What To Expect From My New ATS and Tribal Fusion Belly Dance Classes

Photo by Dave Gay 2004 Odell Park Fredericton NB

Even though the picture is of me doing yoga we will not be doing a lot of yoga in either the ATS or Tribal Fusion. We will be doing a simple and safe warm up at the beginning and a simple and safe cool down at the end for each class.

For both the Beginners ATS and Tribal Fusion classes expect a lot of emphasis on posture as well as feet, leg, arm and hand positioning. Expect the movements to be broken down, pieced together and practiced very slowly with speed slowly built up. Safety tips will also be discussed in both classes.

For the ATS expect your arms to be held up at shoulder height a lot of the time. You will get breaks to bring your arms down! Expect to get a little out of breath and expect to concentrate hard on doing moves that will most likely feel alien to you! Expect to not always be looking straight at me or any ATS teacher because some of the moves such as Egyptian Basic need for you to turn around facing away from the teacher. Expect a lot of discussion in the class about different aspects of ATS therefore don't expect that this class is made to burn calories to lose x amount of weight. It might burn some but it really is not the emphasis. The intention of this class is to learn new things, develop a new relationship with yourself and your body, develop bonds with community and to have fun! You'll most likely find a new inner strength of mind and body. As the class progresses and develops props will be explored in this dance form such as finger cymbals, sword and more!

For Tribal Fusion expect drills of isolated movements, a few traveling movements and time to consolidate all that you've learned as well as how to improvise. Expect the classes to progress to layering isolations over other isolations and over traveling steps. You'll find Tribal Fusion to be such a broad style of dance form for you to stretch your own unique style and creative muscles! Expect to express your unique self through this dance form and possibly discovering a new found inner power and playfulness! Again this class is not about burning calories. Tribal Fusion is about having fun, pure self expression, being one with your body, confidence, inner power, passion, mischief, humor and sensuality. And it's about exploring and creating this very new and amazing dance form which is making history! As the class progresses we will also explore the use of dance props with Tribal Fusion such as sword and more!

If you have been worried about your physical endurance in taking two classes back to back your concerns are warranted. But be assured that the Tribal Fusion will feel luxurious after the ATS! That is why I chose to schedule the ATS at 6:30pm before Tribal Fusion at 7:30pm. In my own practice I usually begin with ATS and follow it up with Tribal Fusion and feel like it's a very natural and healthy progression for the body. Tribal Fusion is after all the next step of Belly Dance evolution straight from American Tribal Style. After the specific styling of ATS I find that my body loves to follow it with the styling of Tribal Fusion. Like putting on a pair of comfortable jeans!

The Beginners Tribal Fusion will challenge you but rest assured that I will be purposefully making it gentle and easier for people who want to gently nudge their endurance levels up for people are just beginning fitness activity and for those who are exploring ATS and Tribal Fusion Belly Dance. 

Do you have to study in both styles? No

What do you get out of it if you choose to commit to studying both styles?

You get a broadened experience of not just a couple of styles of belly dance but of yourself. Both styles of belly dance introduce you to yourself in similar but different ways. Besides that, anything you study will serve to enhance your skill and awareness as a dancer and possibly a teacher if that becomes your goal in the future. I study a variety of traditions and find that they all serve to support my skills in other practices. Yoga and Pilates for example supports the skill of a belly dancer in any style infinitely!


Stay tuned for my next post about being a continuous learner, why I don't choose between any Belly Dance style and why I love them all!

Protecting Your Practice Strengthens You

 To begin with anything we are put up against all of the things that take our time and that want to get in our way. Integrating something new into your life takes a solid block of time that had been set aside for something else even if it was hanging on the couch and marathon watching tv shows. And yes, do that!

 But to begin, we also need to safe guard our ability to continue. All too often in the New Year people start something with high expectations of themselves all the while thinking of their failure to achieve it the year before. Perhaps for the last New Years  resolution. The high expectations and the remembrance of past failures does not set the stage for a solid foundation for our practice. Dancing is as much in the mind as it is in the body, In fact they are not separate at all.

 My advice is to not think of beginning a new practice as being a resolution. Instead a practice needs to be seen as a long term practice that is given chunks of time for however often you have chosen that you can handle physically, mentally and emotionally. It's hard to forget about falling off the horse in the past if you are coming back to belly dance practice after a time off. Just remember that this is supposed to be fun and to make you feel happy, energized and good in your body!

 Another issue with our practice is that we are faced with the excuses we make to do something else. A lot of the time it is easier to do what we have normally done and to avoid our reasons for doing so. We could be avoiding yoga or belly dance practice out of fear. Everyone's fear or doubt is very personal and we all need to take time to reflect on what our practice is facing us with about ourselves. We may even feel guilty about carving committed time into our schedule that is just for us. Dance may seem frivolous. Our idea of dance or yoga may not be in line with the face we are used to showing to the world. We may be trying to prove that we are a " hard worker " and perhaps dance we are afraid that people will see us as being frivolous and lazy if we take time to dance rather than work over time.

 All of these things are challenging and in order for our practice to be successful it takes time. Time to practice and time to reflect. What you have to deal with a year from now may be different but practice usually brings it up for us and right on front of our face! Do we judge ourselves for not being perfect dancers able to do and know everything? Are we still anxious about how we will be seen by others? Are we afraid of losing our job if we don't say yes to everything? Are any of our fears or doubts based on reality? Is it really true or are we believing in an old story that was handed down to us in some way?

 Protect your practice by being your own detective to discover what is operating in the background affecting your life and your practice. Protect your practice by realizing that you would be unhappy giving up on something that you wanted to do, on a dream no matter how small just because of what other people think.

 The most solid attitude that any of us could use more of to develop a strong and stable practice is by believing in ourselves no matter if others do or not because the quality of our lives is what is important. When someone questions us or expects something that is not in line with our goals or vision we need to depend on ourselves to not get caught up in another persons agenda for our dance or life.

 I am talking about clear, strong and healthy boundaries. Metaphorically committed dancers and happy people in general draw a line the sand and they under no uncertain terms ever allow people to cross that line. People tend to rattle all of us off of our center but it is up to us to get back to center as soon as possible so that we can get back on the horse. Getting back to practice is part of the process of coming back to our center after we have been shaken off course.

 No matter the day you've had do your best to step onto your yoga mat, put on your hip scarf and begin your practice with music, an instructional video or get yourself to a class. You know that you will regret it later if you let anyone shake you from the choices that feed into you rather than take away. Disengaging from the people who take away from us and instill fear and doubt are to be avoided as much as possible. Try as much as you can to find your supporters even if they are a country away and the only way you connect is on-line. We need supporters too also help us protect our practice. We really do!

 We may be used to being off center and used to not doing what we dream, used to listening to the naysayers. We need to learn to get used to another kind of experience. We need to allow ourselves to not feel used to being off center and thrown off balance by well meaning people who actually are not well meaning at all. A healthy person isn't used to having other people dictate their lives and as dancers we commonly build stronger boundaries as we progress which changes the dynamics of the relationships we are in. People won't be used to our change and we might not be used to it yet. It may still feel foreign and selfish to simply walk away from the crap that someone is slinging your way. You may find yourself surprised to not have the tolerance to have a discussion with another person about how good or badly you should feel about yourself. Over time that discussion with yourself will change. Over time it will be like " There should be no discussion on this. I deserve to be happy no matter what. I don't have to prove anything to anyone. This is for me."

 In our dance, through this transformation we are melted and hammered into a new shape just like with metal-smithing and we become something completely new and different. Through that process we have something that translates through our dance to the world. The hours and hours of practice and the hours of all that we do to protect it translates into a power and strength, a great inner beauty that is expressed through the dance to the culture that receives it. The audience doesn't quite understand at a logical level but they pick up on more than just movements and technique. The pick up on the dancer as a person and on the person as a whole. The dancer tells the story of triumph, freedom, liberation, endurance. The dancer tells a story of surpassing all difficulty and shining bright no matter what.

 To protect our practice we all make the choice to surpass all difficulty and shine bright no matter what. It is our choice and we can do it! It is there for the taking! All that we must go through to endure strengthens us. It isn't the mastering of a movement alone. It is the choice to persist which is a strong choice which motivates us to be stronger. Facing adversity also gives us a power, strength and belief in ourselves. Sometimes we may have to face other dancers who do not believe in us or our dance form for whatever reason and we must be ready to face them too and to remain centered with the vision of our dance and what we love.

 You'll get more out of a long term committed dance practice than being awesome or a name to drop. You'll get a new life and more and more ability to step forward with persistence and strength in any area of your life.

 Anything you need to create solid reminders to practice do it now! Create a dance diary and fill in your goals and thing to practice on for each date, search for apps to bing you so that you'll be reminded of when to get ready for dance practice and register for a 6-8 week Belly Dance class in whatever style calls you!

 Do it now!

My Belly Dance Journey Part 3

 During my years away from teaching and performing an article was posted on-line. I thought about it for years. It was "Why I Can't Stand White Belly Dancers!" I gave what she was saying a chance but there were holes in her argument or any other dancers argument who said that ATS was cultural appropriation. I never gave up belly dancing but I could not offer classes and perform until I was solid. Solid not just in being ready to teach again but solid in my philosophy of why ATS and Tribal Fusion are valid and great dance forms that are not cultural appropriation. Some people may still think so and I'm sure they do. But my body has been wedded to these styles just as much as American Cabaret which I started with and Yoga. There is an elegant beauty to ATS that is about community and that is something I really love. I also believe in growing art forms, fusing different styles together and being unique. People will always blanch at originality and see it isn't the " twue" way.

 As for the white dancers who are American Cabaret that say ATS is cultural appropriation, there are people who would say that by the very fact that they are white, teaching classes and performing is cultural appropriation and stealing opportunities away from dancers who were born of the Middle East Culture. I had one person confront me on ATS in this way once and I was flummoxed. It had never happened to me before. The other reason I believe the whole "ATS dancers are stealing opportunities away from AmCab" is complete bull is that people choose what they like. To be a dancer and take what you know out there and advertise it and then have people come to you for your service is the public's choice. I also believe that people still want AmCab and there are plenty of ATS dancers and Tribal Fusion Dancers that believe in the importance of AmCab to practice it regularly on the side of the other dance forms. And these dancers use to to inform and structure their performance and art as an ATS or Tribal Fusion Dancer. I am interested on all styles of belly dance. At this time I focus on ATS, Tribal Fusion and AmCab with aspirations of focusing on Turkish and the oldest most historical styles of Belly Dance that still exist today.

 If a dancer is not getting gigs for teaching or performing there are hundred of reasons why that may be happening. And it could be that there is no one to blame. Timing sometimes is all that we can blame when we've done all we can ourselves to advertise.

 So that is where I stand on the whole cultural appropriation. It's a sticky issue and I do my best to respectfully represent these art forms. When we see another dancer make a mistake I would hope that the issue would be calmly brought to their attention rather than chastising and humiliating them in public or on-line. None of us can know absolutely everything and as we know everything is a process including being a Belly Dancer.

 Other things slowed down my process as a dancer. I grew up in a home that cannot be described as dysfunctional because there is no word that can describe the extreme of what it was. My mother was and is mentally ill so I had lived with someone mentally ill for all of my childhood until I moved in with my boyfriend and his family. He also had a mental illness. Not the same extreme as my mothers but enough of an extreme that it tore my life apart. In the midst of all this difficulty I began belly dancing. It was all I had to ground me and to force me away from it. And it was all I had that helped me to feel strength and freedom, liberty. Looking back on these things it is why I could never give up Belly Dance. Not for anyone saying that they " Can't Stance White Belly Dancers". It was too personal to me. Not just something physical or something to blow up my ego.

 All through my years teaching and performing I had everything going on in the background. I struggled but chose to keep my head high as a dancer. At times if felt like too much to put on a public face. And at times my life was far too distracting. Words again cannot describe what it is like. It is not something you can just will away. To just choose to not care about and do your own thing. Mental illness of any kind is frightening whether it affects you or the person you live with. I was not an untouchable island where I could keep it from affecting me. There were some years where I could not focus enough to take on a committed belly dance practice as I had before. I had been weakened by too many events that had happened in the meantime.

 But I'm stubborn. And that is how I eventually came to be where I am now. For years my husband did not have medication. He had been on it before and the effects were scary to both of us. So we both did our best with him not being on anything. We relied on meditation, psychology and other things. But none of it was enough especially when it was hard to find good therapists who knew how to help him. His anxiety disorder was not just from how his brain just ended up working. He also had a poor upbringing. Different from mine but it affected him opposite from me. I have the ability to be resilient. I don't know why. I just do. Even if I am weak,off balance and off center I can within a second snap back into place. At times when a person is so upset that they have less and less ability to call on their logic and ability to see the situation from a birds eye view, I can. I also have a sense of humor and it takes a lot for it to recede back for any length of time. I am always working on my ability to bounce back quicker because I can't afford to lose time. And I have come to accept that by my nature because of where I am from I am more vulnerable to some things than maybe others would be. Why? Because my cup is overflowing. I had to live with more things in my first eighteen years than some people do in an entire lifetime that no one could understand unless they come from that kind of place themselves.

 We all fall down sometimes. If you haven't I don't know how but I just call it luck. I wouldn't wish the life I've had on my worst enemy. I do have enemies that wish to see me fall and to them I wish for them to have exactly what they need to lose their ignorance. I have studied a lot of new age philosophies and during the time I immersed myself in being a yoga teacher I was more so. So whenever bad things happened to me it was all made worse by the philosophy that bad things happen for a reason, because you did something bad in a past life etc. I had to fight this idea and I still have to fight it because I spent years working with this idea. I thought if I believed in it and do all that I could in accordance with it that I could break the curse that my whole seemed to have been. It certainly felt like a curse!

 So if all of that happened to me just so I could erase ignorance and tell people to throw that philosophy in the trash so be it! But I seriously believe that things good and bad just happen and who knows why? The other reason why this belief was bad for me is because it lowered my esteem and ate away at it over time. I could never know what I had done to deserve all I had. There is more to my story and I won't mention it here. The idea that people born again are ignorant of their past lives and their mistakes is wrong. The idea that they deserve whatever bad in relation to what they did which they are ignorant to is wrong, because how can a person learn anything that way if they don't know what they did? If this idea is true the cycle repeats itself. The person keeps making mistakes. They might think they aren't because they are a yogi or buddhist letting karma " play itself out". But according to the idea they are always creating karma. And attaching yourself to a name like "yogi" or " buddhist" so you can now put a gloss over every time you hurt someone is just wrong!

 There is a lot that I mention that has absolutely nothing to do with dance but dancers are people and everything affects the dance. Everything is inter connected, never separate. We like to believe things are so we can protect something or ourselves. But we are infinitely connected to other people, to our environment and everything in our lives. We can choose but we are human. Life has forces which are stronger than we ourselves are. Sometimes it takes an entire life to learn that. There are some things that we can get up from quickly and there are other things that we cannot and we need to wait. We need to do what we can do to ready ourselves for getting up whether or not it looks awesome to other people. Most people won't see it because this work is done alone and perhaps in prolonged seclusion.

 I share my story because I need to for myself, because it is what my belly dance journey has been and for people who are belly dancers and who are struggling or have struggled. My story has come around to a stronger and better part to my life finally through many different things that I needed to make it possible for me to step forward. The laser therapy, the taking time away to heal, my husband going on medication, changing my last name and my own stubborn will were all what brought me here and made it possible.

 I don't know how classes and workshops will go. I learned from the last times I was a teacher that a "watched pot never boils!" And that I need other things in my life to feel balanced besides belly dance. I accept that I am not finished or perfect as a dancer or teacher because who is? If my classes and workshops don't take off I accept that too. I'll keep dancing, maybe do workshops out of town, focus on fiber arts, music or painting. I also don't know if I'll lose my ability to walk.

 On my fathers side there is a hereditary illness called Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia which I have 50% chance of inheriting or not inheriting. So far I have not fallen down all of a sudden which is what happens. In the old days, people who had this illness were thought to be drunk. It still is not an understood illness and most people have never heard of it ever. A person loses their ability to walk more and more as the nerves that are responsible for transmitting signals to the legs are damaged.

 I mention this because if I ever fall down while teaching or taking a class by another teacher I want people to know why I have fallen down for seemingly know reason. I will have no bracelet to alert anyone because till that second I will have had no symptoms.

Over the past year or so I started developing heart arrhythmia which is when your heart beats rapidly and irregularly. It was scary. I thought it was going to lead to a heart attack at just 35. I'm 36 now. It happened when I did a gentle belly dance practice. It took me time to figure out what it was. I assume it is caused by the asthma medications that I take which lower the magnesium level in your system. I started taking magnesium supplements as well as coq 10 and vitamin d. I have had a lot of improvement. I can practice hours a day and complete advanced workouts with weights. But it still is triggered if I haven't had enough sleep too often, have missed taking the supplements or have been overly stressed. 

 Everyday I am grateful that I still walk, that my heart rhythm is normal, and that I can dance and do anything else that I can do with my body. I am grateful that the physical pain I was in has been healed so that I can be productive. I am grateful that my asthma is quite under control which it hasn't been in the past. I am also thankful that I did not inherit schizophrenia from my mother or an anxiety disorder. Sure I get anxious about things but that does not automatically label someone as having anxiety disorder just like being sad is not the same as having the long term condition called "depression". There is a difference!

 I am starting up again and it was hard for me just as it is to share my story with so many people. If you've made it this far thank you. I know that Part 2 is especially long. I hope from reading my story maybe you feel more accepting of yourself, more grateful for the tiny things that are actually quite big and important, that maybe you see success in a different way. I also hope that it makes you think about what you prioritize, how you see yourself and others. Maybe to understand yourself and others better with more compassion and understanding that it's ok to not handle everything perfectly. That indeed to handle perfectly is impossible! I hope you understand more about mental illness and how it affects people who are close to them. I do my best to get rid of the stigma surrounding mental illness and all that goes with it.  It's something that more people need to talk about.

 I share my story no matter how hard it is so that people can know who I am as a dancer and a teacher. When I teach and perform it isn't just about doing movements or becoming popular.

 It's about freedom, survival, and liberation of the human spirit! It's about being born again. It's about knowing yourself which is the greatest power. It's about discovery and exploration. Seeing with new eyes. Developing a new relationship with yourself and others. It's about exploring cultures across the world that you may have felt separate and very different from to discover the differences and similarities which are all good! Dance teaches you to keep getting up and to explore. It gets you out of the corner you've been painted into either by other people or yourself.

 Thank you for listening to me share my story.

Thank you to my teachers and thank you to all who have been my students in the past and who will dance with me in the future.

Peace.

My Belly Dance Journey Part 2

 All of my story is very personal so if you do not wish to continue for that reason that's fine. This part of my story is very personal and involves a lot of heavy issues. I do not need anyone being smug about how so much bad has happened in my life and so much good has happened to them because we all reap what we sow and get what we deserve.

 Also if you are a person who believes that bad things happen to bad people or that bad things happen for a reason please leave now because you are not worthy of my story. Or if you believe that everything that happens to us is our own responsibility and therefore our fault please leave now. I believe that things happen to us not of our control. To say that everything that happens to us is because we caused it in whatever way runs completely counter to philosophies in therapy. Survivors that come from a place similar to where I come from have to work constantly to live in peace. And living in peace means sloughing off the responsibility for others actions!

 Continuing on from Part 1 of My Belly Dance Journey Laser Therapy at Signature Spinal Care also helped with something I never though could be helped. It's still a problem for me sometimes but not to the degree it used to be for years before I had the Laser Therapy treatment. When I was a janitor years ago during my first year of yoga teacher training in 2005 I was beginning to have spasms in my back. I would bend forward just slightly to reach for something and find that my back would for an instant lose it's ability to stay up. Hard to describe but it was like a switch had been turned off for just a second and then was turned back on. I had to wonder what was going on. So with x rays it was found that I had Minor Leveroto Scoliosis. I have been told since then that the scoliosis I have shouldn't cause me pain or stop me from doing things or that they have never heard of the term that was told to me.

 Needless to say, I know my body more than anyone else and it affected me for years before the injury I had further up my spine. It was always painful in my lower back and it affected the muscles running down my left leg which is the side that is slightly lifted. Doing dishes would hurt a lot. Having to stand in one place hurt a lot. It was a constant companion just like my later injury became. I was always trying to find ways to release the pain through yoga and strengthening exercises from different traditions. I was told by some physiotherapists to give up Yoga and to focus on Pilates.

 Working in retail was hard on my lower back and it was hard on my knees. The buses in Halifax NS were horrible and I would end up having to run to catch multiple buses to get to where I worked in Dartmouth. I was wearing shoes or boots not meant for running and having to stand up on the bus with the constant jerking forward when the bus stopped was awful. Each way it was an hour and a half and added up to three hours each time I had a shift.

 I know that other people have to do the same thing and worse for their work. I'm just saying how these things affected my own particular body. It was horrible because even with how my back had been my body had been most comfortable when I was a belly dancer full time. To jump ahead, it's why I am a full time dancer now. I do other things that I am developing but dance is very important to me for many reasons including feeling physically comfortable in my own body. I can give credit to belly dance for this and not any other tradition. I do practice other kinds of exercises but when I have focused on one of them I was never as comfortable physically as after dedicated belly dance practice.

 All in all a combination of various styles of Belly Dance, Yoga, Pilates and old school weight and lower body exercises is great for my body. When I was focused on yoga more than anything else I practiced hours of yoga at a time and my body hated it! I kept wondering why because the idea was that more yoga was better and would make you feel energized and happy. My low back really hated a lot of yoga practices that teachers led. It didn't matter if I just contracted my glutes more! Over the years I have kept yoga practice at a distance treading carefully. There was a time where I had to omit specific poses altogether which I am now able to do. The poses I can do again without ruining my knees is pigeon pose and seated hero. I'm watching them carefully though in case my knees have something to say.

 Going back to the time when I was attempting to establish yoga classes I was referred to a First Aid teacher by the owner of the studio I was teaching at. It was something I needed to renew as part of the requirements for teaching there. The training was thrown together by a man who had gotten drunk the night before, came in with a hangover and a cocky attitude but without the test! So he asked each one of use from our seats one question. It wasn't very good quality but at the time I accepted it. I also wanted to do more things to bring in some cash but that were also meaningful to me. He had a course he was offering for First Aid Teacher Training.

 So, I decided to start up with it the next day. I got a ride from one of the other attendees and it was held at a security training facility next to the police station. It was in a place I was not familiar with and far from home. There was only four of us. The trainer who taught the first aid the day before, one of the owners for the security training facility, the guy who gave me a lift and me. During the first aid training it became very macho. All of them were very into martial arts. It;s something I am interested in but it took over the whole first aid teacher training. The teacher wanted us to teach something that we knew to them so he could see our teaching style. I taught them yoga and they taught martial arts. What happened next changed everything and it had far reaching effects.

 The guy who gave me a lift was teaching how to get a grip on someone at the wrists and how you could keep them locked. I knew how to get out of it and I did get out of it a couple of times and chuckled about it. Apparently I had just made him feel like less of a man by being able to get out of the grip he had on my wrists. Because then he did a move I was not prepared for because i have not gone to martial arts classes enough to counter that kind of attack. The next thing I knew he was behind me and holding my right arm up  and bent, pinning it against my back. This is the same side I had injured  the previous fall a few months before. I knew a little to try to throw him off but not enough. I stepped back and used my core to pull him forward with me. I could not throw him but I attempted to take out the knee that was closes to me. I missed the first time but the second time I used all of my leg strength and stomped down on the side of his knee. After that we were standing up again. He wouldn't let me go. Finally I said and pardon my language " Let me the fuck go!"

 Finally he did. It did not feel like anything that should have happened either in these circumstances or in a martial arts class. And from the description I just gave it's obvious that enough went on that enough time had passed for either the co owner of the security training facility to step in or the teach of the first aid teacher training who used to be part of the RCMP. I was upset and felt like I shouldn't be. I could not get a lift back home from the person who I felt had just attacked me over petty macho ego. The teacher of the first aid teacher training gave me a lift. He acknowledged it was wrong but dropped responsibility for stopping it from continuing. He said and I quote " It all happened so fast." I'm not sure what kind of former cop says that. He also did not understand when I said that I did not want to continue the first aid teacher training and after that I cut contact with him.

 After the experience I felt shattered. I also felt that what happened was totally crazy. I felt the need to talk to people and not just with my husband. Why? Because what happened under the specific circumstances was so crazy. I needed to hear from other people that it was indeed strange and wrong. Although what had happened was bad and very upsetting, what was to come was even worse. People I talked to about did not understand and thought I was over reacting. One person even said " But isn't that part of the training?" I talked to the studio owner who had referred me to him for the first aid teacher training. I didn't want her to refer anyone to him again. When I exclaimed "Why did this have to happen to me?" she chastised me like a child or in my case as a yogi who had failed to see clearly. I wasn't supposed to wonder " Why me?" And eventually she said that she wanted to cut off anymore discussion about what happened. She also did not understand when I said I could not teach at her studio anymore. After that I found replacement teachers for my classes, I cut contact with the studio owner and I receded into the shadows trying to feel normal again.

 Some people I spoke to did understand and I am thankful for those people who were a support even if it was only on facebook, at that time. But there was one person I considered a friend who turned on me. Apparently I had done something on Facebook that she didn't like a few months before and when I started up a " This situations was so crazy!" conversation with her boyfriend who I had met she became very angry. She wondered what I was doing talking to her boyfriend. I had no idea she would take it the way she did. She wondered why I had talked to him instead of her because she was on-line. I replied saying that she wasn't showing up as on-line. This was pretty much the end of our friendship.

 The whole situation and everything involved left me sore for years. I actually developed a fear of teaching yoga or anything at all. Every time I did yoga I would be faced with it. I had other crazy things happen to me before this situation that I consider not commonplace and crazy in my attempt to teach yoga classes. I believed from repeated crazy happenings that if I taught yoga that it was asking for trouble. I became superstitious about it and wanted to avoid any association which is what people do when they develop PTSD. I closed myself in and pried myself out by going to ATS classes in Halifax. But it was hard because I didn't feel back to myself. I still felt really alienated and when you feel that way it's hard to feel connected to the people around you. The effects wore off a little over time but it took a long time for me to dip my toe into teaching again.

 The first time I started teaching after this experience was after I moved back to Fredericton NB and taught a student ATS privately in my apartment in the fall of 2014. It was a great way to begin again and she was a great student to teach. It helped heal the wounds my ego took as a teacher and as a person during that time. But it wasn't complete. After a few months she left for Turkey which was great. I did not try to advertise as a teacher anymore for years after that. I needed to get my bearings more and figure out my priorities.

 Belly Dance never went away though I wanted to give it up. Why did I want to give it up? Because I wanted to save money for clearing debt. Part of what caused debt for me was buying costume pieces from a credit card. At the time I wouldn't have been able to get them otherwise and my dream of all I wanted to do would have been on hold. I didn't even indulge in costume buying as much as I could have.

 My story continues with Part 3.

The New Year and Your New Practice?

The New Year is always the time where we think of trying something new or doing something we've been doing in a new way. For the belly dancer, there is a lot to think about for incorporating into practice time. Here are a few tips for improving the quality of your practice time no matter how long you've been dancing!

1. Create a dancers journal for yourself. It can include as many things as you can think of.
Here is an example of a format to use for your dancers journal which I found on datura.com!

Jan.1 2017

Achievements:

Breakthroughs:

Things To Work On:

Personal Reflections:

Be sure to refer back to your dancers journal and check off what you completed. If there are any that you didn't complete for lack of time and energy think about that when planning your next practice session of whether or not to include it. You may want to practice it in place of something else. Also check your notes to see when you practiced something last to create a layered, overlapping practice that keeps your movements fresh while still building  on what you've done before. Include a page in your journal for your long term goals for the year. Again narrow it down to a few things that is doable for your schedule, time and energy. Perhaps include a page for your wishlist of costume pieces, workshops you want to attend etc.

2. Be picky! This is not only about being picky with your technique but picky about what you choose to practice and for how long. It also means to not give yourself the impossible goal of practicing everything in one practice session!

3. Choose the right time for you to practice. This is different for everyone. If you have a job on the side of being a dancer then of course you have to work around that. Will your productivity and energy level be better if you practice before or after work? If you have multiple creative pursuits that you need to make time for to practice which one would be better to do first to utilize your energies and concentration the best?

4. Just get started! Starting is the tricky part for most people. If this is so with you say that you will practice for one song. You'll likely feel like practicing longer. Before you know it your dance practice will be a habit that is hard to break!

5. Take care of your body! Very important! If you don't take care of your body it won't be able to handle the demands that you place on it. This means to give yourself the time to have hot epsom salt baths for your muscles. Take the time to drink water during throughout your practice and don't be lazy on this one! You can afford to stop for a second to drink some water even if your really into it!

6. Aside from planning your practice ahead of time in your dancers journal you can set up a video playlist on your computer to be ready for you.

7. Take a break! If you have been practicing hard to the point of quarantining yourself make sure to take the time to get outside. You may love to dance but after awhile what used to feel freeing to you will feel like a pressure. Go to a cafe and have a chat with a friend. Do something that takes you away from the belly dance world just for awhile. Give yourself the time to pursue another interest that isn't dance related whether it's another creative pursuit or an interesting subject.

8. Include warm ups, a variety of basic moves with one or two new things to focus on or find ways to do what you already know in a new way. Be sure to include a thorough cool down. I always do more of a cool down with yoga stretches even after a cool down I had already done with a video. I have my favorites and have been doing them for years after my practice because they are perfect for post practice. Listen to what your body needs for ways it wants to stretch.

9. Supplementing your practice by being involved in your local dance community or on-line dance communities, purchasing new dance classes or dvds, feeding your dancers soul with belly dancer goodies such as jewelry and costume pieces will keep you excited for practice!

10. Don't get into a belly dance music rut! Hunt for new music to dance to. And keep your mind open to dancing to a song that previously didn't grab you when you first heard it. It may become your favorite! New music will keep you feeling fresh in the dance and encourage you to dance in a new way!

11. Practice for the love of it. If your thoughts are steering you in other directions screw your head on straight! If your practicing turns into making yourself good enough or perfect enough or popular enough realize that these priorities will not help you or anyone else in the long run. Part of belly dance is about community spirit and it's too hard to feel part of a community if you feel that you are constantly failing at an impossible standard that you've set for yourself. Or if it becomes about popularity then belly dance is being used as a tool to feed your sore esteem. Be kind to yourself and give yourself the gift of belly dance for you as a just because gift rather than a race for popularity. It isn't very kind to yourself and if you don't get the results you want you'll feel more sore than you did before! Trust that people will be attracted to your voluminous passion for belly dance and they will come!

If your really, really into belly dancing then here is an extra for you!

Decorate your space with exotic fabrics, colors and patterns! It could be your hip scarfs and your jewelry elegantly displayed. You can also make a dancers altar where you keep incense, zills, jewelry and whatever else you want! You might have vintage belly dance music records to decorate your walls or even a painting of your favorite dancer! Your space and your altar should wake something up in you when you look at it. It should give you a feeling of magic! By the time you have created your space it will likely have a bohemian feel! Incorporate interesting mood lighting with lava lamps and white christmas lights around the ceiling with candles throughout the space.

If your like me then your sensitive to your environment and are more productive in a space that is beautiful, expresses you, is comfortable and luxurious with elements that help you to feel alert and energized!

If you enjoy this blog please share with others and do share what helps you to stay motivated for your Belly Dance practice!

My Belly Dance Journey Part 1

I grew up in a small town. The first belly dance moves I saw were on a Janet Jackson video. For awhile I was like " What is that kind of dancing?" In the video they were wearing Indian styled dance costumes showing their midriffs and wearing nose piercings. I watched their hips closely and couldn't imagine how it could be real. Somehow, somewhere I found out that the name of the dance I wanted to learn was "Belly Dance". It wasn't until years later that I found a Belly Dance VHS at Zellers by Veena and Neena. It was the cold winter of 2002. I loved it! And the following spring of that year I got a brochure of the classes at the Fredericton UNB from a regular shopper at Winners where I worked. I started Beginners Belly Dance with Shantel Powell. Here we are in Odell Park Fredericton NB near the Willow tree. It was the summer of 2003....or was it 2004?

In the class we covered the basic moves of hip circles, slides, figure eights in different directions and did the same with the torso. We covered shoulder shimmies and Egyptian shimmy, veil, balancing of broom sticks on our heads and some floor work. After the six week session which ended on my birthday I was hungry for more and began Intermediate Belly Dance with Stacey Macklem who taught at a gym in Fredericton which no longer exists. Later the class was moved to Kingswood Gym.

The Fall of 2003 I began teaching in my own living space and performing Belly Grams and at some charity events. Belly Grams are or were similar to singing telegrams. You hire a dancer to show up at your friends or co workers workplace or at an event of theirs for a Birthday and do a quick 8-15 minute dance for them and their group. Whenever I got to be on a stage I absolutely loved it! I loved having all of the space to move in! Oddly enough, I did not get nervous about performing. The only thing I ever got nervous about was getting ready on time even if I was there in good time!

I explored cane dancing on my own, veil, sword dancing, zils and moved onto American Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion in 2005. The fall of that year I began traveling to Halifax NS to take the 200 hr Hatha Vinyasa Teacher Training at Therapeutic Approach Yoga Studio. I was unable to continue traveling to Halifax to complete my training in 2006 but completed the training later in 2009 after I moved there.

Meanwhile from 2006-2007 I completed the Foundation Visual Arts Program at NBCCD in Fredericton NB. After that year I wasn't sure whether to continue majoring in Surface Design so I went back to work in retail at Jinglers. In the spring of 2008 I moved to Halifax to complete the yoga teacher training. I taught workshops for Belly Dance and taught yoga classes at various locations in Halifax and Dartmouth.

During the time that I was beginning to establish myself as a teacher I had an acute injury in my thoracic spine. Usually when I am too upset about something I don't practice yoga. Money was tight. My husband was on EI. I didn't quite cut it as a receptionist for the Physiotherapy Clinic where I was also endeavoring to teach yoga classes. I have no receptionist training. Although I did well they couldn't afford to keep me on until I wasn't so rough around the edges. The yoga classes, no matter how I tried to advertise them just wasn't happening. This is the part you don't imagine before you complete your yoga teacher training! This time however I did decide to practice yoga even though I was very upset. I had been told to do it a certain way and had ignored it every single time and had been fine. This time I doubted and I questioned. I did not heed my natural instincts for this particular yoga pose as I had in the past. I am also quite flexible which may have contributed to the injury. This injury was very difficult and it stayed with me for years and years. I had chiropractic work done on it by the Chiropractor who had just told me that I couldn't be their receptionist anymore and he gave me the treatment free of charge. It helped but it wasn't enough. I also did physio exercises. Even with that I kept re-injuring my spine with the simplest of movements. Usually I would feel sore in my sleep and then stretch, arching my back. And then it would be re-injured again! It made keeping my arms up at any height for any style of Belly Dance much harder. I never adapted to it the way I had when I began belly dancing. It made playing guitar and doumbek horrible. It made the experience of drawing and painting horrible! I could not handle weight work outs consistently of course! Yoga poses involving the strength and support of the arms were not so strong or stable. My sleep was bad so I was never rested. It made everything horrible! I was in pain all of the time and knew no relief until I finally had coverage and sought out the help of a physiotherapist in Fredericton NB at Signature Spinal Care. There, I was given Laser Therapy which is different from Laser Surgery. And it worked! I praise Laser Therapy and it's creator everywhere I go!

Check Back for Part 2 of My Belly Dance Journey!