Sensation of Stability

The focus for tonight’s class is the sensation of stability. The routine I will be facilitating is filled with fun steps, stances, lateral travel, kicks, blocks, punches, strikes, and other movements that will allow us to recognize the unique physical qualities and sensation of how we each experience stability.

Stability is:

• Sensed as energy moving out in all directions from the center.
• Sensed as a calmness in the muscles, combined with readiness for action.
• Maintained by equalizing muscular contraction and relaxation.
• Sensed as a harmony between the muscles and joints.

We maintain and nurture stability by seeking balance in movement, postural integration and correct alignment of our body, equalizing muscle contractions and relaxation, and finding ways to rest in momentary or sustained periods of movement and non-movement.

Examples of how the sensation of full stability may feel in your body. Your:

• Ankle joint can support you in rising up and down on your toes, without wobbling in or out to the sides.
• Knee joint can support you in moving and stopping without locking or tensing.
• Hip joint can fully support you in balancing, walking, sinking, and rising.
• Wrist can support you in starting and stopping motions and in holding, balancing, and bearing body weight.
• Elbow joint can suddenly stop any hand and arm motion and can also support body weight.
• Shoulder joint can support your hands and arms in starting and stopping motions and in supporting body weight.
• Spine can support you from the inside out to lift, lower, bend, twist, push, and pull.

Through the movements in this routine we will focus on discovering, tweaking and sustaining the sensation of stability with dynamic ease. Dynamic stability, the perfect balanced of opposites, is sensed as powerful peace.

Join me tonight in exploring the sensation of stability and the firm foundation it provides for us to move, reach out in all directions, to find balance and ease into powerful peace. All to a fun soundtrack that includes Thievery Corporation, Tears for Fears and Michael Franti and Spearhead. Get ready to shake it.

Class begins at 6:45pm at the Crown Hill School, room 4. Address: 9250 14th NW, Seattle, WA 98117

Reference: Rosas, Debbie and Carlos, The Nia Technique (New York: Broadway, 2004) 102-107.