The last in this Nia Up Close & Personal Series, this week we danced our way through our upper extremities. It reminds me how much I love to focus on dancing with my hands, palms, fingers, wrists. So often, too easily, are these important delights of beauty left behind. As a fitness professional for over 25 years it wasn't intill I became a Nia students/instructor/practitioner that I even CONSIDERED my hands in exercise. In traditional fitness it's all about the big muscles (especially in the 80's and 90's). Only recently has fitness jumped on the wagon of training our core (that's another blog all together!) Well, last Tuesday, to the delight and surprise of all that attended, we focused on our upper extremities and to each other's delight we found power, grace and a completeness in our conditioning. Here's a recap of our anatomy discussion.

Skeletal Review:

• shoulder blades (not necessarily a joint, but an important "moving part" that plays the part of our wing. Moving it conditions our upper back and chest.
• shoulder joint: the ball and socket (very shallow joint) connecting our upper arm bone to core structure. It's our muscles and connective tissue that keep our arm bone from falling right off or right out of this shallow socket. And the body's design shows us this joint is meant for freedom of movement, not repetitive, linear or heavy weight bearing movements.
• Upper arm bone: to the greatest degree that we diversify the movement of our upper arm bone will we condtion our back and arm muscles. The upper arm bone no only crosses in front of us,  behind us--it also lifts to the front, back and side. AND....it also rotates within the socket like turning a door handle or unscrewing a light socket. Thus the importance of playing with the direction of your palms!
• Elbow joint: a hinge joint that resembles the knee. Designed to move the energy between our upper arm and forearm.
• Lower arm bones: two bones, one thicker and one more delicate that are designed to spiral around each other EVEN when the upper are bone doesn't. To me that is sooo cool. The very nature of the lower arm bones is to continue to support the expression of the wrists and hands.
• Wrists: a very versatile and delicate joint. It flexes, extends, moves side to side (so you can wipe a table), and also rotates to "roll" your wrists. The wrist only has 80 degrees of flexion which is exactly whyplacing your palms on the floor and trying to get your lower arm bone to be perfectly perpendicular (like a pushup or plank pose) doens't feel good after a period of time and can cause an injury when forced or done repetitively.
• Hands and fingers- Well, what can be said. So amazing, so gorgeous!--All those bones, nimble ligaments, and joints. Our hands are like a beautiful basket weaving that allows for the most intricate detailed movements as well as energy portals that heal. Each finger and thumb can curl, squeeze, flick and expand. Moving the fingers (flicking water, shaking, creepy crawling) can give us a boost of energy.

Starting on page 142 of The Nia Technique book, by Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas is an outline of each of the Upper extremities movements that can condition your body and bring you more power and grace to your dance. 

The Up Close and Personal Series takes a break till December first when again we'll have three session. This series will focus on Nia's tools and principles of Self Healing--how to connect and condition your body in a way that is responsive to your body's changing needs.

Till then, keep dancing!

Jill