Get In with Debbie Rosas

What is it about dance that makes us feel so alive? And why, after decades of fitness trends focused on strength, endurance, and physical conditioning, are we rediscovering the power and pleasure of dancing?

In this episode of GET IN, I sit down with dancer, movement professional, and former Nia teacher Kevin VerEecke for a lively and thought-provoking conversation about dance, Jazz, fitness, and the extraordinary relationship between movement, the body, and the brain.

Drawing from Kevin's professional dance background and his experience teaching Nia, barre, kettlebells, and other fitness disciplines, we explore the connection between dance artistry and physical conditioning. We discuss how Jazz brings rhythm, personality, musicality, coordination, improvisation, and self-expression into movement, and why these qualities matter to anyone who wants to stay physically fit, mentally engaged, and fully alive.

Our conversation raises intriguing questions about what it really means to be fit. Is physical strength enough? What happens when we invite the brain to participate through rhythm, memory, coordination, and creative decision-making? How does learning choreography challenge us? What can making mistakes teach us? And what happens when we stop trying to get every movement right and begin discovering the pleasure of moving in our own unique way?

We also reflect on the evolution of dance fitness and the role I helped create through Nia. When I co-created Nia in 1983, bringing together dance, martial arts, healing arts, music, sensation, physical conditioning, and personal expression offered a radically different approach to fitness. More than forty years later, as interest in dance and its potential benefits for brain and body health continues to grow, I see how relevant these founding ideas remain.

At the heart of our conversation is a shared appreciation for dance as something more than exercise. Dance invites us to listen, respond, play, learn, connect, and express who we are. Jazz reminds us that movement can have attitude, character, freedom, and soul. Through Nia, I have long explored how fitness can become a pleasurable, meaningful, and life-enhancing experience.

This episode is my invitation to reconsider what we ask of fitness, what we can learn from dance, and why the human body has always been drawn to music and movement.

Perhaps dance fitness isn't simply making a comeback.

Perhaps we are remembering something we have always known: the body wants to dance.

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

What if dance is not something you learn, but something your body already knows?

In this solo episode of GET IN, I share the personal story of how Duncan Dance entered my life in 1983 through O'Eloel Braun, an 80-year-old master teacher from the Duncan Dance lineage. Her extraordinary freedom, vitality, and lightness profoundly influenced me as a mover and ultimately shaped the development of Nia.

I explore the revolutionary movement philosophy of Isadora Duncan and the powerful parallels between Duncan Dance and Nia: barefoot movement, natural human design, breath, rhythm, sensation, imagination, emotional expression, and the belief that technique should serve the body rather than require the body to conform to technique.

Through stories, teaching, and simple embodied invitations, I explore Walk. Run. Skip. Rise. as natural movement intelligences already living within us. I share how Duncan Dance can help us rediscover levity through gravity, allow breath to become movement, use imagination as movement intelligence, and experience strength without hardness, structure without rigidity, and freedom without abandoning form.

This is not a history lesson, and it is not about becoming a dancer. It is an invitation to remember that movement belongs to everyone, and that your body has been breathing, reaching, rising, walking, playing, and responding to life long before anyone taught you how to exercise or dance.

I also introduce some of my Nia Duncan Dance Skillshop experiences: Walk, Run, Skip, Rise, an embodied exploration of Duncan Dance through the lens of Nia Movement Artistry. The podcast gives you the story and the ideas; the Skillshop invites you to put them into your body.

Listen. Breathe. Sense. Imagine. Reach. Rise.

And perhaps, somewhere along the way, your body remembers how to dream.

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

What becomes possible when we stop treating the body as an object to control and begin experiencing it as a source of intelligence, expression, relationship, and truth?

In this episode of GET IN, I welcomes internationally respected somatic movement educator, movement scientist, author, and social activist Dr. Martha Eddy.

Together, we explore somatic movement as practices of freedom. Our conversation moves beyond performance to consider how dance can support healing, embodied cognition, self-regulation, resilience, agency, creativity, and meaningful social change.

Martha shares insights from more than four decades of work integrating Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies, Body-Mind Centering®, perceptual-motor development, embodied anatomy, education, and expressive movement. She introduces the guiding process of her Dynamic Embodiment method: Observe, Support, and Optimize Options.

The conversation also explores Martha's creation of Moving For Life, a dance and wellness program developed for people affected by cancer; her work bringing movement into schools and trauma-sensitive environments; and her commitment to social somatics, peace education, environmental awareness, and movement-based activism.

How can movement help us rebuild trust in the body after illness? How can dance restore agency across the lifespan? What happens when we allow sensation to become information? Can moving our own bodies help us become more responsive to the needs of the larger social and ecological body?

This is a spacious inquiry into the power of movement to cross boundaries, between science and art, health and expression, the individual and the community, the personal body and the living Earth.

Learn more about Dr. Martha Eddy:

www.drmarthaeddy.com

www.dynamicembodiment.org

Read Dr. Martha Eddy's books:

Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action

Dynamic Embodiment® of the Sun Salutation: Pathways to Balancing the Chakras and the Neuroendocrine System

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

In this deeply human and hopeful conversation, I sit down with Karla Mans Giroux, metastatic breast cancer thriver, Co-Director of the Radical Remission Project, and certified health coach, who has been living with no evidence of disease since 2016.

After receiving a Stage IV diagnosis that didn't align with her vision for a long, vibrant life, Karla chose a different path, one rooted in holistic healing, self-empowerment, and possibility.

Together, we explore the science and soul of Radical Remission. A body of research examining why some people heal against the odds, and the real-life application of its key healing factors. This episode is not about replacing medicine, it's about expanding the conversation. A reminder that healing is layered, personal, and full of possibility.

Learn more about Karla Mans Giroux:

www.artoflivingretreatcenter.org

www.eomega.org

Radical Remission

Radical Hope

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

What Does Tai Chi Know About Calm That the Rest of Us Are Still Chasing?

Calm is the most misunderstood kind of power. We treat it as the absence of force, the absence of stress, of effort, of push. Tai Chi makes the opposite case: calm is force that has learned to flow, power that no longer needs to harden in order to be strong. It is a martial art that looks like meditation, that refers to combat and yet heals, that is dance-like and yet is not dance. What sets it apart is one quiet, patient commitment: the soft overcomes the hard.

We are all writing a story with our bodies. The question is whether we write it rooted and flowing, with the full power and the full grace available to us, or braced and forcing. Britta von Tagen has been writing hers, rooted and flowing, since the first time she stepped onto the mat.

Britta is a Nia Trainer who has taught since 1995 and trained teachers worldwide since 2002, a sword dancer who teaches Tai Chi Straight Sword and Kung Fu Broad Sword, and the co-creator, with Adelle Brewer, of the Nia routines Dragon and Mystery, both built around the martial-art personality of Tai Chi. She runs a studio in Boise, Idaho, brings twenty years and a degree in Elementary Education into her Creative Movement for Kids work, and carries a single intention through all of it: Peace on Earth. She doesn't shape the body to fight. She shapes it to root, to soften, and to flow — replacing force with flow, and aggression with intention.

This is a conversation about what it looks like when someone treats their body, their business, and their life as a single practice, observed through the eyes, heart, and body of the Tai Chi practitioner. Britta von Tagen has done exactly that. And in doing it, she has built something her students, her community, and her family can stand on.

Learn more about Britta Von Tagen:

www.brittavontagen.com

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

Join me for a powerful and deeply relevant Get In conversation with Aaron Teich as we explore the hidden forces shaping our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Much of what we experience day-to-day is not random, it's driven by subconscious patterns formed early in life, designed to help us survive, adapt, and belong.

But over time, these patterns can create inner conflict. Leaving us feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or disconnected from ourselves.

In this episode, we explore:

· How trauma and early experiences shape the nervous system

· Why inner conflict is at the root of so much suffering

· How to recognize when you're activated

· The connection between body sensations, emotional patterns, and healing

· How movement, breath, and awareness can help restore balance

Aaron shares insights from Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, and polyvagal-informed practices, offering a grounded and compassionate framework for understanding ourselves more deeply.

We also explore the intelligence of the body, how even physical challenges can reflect deeper patterns of adaptation and survival, and how healing requires both awareness and integration.

You'll walk away with a new lens on your experience… and simple tools to begin reconnecting with your body and your inner world.

This is an invitation to move from inner conflict… to greater coherence, connection, and ease.

Learn more about Aaron Teich:

www.aaronteich.com

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

What Does a Martial Artist Know About Grace That the Rest of Us Are Still Learning?

Martial art is a paradox.

It is like a sport, but it is not a sport. It refers to violence, but it is not violent. It is dance-like, but it is not dance. What sets it apart from all of them is a single, quiet commitment: protection. Of the body. Of the self. Of the life you are building. Billy Anderson has been building his consciously, deliberately, and artfully since the first time he stepped onto a Tae Kwon Do mat.

He is a trained martial artist, a Master Certified Personal Trainer, a Somatic Coach trained through the Strozzi Institute, a Nia Instructor, and the owner of a fitness studio where he has built something rare: a community where power and grace are not opposites. Where the discipline of the martial arts and the body's own healing wisdom live side by side. Where a kick designed to do harm becomes a movement that heals. Where aggression becomes intention. Where cruelty is replaced, without apology, by kindness.

And underneath all of it, a love of dance that has always been there, quietly informing everything.

In 2023 he took one more step: he brought the Nia White Belt training to his own studio, producing it alongside Nia Trainer Kelly Rae Oien. What it offered a lifelong martial artist, after decades of disciplined training, surprised even him.

In this conversation, we go deep into what it really means to be in the business of body and life. Not fitness as a product. Not movement as a method. But the full integration of practice, profession, entrepreneurship, and living on the dance floor and off it.

We are all writing a story. The question is whether we write it consciously — with the full power and the full grace available to us — or let it write itself. Billy Anderson has been writing his consciously. And in doing it, he has built something his clients, his community, his students, and his family can stand on.

Learn more about Billy Anderson:

www.heroicfitnessadventures.com

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

Susan Rees discovered Nia in 2011 after years of searching for a movement practice that felt both joyful and accessible. Having enjoyed aerobics in the 1980s, she found many modern fitness classes either overwhelmingly intense or uninspiring. While caring for her elderly mother, Nia became more than exercise, it became a lifeline. For the first time, she experienced movement as freedom and expression rather than performance, discovering a sense of confidence, creativity, and joy through dance that she had never felt before.

In 2014, during a particularly stressful period of caregiving, she attended her first Nia White Belt training in London with the intention of simply taking a break. Instead, the experience transformed her life. Inspired by the passion and mastery of the trainers, and moved by the embodied, experiential approach to learning, she realized she wanted to share Nia with others, especially people who believed they "couldn't dance." She began teaching in Stirling in 2015, gradually growing classes in Stirling, Dunblane, and Perth while continuing her own training through Blue, Brown, and Black Belt levels.

Over the years, she has become known not only for creating welcoming, joyful classes, but also for her dedication to building thriving community through thoughtful outreach and connection. Through consistent promotion, personal follow-up, and genuine care for her students, she has helped many people rediscover movement, confidence, and vitality. After navigating the challenges of the pandemic and rebuilding both online and in-person classes, her community is once again flourishing in 2026. Her passion remains rooted in the same transformative moment that first drew her to Nia: helping people discover that they can move, belong, and experience joy in their bodies.

Learn more about Susan Rees:

www.stepinwithsusan.com

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

About Laurie Bass:

My Nia journey began in the spring of 1999, when I stepped into my first class. I was feeling bored with traditional workouts, seeking something that truly felt good for my body, mind and stirred my spirit. What began as a joyful movement class soon became transformative for my body and life. Nia helped me listen deeply to my body, heal chronic pain, strengthen my feet, and rediscover vibrant energy. Through its mindful, sensation-based approach, I learned to honor how my body felt each day and move accordingly. Inspired by the sense of vitality I experienced I left my previous career to immerse myself in mind-body practices.

I became a licensed Nia teacher in 2003, and progressed through the Nia somatic education system to become a member of the Nia Training Faculty in 2011. I now train 6 unique Nia courses which guide people on their personal and professional wellness paths. These include the Art of Sensation (White Belt), Art of Communication (Blue Belt) Art of Teaching (Green Belt) and the specialty Nia 5 Stages, FloorPlay and Move It trainings.

Walking the path of a Nia trainer is deeply meaningful. It has been evolutionary in growing my somatic embodiment, communication and coaching skills in and beyond Nia. It is an honor to hold the space for people seeking to heal, evolve and transform their lives with Nia education. I love sharing my passion for movement, for collaborating with my worldwide colleagues and empowering the amazing global Nia community to shine, transform and grow through Nia education.

Learn more about Laurie Bass:

www.lauriebass.com

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com

What if the way you handle conflict could transform your entire life?

In this episode of the GET IN Podcast, I am joined by master martial artist David Nemeroff to explore Aikido, not just as a practice, but as a way of being. Often called "the art of peace," Aikido teaches us how to blend with energy rather than resist it, offering a powerful framework for navigating stress, conflict, and everyday challenges with awareness and grace.

With over 50 years of experience and black belts in 13 martial arts, David shares how Aikido principles extend far beyond the dojo, into relationships, healing, leadership, and personal growth. From working with law enforcement and corporations to supporting children with cancer through his Kids Karate Project, his work reflects a deep commitment to service, discipline, and compassion.

In this episode, you'll discover: • What Aikido really is—and why it's called the art of peace • How to transform conflict by blending instead of resisting • The role of centering, awareness, and body intelligence • How martial arts can support healing and resilience • What it means to live with 100% of your spirit

This is more than a conversation about martial arts. It's an invitation to move through life with greater harmony, presence, and power.

Learn more about David Nemeroff:

www.karatelehighvalley.com

Read David's book:

Aikido's Hidden Ground Techniques

Learn more about Debbie Rosas:

www.debbierosas.com

www.nianow.com

www.niaondemand.com