Happy Friday! :) 

    I wanted to share a video I took at my Nia belt and teacher certification a couple weeks ago. For those who missed the earlier blog, Nia is a combination of martial arts, dance arts and healing arts. It's all about the joy of movement, creativity, loving our bodies, listening to our bodies and maintaining a playful nature throughout. This warmup video is a 7 minute workout, designed by the founder of Nia, Debbie Rosa, though the video takes longer than 7 minutes, because we added vocal exercises too.  It's the most intriguing yet effective warmup I've ever done, and after doing it a few times, I thought to myself, "You know. This isn't just a great warmup for a workout ( Nia) routine. It's a great warmup for life!"   If you watch it, you'll see that everyone doing the warmup starts as an embryo! How cool is that? Embryos have it great!  :)  Then you progress through the stages that finally get you walking, including creeping, crawling and reaching. Next, there is a series of rising and falling down in any manner your body chooses, which helps with mobility, proprioception and creativity.  ( I got a little too creative with this in the video, but that's just me!)  Finally, laughter exercises, my favorite, are included at the end, which really gets the oxygen flowing to our brains and muscles. Usually you assess how your body feels before the warmup and then after. You might be amazed at how good you feel after! :)
     But why did I also call it a great workout for life?  Throughout the warmup, and especially with the added, vocal exercises, it's expected that you are playful and silly.  Like a baby, I suppose.  During one part of the video we even made up our own "baby talk" and greeted our classmates that way.  It's awesome, hilarious and makes you laugh even more. When you're falling down, getting back up or rolling around on the ground, you're utilizing creativity to make those scenarios work for you, and anyone of us can see how falling down, rolling around on the ground and getting back up are metaphors for life. Laughing like a crazy person in front of others, crawling around or walking around and introducing yourself in a circle of people can feel weird and uncomfortable!  I'm not self conscious or shy, but if you are, it really pushes you outside your comfort zone. But since we are in a safe, playful environment, no one is worried about being made fun of or being rejected after introducing him or herself.  That got me thinking. What else would this warmup be good for? Oh, social anxiety, new introductions and new situations in general.  This warmup, though designed as a fitness warmup, can also be used as practice for asserting yourself in anxiety-provoking situations.  Seriously. I truly believe that if you can act this silly with others and learn to let go of the fears of being made fun of or rejected and be comfortable with yourself in this warmup situation, you will learn to let go of fear and be comfortable with yourself in real life situations, too.  You will become more confident as those fears of rejection and being made fun of subside. By actually doing and practicing this warmup, it'd be impossible not to!  We are what and how we practice.  :)    So here's the video. I promise it's not like any other warmup you've done. ;)

PS: Major shout out to our trainer, Winalee Zeeb, who gave us all such an amazing, inspiring and magical experience.  More about her and her dance studio is here, and if you can ever have her as a teacher, I highly recommend it!! 
PPS:  Have a great, healthy weekend! :)