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.