Nia Belt system

The Nia Belt System: Personal and Professional Mastery

The Nia Belt System follows traditional Martial Arts models, moving students through progressive levels of education, skill sets and proficiency. Each Nia Belt level includes the study of Nia’s five core competency areas: Anatomy, Movement, Music, Methodology and Philosophy. With the exception of Green Belt, which focuses specifically on the art of teaching Nia, all Belt level Trainings are open to students with personal or professional goals.

Nia is a body-mind-spirit approach to health and fitness in your body and in your life. The Nia system approaches the body through 4 realms: physical, mental, emotional and spirit – meaning simply accessing what is unique about each person. The belt system emphasizes these realms in different ways successively providing teachers with more tools to use movement for health and healing in its broadest sense. Throughout all of the belts, learning and embodying happens through self-exploration and personal experience.

White Belt – Focus: The Body’s Way – Intent: To sense Your Body’s Way

The foundation for teaching and learning Nia. Everything begins with Principle #1 – The Joy of Movement. The principles of this belt focus on the physical realm of the body and learning how to sustain and increase sensation in the body for pleasure and self-healing. The Nia principles are explored through the lens of science, craft and the art of the body in movement. Students are introduced to the nine movement forms of Nia: Jazz, Duncan, Modern, Aikido, Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, The Alexander Technique, The Work of Moshe Feldenkrais and Yoga. Nia’s proprietary system for music appreciation is introduced at the White Belt along with all of the 52 moves of the Nia Technique.

Green Belt – Focus: Honing teaching skills and working with the 13 principles of the White Belt

In general the Nia Education Program can be divided into five competency areas: Anatomy, Music, Movement, Methodology and Philosophy. In the Green Belt, students will go through a 5-day intensive program that takes all of the 13 White Belt Principles through the framework of the five competency areas specifically to develop teaching skills. In addition to the competency areas, students will continue to perfect their skill at modeling and working with the 52 Moves and demonstrating the moves for different fitness levels. Students will work with the Nia’s 5 Sensations of Fitness: Flexibility, Mobility, Strength, Agility and Stability to deliver the Nia Experience that promises physical fitness through seeking pleasure in the body.

Blue Belt – Focus: Communication and Relationship – Intent: To sustain and increase the ability to pay attention to detail

This Belt expands the focus of the White Belt on the physical realm by adding the voices of the other realms: mental, emotional and spirit. Blue belt teaches you to be in relationship with everything as the way to become intimate and knowledgeable. Nia does this through paying attention to sensory details in the body. This is an experiential process to learn how these realms are sensed at a physical level. Teaching Nia is about the personal experience of the teacher and sharing with the class. This intensive provides practical tools for communicating and sharing Nia with others in an intimate way. In the Blue Belt, students also learn about the Nia Mind-Body-Spirit Class format, continue to work with music and how to balance form and freedom in a class. The 5 Stages of Self-Healing, developmental movement and anatomy are also introduced at this belt.

Brown Belt – Focus on Sensing & Perceiving Energy – Intent: To explore the metaphysics of the Body

By this level, students have developed a proficiency with sustaining awareness of the physical body and paying attention to the detail of the voices of the 4 realms: physical, mental, emotional and spirit. Brown Belt explores the experience of living as energy beings. Everything that is experienced as a sensation in the body is an energy experience; shifting our perception through this lens we can expand our consciousness through embodied awareness. Brown Belt explores how energy works and uniquely affects the 4 realms. Again, your personal process helps you discover how to use energy in effortless ways to better communicate and co-create the Nia experience.

Black Belt – Focus on Unlimited Creativity – Intent: Mastering the Basics

As a Black Belt, you let go of all you know and enter into The Unknown a place of infinite and endless creativity. You become a Movement Medicine Healer.