Bea educates and motivates others to live healthier, happier lives.
Good words about Beth
from her students,
who really are very kind to say such nice things
Profound, healing, grounding, amazing. You are a wonderful guide!
Sunday's class was amazing!! The energy was fantastic, the choreography was great, the workout was hard, the dancing was soulful. I can't imagine how it could have been a better experience. Sherry Reader
On our trip to Costa Rica Beth perfectly blended group support and individual pursuit. Our group’s needs were perfectly co-ordinated, while individual preferences were completely respected. Beth knows how to bring people together to appreciate what each brings, and encourage each person’s own preferences so that they benefit all. Michael Shenkman
from UNM course students:
She is clear in instruction, careful with our postures and movement, and unbelievably fun.
She is so enthusiastic and passionate about what she does that it makes everyone want to get out of the box and move around. This course was so fun.
What our students say about Nia:
Wow, the website does not do this class justice. That was really awesome. I’m pumped.
Nia has totally changed my view on fitness. I never knew it could be fun! Nia is the best.
Nia is dance & fun. It’s high energy. You can be silly and feel good. Dance on!
Nia is freedom to dance and expression. I love it.
My mom recently died. I came to Nia – danced and cried, bawled really. It helped me heal.
Nia…is a joy – for body, mind and spirit. The Nia experience digs deep into past, present, and future.
Nia is awesome! I think it has saved me. I’m an RN and I’m recovering from Hepatitis-C treatment. It has helped me realize how lucky I am to be alive and that I can dance.
I’ve been doing Nia through my pregnancy and it’s made all the difference. I’m energized, calmed, strong and happy. Plus, the little one seems to love it! I’m hoping to dance through my labor.
Nia frees your soul! And your hips, feet, hands, back, neck, tongue, knees, elbows….
Nia is the greatest! It’s the most fun exercise. More dancing in my life makes everything I do feel easier.
Today was my very first experience with Nia. Wow – this class touched and enriched me on so many levels. I can’t wait until the next class.
I taught a Nia class at the University, and students wrote response assignments for class. Here are responses from Alexis and Isabel. I asked them both if I could share their words.
When I first began the semester and Nia [at UNM] I did not know what to expect. After the first class I thought that I heard angels singing. I have been tormented with a stiff body for several years. There are days when I wake up and I can barely move my hands. I took martial arts in the past and I also worked out at a gym and discovered that exercise really helped me feel better physically, mentally and spiritually. Nia took feeling better to a new level. Moving every part of my body was a totally new experience! I am so excited because I found a work out that truly eliminates the stiffness in my body. -Alexis Anderson
Rediscovering Physical Joy
For thirty-seven years now I have sat, lain, stood, walked, and jogged; a total of five movements. I wasn't born stiff. I had at least ten good years of rolling across lawns, climbing lime trees, worming between hay bales, wrestling, donkey riding, dancing to Janis Joplin wildly and uninhibitedly. I wanted to be the Dew Drop Fairy but the ballet instructor rapped me so hard with a wooden stick for poor posture and my slovenly curtsey, I wailed to be allowed to quit. The petal pink leotard was bunched in the back of the closet. Foxtrot classes required trying not to look foolish or step on the feet of the boy with the sweaty palms, high school dances consisted of matching your partner's grinding....
As I grew my movements became increasingly contracted and circumscribed. Ladies, your legs will look lovelier held at an angle with your ankles crossed. Thirty-seven years of practicing the same five movements has encouraged my mind to separate and visit the past, future or far away. I can jog up the Tres Pistoles Trail in the Sandias, and return not knowing if the Apache Plume are still in bloom but with a front porch design in my head. I will quickly tell you "our bodies are our temples," I'm intellectually convinced, but I have no physical experience of this; so few occasions of feeling fully sentient, synthesized, fluid, whole.
Nia is looking like a front door to the body temple. The movements require my head attach to my body and both participate in the present. This lopsided worn body with the poor dance aptitude still has an immense amount of joy to offer: the delight of swinging arms, hips, legs in new patterns, of expressing music with the all of me. It's immense fun! When I have mastered the steps and can pay less attention to you [the teacher] and sink into the extensions and feelings of my own movements, I expect it will become even more joyful. I walk away from class feeling my shoulders, heels to ground, head balanced on neck, supple torso. Sometimes after several hours hunched over the computer ignoring my body entirely, I think Nia! Then I turn on music and recreate a few short sequences in this small room, or take the dog on a walk and expand on the street. I'm practicing for the day I'll block traffic with a series of gyrating hip thrusts and gathering arm gestures. -Isabel