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.
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