On and off the floor

Dancing on and with the floor has become a more important part of the Nia classes I teach. Although our floor play is usually at the end of class, there are some opportunities at the beginning and middle of class to use the floor. The floor is one of the most useful pieces of workout equipment I have. I notice that whenever I get to the floor, it's a creative path to getting up again that leads to more strength, focus, grace, and balance.

I remember in one of my belt classes, Debbie invited us to rise from the floor and return to it 13 times, each time devising a different movement from the horizontal to the vertical and back again. Here are some:

• rolling back and forth along the spine with enough momentum to roll all the way to my feet, then squatting deeply enough to drop the hips to the floor and roll again
• from belly, piking my hips up into down dog, then walking to forward fold, then lifting the spine to vertical, swan diving back to forward fold, down dog, and belly on the floor
• same as above, with more agile jumping moves
• same as above, rounding the spine to curl up one vertebra at a time, and back down
• moving in a spiral from lying on floor to standing and back to floor
• rising from a seated cross-legged posture to standing, then sitting again -- Can I do it with no hands?
• from all-fours, rocking back to balance on toes, then lowering heels and straightening legs to stand, descending slowly back to all fours
• belly to child's pose, kneeling, lunging, standing, back to lunging, kneeling, child's pose, and extending onto belly

I'm going to invent 5 more for my next workout. Today we had fun in class with Carlos's free dance on the floor from Clarity, moving rhythmically with the hands, elbows, shoulders, chest pelvis, legs, and shoulder blades, a whole body dance with the floor as a dancing partner.

One of my students today commented that moving on the floor was one way to get a massage, a way to use the floor for pleasure and comfort.