As a Nia student, you will often hear Jill or I advise you to "Let your feet kiss the ground" or "We'd like to hear the silence of your feet connecting with the floor" or "Use soft strength when placing your feet." You will never hear us say, "We'd like to hear the pounding of your feet on the floor!" The reason is that pounding our feet, especially when dancing barefoot, can result in injury. "Kissing" our feet to the ground inspires conscious, aware, and safe foot placement.
"Barefoot, we could feel the exact impact of all our movements, and it forced us to stop pounding our feet into the floor as if our skeletons were made of steel." write Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas in The Nia Technique book.
Each of our feet has 33 joints, 26 bones, more than a 100 ligaments, 19 large muscles, several small muscles, and 7,000 nerve endings! Most at risk are the metarsal bones along the ball of the foot, which is a primary reason why stepping forward in Nia is guided by the heel lead and why we encourage soft sure-footed movement.
As our whole-body conditioning and awareness build, we can add jumping in Nia. At this stage, we are highly conditioned, know our bodies, and are able to jump and land with our entire being in safety. Until that point, it's best to let our feet kiss the floor. Let awareness be your witness to grow and enjoy Nia injury-free.
Why so much emphasis about the feet? It's because I have a personal injury story about repetitive jumping (pounding on my feet). Completely unrelated to Nia, as part of the tradition of Buddhist practice I follow, one may start deepening practice by engaging in sets of 100,000 repeating mantras or prayers often accompanied by full body prostrations. Eight years ago, I started prostrations. With all the up and down, it was much easier to do prostrations barefoot, and so I did. I got to the point where I could do 100 full prostrations within 20 minutes by jumping back onto my feet while rising. Well...after a few months, I felt a tweak in my foot, but being stubborn, I ignored the tweak and kept going <<Ooop-la -- stupid on my part).
Three weeks later, still doing prostrations, but barely able to walk, puzzled by the whole situation, I went to the doctor, got an x-ray, and learned that I had a compound fracture of my third metatarsal! Clearly, it didn't start as a compound fracture; I would have felt that immediately. But the stress fracture started by pounding barefoot, and compounded by ignoring my body. No more pounding for me! And, much more awareness and honoring of my body.
Today, after doing Nia for nigh on three years and teaching 3-5 classess weekly for the past two years, I happily report that I have had no injuries, I am more fit than I have been in years, and all of this has come through working The Body's Way, my way, with my feet kissing the ground thankfully with every step.
Wishing EveryBody the Joy of Nia, of movement, sustained and injury-free.
With appreciation and with happy feet,
Lesley
P.S. I did finish the 100,000 prostations, with much more awareness, still with the speed, with feet kissing the ground on the rise, and with much more awareness, joy, and confidence.