublin. There I found Annie who has been teaching Nia for 15 years and who happened by wonderful chance to be delivering a workshop on a Saturday that April. Timely! Again during those 3 hours of learning more about Nia from Annie and stepping into the routine WILD for the first time, I had the heart soaring recognition and a deep felt sense that this was for me. Next stop Burntisland, Scotland.

July 2018 White Belt, Burntisland

The Art of Sensation

With an 8.30am start and 5-6pm finish, the 7 day white belt was an intense, disciplined and full schedule. 11 of us gathered in circle every morning in a light filled studio. We started and ended in this circle with a ritual to mark the beginning and finishing of using the space. This gave an element of sacredness to the teaching and the learning. The most wonderful thing about this experience for me was not wanting to miss a beat, the fact that I enjoyed every second of it and did not want to be anywhere else in the world at that time (unusual for me). It was out of my comfort zone, as in completely new, but it felt so comfortable to me being there. I soaked it up like a dry willing sponge.

The course is so intense and rich that I know I could do it over and over a dozen more times and find something new in it. There was so much to take in. I was in awe at the level of expertise and authentic somatic knowledge of the trainers and their own somatic journeys. Although I got a C in Biology in the Leaving Cert., I felt I was learning about the body for the first time in this whole new way. It increased my understanding of the importance of movement. I was an avid mover, I knew I needed to move quite a bit daily to feel good but I was not necessarily connected to my body while moving. I realised my BQ (Body Intelligence) was quite low. I was quite detached from my body in fact. This difference, this consciously ‘stepping in’ to the body was a definite ‘a-ha’ moment for me. I didn’t just ‘step in’ to the dance routines, to this new-to-me holistic fitness practice, I stepped into my own body and the beginning of my own somatic journey, one at least that I became aware of. It was like being introduced to my body for the first time.

The 13 main joints? The fascia muscles? The way the body is all connected and how, through mindful movement we can release, heal and calm our nervous system.? New to me. Our feet, better without the trainers? Barefoot we can sense the connection to the earth and find better alignment in our bodies? With 26 bones, 25 joints and 7000 nerve endings that need to sense and move too? A new sensation for me. I started to see the body (X-ray anatomy, one of the 13 principles), to understand how intricately designed it is, how intelligent that design is and how by moving our joints the body’s way allows for energy to move freely creating a feeling of wholeness, of flexibility, mobility and a sense of health and wellbeing. Stuck energy can have the opposite effect and can lead to a host of problems.

The main and most surprising take away of that week for me though was the peace, the over-whelming sense of peace I gained, the kind I would imagine you’d achieve after being in an ashram for months. My nervous system had had a holiday, it was relaxed. That peace; physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, that peace gained from embodying the knowledge I was learning and from approximately 4-5 hours of movement and dance every day. People spend their lives seeking this peace. I had been seeking it. What a ride! What a find! What a gift!

You could have been giving me the Nobel prize for peace the day I received my white belt. It is definatley a highlight in my life to date. Powerful, empowering, emotional. I felt ALIVE, elevated, privileged and humbled. And to witness my white belt buddies go through their own transformations was another experience in itself.

Lockdown 2020

‘Movement is Life’ Moshe Feldenkrais

Two years on, almost to the day I danced for the second time with Mel on zoom from her living room from our respective lockdown lives during these pandemic times. It was no surprise she chose the JOY routine being the Joyologist that she is! I will remind her time after time the significant role she has played in opening the door for me and the joy I found the other side of that door.

I often think on that first poignant moment with Mel. It may have been a deep recognition of my body’s need to dance again and the way I had allowed it to slip away associating it with youthful follies. It was a great miss for sure. But I believe it was more than that. The need to dance is something deep in the DNA, it’s already there. I feel it deeply when I see or hear Irish dance music or tribal sounds. Sometimes it can be triggered by an unexpected eruption of emotion.

“Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement – as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary…” 
― Brian Friel

I experienced a similar eruption of emotion with my Mum at Brian Friel’s play, that time I first saw the dancing scene in The Dancing at Lughnasa. There we were engrossed in the dialogue of the five Mundy sisters in the kitchen scene and the next thing the music starts up from the radio and that famous moment of rapture when the sisters spontaneously burst into dance. This play, to me, has become about that moment. Friel himself saw dance as ‘complete self-expression, dance as dream memory, dance as substitute for language.’ He also, interestingly, instructed that his characters dance against the beat. In that moment of complete abandon the sisters are connected to their wild hearts, their true inner beings, all their hopes and desires. Then they go back to peeling the spuds. As is his genius Friel manages to transcend the particular and it resonates with something greater in us. It did me. It hit my gut and shot up through my heart and my eyes stung with sudden tears. Quite similar in ways to the sensations I had stepping in with Mel that first time. I could feel the same reaction in my mother beside me, albeit maybe more pronounced. What her generation had to suppress and unknowingly pass unto us. Imagine having to suppress your wild heart and true inner being? Your joy? and feel guilty about it? Perhaps it’s connected to our collective colonial and religious past. But where is God in that suppression? That’s not MY God. My God IS Joy. God and truth, or call it the divine, to me, entered the Mundy kitchen through that moment of joy, of dance, as it did my life. Imagine being able to access that joy anytime? Enter Nia.

“We act in accordance with our self-image. This self-image – which in turn, governs our every act – is considered in varying degree by three factors; heritage, education, and self-education.” Moshe Feldenkrais.

From the day we sit in school aged between 4 and 5 when our natural instinct is to play and we are told to sit; not to look left, not to look right or speak to the person beside you but to look ahead to the teacher and stay in your chair, punished if you were seen out of it. We sit at our desks doing homework/study for years and then move into jobs that pin us to a desk for hours on end or we hold a particular role related posture (example me – teacher – upright, head high, authoritative, poker face, serious) Perhaps that is where my cry comes from. That grief in my body of not being allowed to move or express myself freely from such a young age by a culture that has tried to control, conform, standardise and make us SIT. Perhaps my ‘serious bent’ had created a deadness, a detachment and a kind of atrophy in my body. Perhaps I had been ‘numbed down’. That’s my self-diagnosis.

Do we still need to be careful with the way we move lest we give off the wrong signal? Try doing a pelvic circle and a few hip bumps on public transport and not raising a few eyebrows! My Mum told me once that my grandmother used to switch over Tom Jones when he came on tv (when they were in the room) because of the way he swayed his hips. It was corruptive! Now I know it’s not unusual! (and my memory of my grandmother is of being a naturally sensual and divinely connected woman). At a recent training event Debbie Rosas, the creator of Nia was taking us through a sequence where we thrust our hips out continuously and asked us after wards did we feel self-conscious or had the feeling we were doing something unorthodox. Unfortunately I had to admit yes and I thought I came from a more liberated generation. But it’s so ingrained. It’s sub-consciously handed down through word, thought, action and DNA. I am mindfully de-conditioning myself.

It’s not just the sexual connotations that parts of our bodies represent if we move them in a certain way that may feel ‘wrong’. There are cultural limitations to other parts, like our heads for example. We are told to keep our head upright and held high, we nod up and down or we shake our head side to side to say no. It’s all quite static and robotic. Our head can move in many more directions and should! And so it goes for the whole body. Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care! And look upwards while doing it! We were not built to sit for such long hours, arms constantly by our sides. Our body is equipped with many types of joints, muscles, bones and fascia to allow it to move in many ways. And so we should, MOVE IT! How we move it can change how we feel. Therein lies the magic.

The White Belt is about the Art of Sensation. It is the culmination of the science and craft of movement. ”This means living and functioning in your body while guided by sensation. In White Belt you learn how to apply sensory knowledge to everything you do’. Debbie Rosas. The more we become aware of and sense our bodies the more we can hear its wisdom and the more our lives become enriched.

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once’ Nietzsche

Ever since I stepped in I have been shimmying, cha-cha-cha-ing, outward punching, spinal rolling and hip-bumping my way through life and it makes it so much better. It has elevated my thoughts, my body awareness, my mood, my sense of possibility. I dance almost every day and if I leave it for a few days I feel the difference. I get cranky. So I have learned to listen to my body more. I hear it call for the dance, call for the rest and I respond out of a new found respect and love for it. After 4 decades of following my mind and responding to an inherited and learned conditioning I now choose to follow my body first. This is still challenging and takes reminding and a lot of practice. Re-forming new habits requires constant mindfulness.

‘So if its better health, fitness, more enjoyment, better sex, greater focus and attention or simply the need for more joy and fun living in your body, you’ve come to the right place. The White Belt training is the beginning of the Nia journey, a blueprint for loving your body and loving your life’. Debbie Rosas.

The Journey continues…

Since the white belt I have followed up with 4 more Nia trainings in Burntisland, Hamburg, Rimini and London. I took to my local community centre that September in 2018 and taught my first routine to a lovely group of willing and curious ladies. In January I started to teach in two leisure centres and have also taught since in yoga studios and women’s centres. I have danced with over 100 of my own students locally and many more internationally. I have signed up for my Blue Belt which was meant to be in Portland in July of this year but is now going to be a 16 week course online. So much more ground to cover, people to meet and dances to dance. I know there is enough on this path to keep me exploring, discovering and learning for a lifetime. I am so intent on learning and embodying all I need to live an optimal life and share that with others. However, I still feel very much like I’m at at the beginning of this somatic journey.

Watch out for those moments that for you ‘can catch the heart off guard and blow it open’ . Postscript Seamus Heaney

Through Movement We find Joy

Follow Your True North

You can learn more about Nia Dance at http://www.nianow.com and my own Fb page Nia NI with Liz. But as Mel said to me once, if you are curious ‘It’s best I just show you’ . Get in contact and I’ll dance with you 🙂

Through Movement We Find Health