So, I had this discussion with myself and my husband while I advertised for an ATS workshop. As I set to it I realized how much had changed even since I had last really advertised myself as a teacher. Facebook pages and group worked differently and there were a multitude of ways to advertise yourself on-line and not just by Facebook, Kijiji or Twitter. I worked on making handouts and the music playlists, and posters. I did not have a good camera or the ability to get a new one with a good camera yet. My older pictures of me as a dancer were old. I did not at the time have a photographer in the area and wasn't sure how much I was willing to spend on a session plus travelling. So I had a picture taken by my husband with my crappy old phone camera(not that old but was never good camera tech and phones age fast these days). The only way to make it look more professional was by muting it and zooming into the picture up close to my hips because i also had not had a complete costume for years. This is the pic that you see as my profile pic on my Facebook dance page. I had this as my main profile pic also on my regular Facebook but received a bad reaction from a dancer I had on a previous Facebook who thought I was either a fake account or a creepy male who was stalking her. I had taken the time to message some people who I had added to my new facebook after I had been off for about a year but had not messaged her. I had no idea that my picture and state of my facebook account being new would be received in such away and that when I asked why I was unfriended that I was told I had no right to ask.
It's something I tried to not let bother me, but it did. I felt alienated and paranoid about how possible future interactions might go because not only is the greater belly dance community small, the dance community in the Maritimes is doubly small. If I go to a workshop that this dancer may be at I don't know if they would even know me or if they would assume I am "stalking" them simply because I "liked" a few of their pictures and go to workshops in the dance community. There is a lot to why I felt it hit below the belt. For starters I was very new to being back in the Maritime Dance scene and felt it was a horrible start. I was busy enough with the workshop coming up within a week that I was too busy to take as much notice of how it hit at my confidence and my already underlying fears that whenever I try to teach I for some reason attract a very odd "wtf??" moment. Something that had happened to only to me and where I saw a side of someone that possibly no one else had.
The workshop went on with success but within a week I caught the flu that was going around. I had symptoms then on the day or two of that week I felt more normal would practice and do stuff as usual planning on starting classes the following week. Then it kept coming back and going away seemingly and coming back. I tried not to superstitiously equate it with, "When I teach bad things happen to me to make it impossible for me to teach!" It crept in there and I still have this fear and it's PTSD and no I can't just get over it. Unfortunately I am more easily discouraged in this area from fear. I haven't quite cracked the code to have it gone once and for all. I was going to face it every week for teaching but nope it had to be January during the thick of winter while all the worst plagues are going around! After a three or so weeks I had to wonder, "Is it flu or something worse? When will this go away?" So when I contacted the owner of Perpetual Motion dance Studio that I didn't know when I was going to be better she mentioned that the Tap group would like to make use of the time slot on the day I had reserved and rented for. It was more fair to the Tap group and to the owner so that she could make use of the time slot and receive some rent rather than each week for who knows how long my having to cancel and have no rent to give her.
I felt it was really not fair to the people who had come to the workshop and had wanted to continue as well as to all of the unknowns in Sackville who I would only know were interested when they showed up on the first day. I felt guilty and sorry also to the previous dancer of the space. But did what I thought was right and am keeping the door open to teach in the future somewhere, someday. I had been afraid that the arrhythmia I get which developed over the past year and a half or so would get in the way of my teaching and practicing. But I didn't want to let it. In truth it did get worse the more I was taking on for advertising, organizing and doing all of that with real practice. And when I got the flu it got worse. When I say real practice I mean 2-4 hours almost each day of the week.
But, not long after I gave the time slot to Tap and broke the news that classes were cancelled indefinitely of course I recovered and made my way towards practicing seriously without knowing when or where I'll teach again.
So, here I am today. My choice is to teach workshops in the future. I'm hesitant to teach ongoing classes because my immune system has always been bad. Believe it or not, I get sick less than I used to and to not as bad of a degree. I don't get pneumonia or the kind of flu/cold where I am sneezing absolutely constantly. I do everything I can to strengthen my immune system and to avoid lung infections for having asthma. Maybe to some it means I am whining for talking about things that aren't "amazing". I just tell it like it is. This is my process and my truth. That's it. No facade.
I'm also hesitant to teach ongoing classes right now because the arrhythmia I get makes me nervous. It's not something that you can just control and like a lot of health issues that no one can see it's hard to understand so that you can avoid it from happening. I don't know when or why sometimes it happens. Sometimes I notice a trigger but then notice that it doesn't trigger it at another time. I assume it's my bodies way of telling me that my cup is overflowing. That everything I've been through has done damage not just to my spirit heart but my physical one. So, I have to do my best to strengthen, heal and protect it in many ways. I will only someday start teaching regular classes after enough time has gone by with absolutely no arrhythmia in normal activity.
My doctor who I saw in Fredericton when it started believed it's just something that I developed which some people are more apt to do. She said it wasn't dangerous to my health and to try and relax when it's happening and to notice when and why it happens. I've thought it was from prolonged abnormal stress or from taking asthma medication including the rescue inhaler. I still don't know anything for sure so I go on rather blindly but doing my best to handle it and my best to know what I can handle. I see it as one of the ways my body talks to me that it has over the years. At this time in my life it's my heart. At other times in my 20s and early 30s it was most definitely my gut. I discovered my pain was from IBS. No doctor told me but I fit all of the symptoms. Now I know how to control it I don't get the symptoms so much anymore which makes me lucky. Some people have more triggers than I. Specific foods or drinks would trigger it or not eating soon enough but it also happened when someone had hurt me and when it had really cut at my esteem. This was so for me, I don't know about anyone else. But I couldn't help but notice the pattern that was going on. IBS also got in my way and I'm thankful it doesn't anymore!
I found it odd that someone with arrhythmia could have perfect blood pressure but there it was when I got tested. There have been times where absolutely nothing would trigger it. Or it would be a really strong arrhythmia after only half an hour of simple belly dance practice. But now that I am "controlling" it I can manage to be active most days of the week for hours doing intense practice without arrhythmia. It happens sometimes but again I don't know why. Oddly enough it doesn't mean I am unhealthy or unfit. Just like having asthma doesn't mean I am "weak" simply by having it even if it's medicated. I met someone who was dumbfounded to find out I had asthma because I wasn't a spindly skinny, weak little thing. Was rather insulting but occurrences like that happen to people who have an illness that nobody understands unless they have it themselves. It seems to be a common belief that a person can''t have symptoms of unhealth but also be healthy. Odd? Yes but it's true.
Health affects creativity, state of mind, ability to take on new ventures and goals. It's hard sometimes when you have symptoms of something that makes you feel unwell and unable to handle what you normally do. People blame and think if the person did better or did some kind of technique it would just go away. That it's simpler than it really is even though millions of people have Asthma or have Migraines or IBS or Chronic Pain. The culture expects people to just get over it eventually and if they have not then they have failed even if they are doing the best they can. All of this really does not help anyone's sense of self. As it is to those who are afflicted work hard to not define themselves by their symptoms while others around them are either pitying them or judging them and even hating them for reminding them of their own vulnerability as a human being.
It is partially because of the things that afflict me physically and Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia that physical expression dominates so much of my time. For those of you that don't know what HSP is and haven't read my previous post this is a genetic illness that runs in my family. Everyday when I practice and can practice for hours I am grateful that I can walk and more. At the back of my mind I hope that by doing intense practice that I am warding it off. And because of all of the kinds of pain including everything I've mentioned in this post and the kind I experienced that I mentioned in previous ones I'm grateful to do anything. It's amazing to not have the chronic pain in my shoulder stopping me from doing something before I want. At times my only creative expression was trying to find ways to relieve pain and that was it.
I say all this because human beings have a natural need to tell their story. The internet is a giant talking stick and if you have wondered into my circle welcome. I want to hear your story. I share all of the texture, the nuts and bolts of my story so that people will feel that they can. So that I can try to budge the belief just a little about having a defined set of emotions in a pretty box narrowed down to strength and power. We are more than that. Some people don't want to be reminded of their humanity. Some do and this is for whom I speak. All of what I express is who I am as an artist, a dancer, a teacher, anything I do. If I don't communicate about these things then I would be pretending to you that I am a different kind of artist/dancer. Anything I do should not be about forwarding my name or gaining attention or pity or making myself appear impossibly perfect.
Because anything that is of real and true worth in this world has the power to cut past the falsity. To cut past the grain to what is real. Lies never did anyone any good. And a life built around lies or trying to get better at lying to others is more than sad. It's an act of war on oneself and anything in this world that refuses to or can't lie. I know what people are up against. I face it everyday. It tugs at the back of my mind even if I'm not thinking about it. But the more people that begin the more that people will begin.
I challenge you to be your truth in your everyday life including in the arts. I challenge you to look at yourself real closely to know your intentions. To know how much your lying to yourself and others and trying to get better and better at it as a way to success in this world I challenge you to stop and feel how that feels and how much you numb yourself to how much you actually do in fact hate it and want to give it up. In order to give anything up that is horrible for us we have to allow ourselves to feel just how horrible it really is. That it isn't that great to keep telling ourselves " I'll feel better when I'm thin, perfect, rich, a genius and successful. It's ok if I feel like shit now."
Anything worth anything takes time and work and even some unhappy and imperfect emotions but not to the extent where we have to constantly tell ourselves "I'll be happy when."
We need artists that express the grand magnitude of being human and therefore of what it is to be alive, the good and the bad, the imperfect, the dark and the light. And we need artists that share their stories, not just their techniques. Artists trying to not be rebellious, not not face people with themselves, not stir energy within is a contradiction in terms. Artists have been seen as many things over the years. Only recently have artists been seen as rebellious and questioning culture and getting others to. How could a Belly Dancer be any of these things or have this affect just by dancing with a variety of emotions instead of just one or two in each dance she dances? Because it's a radical act to feel and to express in our culture.
I challenge all dancers to find this depth of emotion in any dance form they practice whether it is ATS, Tribal Fusion or Am Cab. Don't get lost in technique or goals of unreachable perfection. You'll find that when you do that you become the amazing dancer that you were always struggling to be.
I'll talk more about how and why this happens in a future post that will also praise Princess Farhana's deck of dance practice cards!
Stay tuned!
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