On Training, Lineage, and Listening: My Nia Certifications

Celebrating the Journey of Nia Certifications: Embracing Training, Lineage, and Listening Through Movement and Mindfulness.

I am a Certified Nia Floor Play Teacher and a Nia First Degree Black Belt.

I name this not as a claim of authority over bodies, but as transparency about the lineage and training that inform my work.

Nia offered me a structured language for understanding movement through sensation, awareness, and relationship rather than force. Through Floor Play in particular, I learned how profoundly regulating it can be for the body to move close to the ground—where support is constant and choice becomes easier to access.

Earning my First Degree Black Belt marked years of study, practice, and integration. It reflects a commitment to embodied listening, movement as inquiry, and respect for the body’s intelligence. It does not mean mastery of others. It does not mean knowing what someone else needs.

It means I have been trained to listen first.

How This Training Lives in My Work

While I am certified within the Nia lineage, my work has continued to evolve through lived experience, trauma-informed practice, chronic pain, and deep listening—both with sound and with the body.

Today, my movement offerings do not lead with technique or choreography. They lead with consent.

What I carry forward from my Nia training is not a format, but principles:

• Movement as relationship, not performance

• Sensation as information, not something to override

• Choice as essential, not optional

• The nervous system as a guide, not an obstacle

  
  

These principles are the same ones that shape my sound healing work.

Alignment With Nothing Is Required of You

My certifications sit inside—not above—my core philosophy: Nothing Is Required of You.

You are not required to move a certain way.

You are not required to get on the floor.

You are not required to release, express, or transform.

Whether through sound, silence, or floor-based movement, my role is not to direct outcomes. It is to create conditions where listening is possible and pressure is reduced.

Training gives structure.

Listening gives wisdom.

For Practitioners and Professionals

For trauma therapists, bodyworkers, and practitioners who engage with my work: my certifications indicate a solid foundation in somatic movement education and an understanding of embodied awareness. They do not replace clinical training, nor do they attempt to diagnose or treat.

My work is supportive, not prescriptive. It is designed to coexist with professional care, not override it.

Continuing the Practice

Being certified is not a finish line. It is a responsibility—to remain attentive, ethical, and responsive to what bodies actually communicate.

The most important thing my training taught me is this:

The body already knows how to move toward what it needs—when it is listened to.