Articles	Juna's Movement Tips and Music Picks	Inspirational Links (local and global)
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Music Picks and Movement Tips

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The Joy of Embodiment!

Summer is a great time to get into peak condition! In my Conscious Fitness classes we will explore different ways to condition your physical body by focusing on strength, flexibility, agility, mobility and stability. What would it be like for you to learn to destroy and uncreate all the ways you've been limiting yourself to having a great, healthy, strong body? Would you be willing to let go of all the judgements you have about your body that prevent you from receiving the joy of embodiment? Would you be willing to destroy and uncreate all your judgments and points of views about what strength, flexibility, agility, mobility and stability mean to you? And how you can't have that, be that? Yes? Thank you! If you are ready, join me in the dance of conditioning your body the conscious way! 6 weeks to a better you!

 

Check out the amazing Summer Class Pass!
Juna
p.s. enjoy the music picks below . . . just a few fun ones I've picked up along the way!

 

Song Title	Artist	Link
The Sharing Song	Jack Johnson	Listen
A Beautiful Day	India Arie	Listen
The Way I Am	Ingrid Michaelson	Listen
Bruises	Chairlift	Listen
Issa	Dobet Gnahore	Listen
Quelqu'un m'a dit	Carla Bruni	Listen

 

 

An invitation to playIs your body in your being or is your being in your body?

Do anything this month to break loose, to shatter anything that has crystalized out over this wintry period of dormancy. Slough off worn out roles, habits, be willing to shed some skin and reveal the baby pink newness of life. Ask your body what it desires for movement that will release it from the confines of habitual ways of being and moving in the world that are no longer serving you or others. Ask "What Energy Space and Consciousness can I be to perceive my infinite beingness?" Enjoy the flow of allowing the dance between the molecules, particles and waves in your physical body. Is your being in your body or your body in your being?Dance loose, dance free!
Juna and Sabine

 

 

The Dance Lives On!

New from Michael Franti's All Rebel Rockers CD is the totally danceable Say Hey! Nobody Right, Nobody Wrong is mellow and the message clear. The next 3 selections are from the new Sexi Nia routine we will be dancing to in January. The Sexi CD's and more will be available for purchase on-line and at the Synergy In Motion studio coming soon.
Dance On!
Juna

 

 

 

Dancing Through Life!

"Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything." – Emerson
How do you dance through life? What would it be like to turn everyday movements into a dance, from the moment you wake up to when you put your head on the pillow, seize the multitude of ways to make even the smallest gestures into conscious acts of pleasure! Washing your face, raking the leaves, reaching for the light switch, sitting at the computer, the opportunities to choose pleasure in movement are boundless! Notice how your body and being dance while you listen to the music picks for November . . . .
love to you all,
Juna

 

Song Title	Artist	Link
Baby	Bobby McFerrin	Listen
Lullabye	Ben Folds Five	Listen
Steal My Kisses	Ben Harper	Listen
Funkeridoo	Gabrielle Roth	Listen
Like Lovers Do	Heather Nova	Listen

Take a Chance and Dance

In the theme of change and doing something different, dance to the rhythm of your own drummer. With the Music Picks above or in silence, let yourself go into the mother beat, your heartbeat, and feel your pulse, sing your song, drone your tone and let your feet take you into new directions. Let go of Nia movements, yoga, ballet, jazz, the pre-formed, pre-digested, already-arranged dances and dare to show up boldly in the liquid rhythms, the bony off-beats of your vast self-expression, the rush of desire fueling the desert of your impulses. Dance on. Dance bold.

 

 

Your feet - the hands that touch the earth

In th time of the greening of life (spring time), take off your shoes and walk on the earth. With every step you take, let your whole being feel this connection to the soil. Move very slowly and notice the moment to moment process of transferring your weight to a specific spot on the ground. Notice the bonding between your feet and the earth. Next, allow your entire body to roll slowly over the earth and feel each part connected to the ground. Smell the richness of the soil, open your eyes to see, feel the textures on your skin. Imagine you are a part of the earth and let yourself fall deeply into yourself. Allow yourself to feel who you really are. Breathe deep into the core of you as you rest or roll on the soil. Now imagine you have just emerged from the soil, as an island thrust upward from the sea. Imagine you are like lava, erupting over the earth's surface and connecting to earth's core.
If you don't have access to a patch of earth, use your floor at home or warm-up before a Nia class and imagine the scents and the textures of earth's soil as you engage in this process. Play any of the music below while moving and feel yourself going deep and slow, the natural rhythm of the earth.
Hang Ten Everybody,
Juna

 

 

 

From Inertia to Activity!

I'm quoting from Gabrielle Roth's book, Maps to Ecstasy. In one of her final chapters she talks about inertia as "the level of being unconscious. . . .a temporary resistance to the demands of life." Can you relate? She continues, "As you recognize its grip on you, you can confront it with movement and vitalize your being with the energy of change. You can summon the dancer within, the part of you that instinctively knows how to explore the full range of the body's rhythms. It is natural for the body to move, and the simplest way out of inertia, or waking sleep, is to start moving it. Stretch, lean, shuffle, swirl, with or without music, alone or with others. The easiest way is just to ease into flowing movement that will gradually seduce the body into other rhythms."

Listen to the music picks below and let yourself be seduced from stuckness into flowing!

 

 

 

Energize your Self, cellularly!

This exercise takes 1-2 minutes and can be done throughout the day or incorporated in your daily meditation.
Energize your body and your life by saying “Yes!” to connecting intimately with who you are and what you truly want! Literally as you are reading this, focus on a quality that inspires you (ex. light, balance, peace), breathe deeply and imagine this quality penetrating each cell of your body as you breathe in and out.
Do this several times and imagine your cells bathing in and radiating this quality throughout your entire system. Connect to this quality as a sensation. To deepen this experience of energizing your Self in the Now moment, reach both arms to the sky and with a smile on your face, say an audibly enthusiastic “Yes!!!!” to more of this quality and sense the resonance of your cells dancing to this tone.

 

Constructive Rest

(excerpt from Andrea Olsen’s Body Stories) 15 minutes

Here is a wonderful exercise that takes only 5-15 minutes and allows you to let go of negative stress that tends to build up during the day.
• Lie on your back on the floor in a warm, private place.
• Close your eyes.
• Bend your knees and let them drop together to release your thigh muscles.
• Let your feet rest on the floor, slightly wider than your knees (or prop a pillow under your knees for support) and release your legs.
• Rest your arms comfortably on the floor or across your chest.
• Rest into gravity; allow your self to be supported by the floor.
• Feel your breath, and the responsiveness of your whole body.
• Allow the organs to rest inside your skeleton (the lungs and heart, the digestive and reproductive organs); feel the contents released within the container.
• Allow your brain to rest within the skull.
• Allow your eyes to float in their sockets.
• Allow your shoulders to melt towards the earth.
• Allow the weight of your legs to drain into your hip sockets and feet.
• Allow the surface of your back to move against the floor as you breathe; feel your ribs articulating at every breath.
• Allow your jaw to gently fall open; feel the air move in and out through your lips and nose.As you release your body weight into gravity, the discs are less compressed and the spine begins to elongate. You may need to lift your head or pelvis and lengthen the spine on the floor to accommodate this change. Constructive rest is an efficient position for body realignment. It releases tension and allows your skeleton and organs to rest, supported by the ground. Constructive rest is useful at any time of day, but especially if done for five minutes before you sleep. The relaxation of your body parts returns your body to neutral alignment so that you don’t sleep with the tensions of the day. Enjoy this music as you let go of tension. Peace, Juna

 

 

VARIETY AND PHYSICAL CONDITIONING

Lets break out of habits to increase our physical conditioning. If we repeatedly move the same way we will get the same results. Even in Nia we can reach a plateau and that is the sign to change things! Nia offers many tools and your Conscious Personal Trainer needs to be educated and savy with these tools! Nia's 9 Movement Forms, including Yoga, Jazz, Modern Dance, Tai Chi and Tae Kwon Do, offer ways for you to change the dynamics of your movements. Working in the spaces or planes of low, middle and high can thoroughly change your conditioning benefits. For example, take a song or two from a routine we do in class, and move through the entire song in the high or the low plane and notice the results. Then add to that one of the Movement Forms and/or one of the 5 Physical Sensations (Flexibility, Agility, Mobility, Strength or Stability) and you're on your way to changing your body and breaking through the plateau phenomenon. The variety and creative possibilities are endless in Nia! Jump off the plateau and enjoy the ride into greater conditioning!Here are some music picks and artists from each of the routines we will be doing.

 

 

 

YIN/YANG

The focus of today is on the complementary energy of Yin and Yang. Yin energy can be sensed in the body as the horizontal, fluid, receptive energy that connects the front and back of your body and people heart to heart. Yang energy can be sensed in the body as the vertical, dynamic energy that connects the upper body to the lower body and heaven to earth. Remember that both of these energies contain a seed of the other, so turn up your antennae to start noticing how this plays out in your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual worlds.

 

 

 

Communication

Communication always involves 2 parts – the receiver and the transmitter. Begin to receive messages from your body by activating your listening to the voices of your body during movement and rest. Get to know the voice of your knees, your chest, your ankles, your head, for example. Listen to the tone of the voices. Are they soft, loud, strained, or screaming?
When you receive the messages, decide what to do about them. You may choose to say, for example, “o.k. I hear that you are tired, I will go slower and more gently.” This begins the dialogue between you and your body. Notice the tone of voice you take as you transmit messages to your body. Are those voices harsh, demanding, or belittling? Are they understanding, loving and nurturing? Change the tone of your voice and you change the communication.
During this next little while, take care to notice how communication between you and your body affects your movement. Take charge and change your communication to bring more awareness and self-healing to your body. Your body will thank you!
You can use the Music Picks below to stimulate communication between you and your body. Notice how the voices of the music send messages to your physical body and notice how your body responds! Play with listening to music while moving and while resting.

 

Slow Down!

Come home to your body. Spend time in nature to bring yourself into resonance with the earth’s vibration which for us humans is a “slow to medium” speed. Be present to sensation and physical movement. Listen to the voices of your body in this moment. Connect. Be intimate. Notice. Breathe. Change your movements or posture to experience even greater pleasure. Create space in your body, emotions, mind and spirit. Open wide. Celebrate the joys of being in a physical body. Additionally, invite the quality of appreciation into your body and really mean it!

Cool tip: Shower yourself in a bath of appreciation every time you literally shower, bathe or swim!

 

 

 

Juna's Dream Walker Movement Tips and Music Picks

One of Nia’s pearls of wisdom is captured beautifully in the phrase, Through Movement We Find Health. The first two words, Through Movement, invite us to use movement to make our bodies feel better. Movement has the power to heal not only our physical body, but our emotional, mental and spirit bodies as well.
The words, We Find, ask that we seek to find health within each motion that we do. We ask the question, ”How can this movement make my body feel better?” After asking the question, it is important to listen to our body’s response and then open to allow the healing to occur.
The last part of the phrase is Health, which means freedom from illness or injury. Health reminds us that to free ourselves from illness or injury, we bring in loving awareness and appreciation for our situation without blame or judgement. Then we set our intention for vibrant health and relax into Joy.
To assist your bodies’ healing, here are a few music picks to tickle your joy bones! Enjoy!Music Picks to support your Dream Walking Sky Dance through Life!

 

 

 

Movement Tips and Music Picks for Freedancing

This Music Picks and Tips is about creating and what better way to create new moves and new insights into your life than to free dance to great music! One of my favorite recording artists to move to is Gabrielle Roth, who is also a dancer, urban shaman and teacher extraordinaire! To break out of old movement habits, put on these tunes and let your body play, pulse, stomp, vibrate, roll, twirl, rant, chant and dance your dance of creation!

 

Free dancing is one of the best ways to create!

There are no prescribed steps, no right or wrong way to move! Your body knows what to do to feel good, to move the energy and to heal. You can use your mind to set your intention and then let the dance begin!!!!

Make sure you have a safe and uninterrupted space to move in for as long as you wish. 10-45 minutes a day is ideal!

When you begin to free dance:

• start slowly and connect to your breath   
• warm up all your body parts in the first song or two (during Body Jazz)
• connect to your intent to create by choosing a quality that you want to experience more in your life.
• Make it simple like: joy, passion, creativity, peace, freedom, etc. In your dance get to know this quality . . . where is this quality?
• How does it feel in different parts of your body?
• Can you feel it in your toes?
• Eat, drink and breathe this quality!  
• play in different planes of space: low, middle and high
• trust your body and follow her pulse   dare to go beyond the ordinary – choose to step out of your comfort zone!
•  if you feel lost, go back to your breath, get down into your feet,   connect to your quality and . . . .

keep moving! Dance on! Juna

 

 

 

 

 

Articles	Juna's Movement Tips and Music Picks	Inspirational Links (local and global)
	Sabine's Coaching Corner

 

 

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Juna Guetter and Sabine Hildebrandt
London - Ontario - Canada
Tel: (1) 519 690 1479