When Yoga Is More Than A Stretch and Belly Dance Is More Than Tricks To Wow The Audience

   To a lot of people here in the west yoga is seen as a way of "stretching". Dancers do it to improve their range of motion, to warm up or cool down from a dance practice. Others go to yoga for stress relief. But there are times when yoga is more than a stretch and more than stress relief.

   I've been through a lot of phases with yoga over the years. My relationship to yoga and to my body changed since I was a kid. Currently I practice Belly Dance more than I do yoga. And because I am clocking in so many hours of dance time or time with weights my yoga practice is usually for cooling down. Over the years I know from experience that this is not a very deep way to practice yoga. That it is a practice based on "stretching". Don't get me wrong, yoga for the sake of stretching to me is a good thing! I don't believe that yoga should always be about pulling back the layers. I believe that yoga is a process that unfolds to us as we practice and as we practice it is up to us to become present with whatever the process of yoga is presenting to us in that moment.

 Today I did a particularly in depth back bend practice on daturaonline.com with Rachel Brice and Ashley Lopez which was challenging physically and emotionally to me. I am grateful that my lower back and upper thoracic spine can handle back bends way better than I could years ago. But I felt inner resistance. As I do when doing any kind of practice that is tough I press on while being aware of what is going on inside me. I breathe deeper and I watch and I listen. Sometimes when something comes up for me during an in depth yoga practice I absolutely know what it is. Other times it isn't so apparent.

 Having been through a lot of trauma in my past I half expect something to come up for me whenever I do a more concentrated yoga practice. Sometimes it isn't about the past but about the present or the near present. Having also a background in unofficially studying Psychology I tend to approach things in that way sometimes. Sometimes it helps but sometimes you need yoga awareness. Which means to let it be and to unfold while you listen and watch rather than actively analyzing it. I think both approaches compliment each other quite well rather than one over the other.

  I continued practicing but at a certain point I could feel I needed to stop. Not necessarily physically but something mentally and emotionally inside me really wanted to cover up and protect. So for the rest of the practice I laid on my stomach, did Downward Dog, Child Pose and Reclining Twists, hugging my knees in and Fetus Pose. Then I simply sat with what was going on and gently reflected. I felt a conflict of wanting to open up and expand while at the same time wanting to contract, protect and cover up. Aside from my not being used to such an in depth back bend Yoga practice I have been doing a lot to not be as "open" as I used to be with a lot of things. I have felt the need to protect myself from all of the bad going on in the world as I watch helplessly while all of it is going on around me. So, though I care very much about everything that has been going on politically, religiously, culturally and environmentally I have needed to distance myself from it in my mind and emotionally very much in order to cope. I know that if I am more open then I will think of horrible and terrifying things in the middle of the night when I wake up like I used to. I'll have more horrific nightmares like I used to. And I will have trouble getting all of these negative things out of my thinking throughout the day like I used to.

 Yoga is a good thing and it's a good thing when people say that Yoga should not just be about "stretching" but I am perfectly fine with Yoga being just about "stretching" and being in my body. I totally believe in taking down metaphorical walls and opening up but I also do not believe it is healthy for Yoga to be the kind of practice where it is always taking down walls that all of us need in order to be healthy. Speaking from experience this is what is best for me. To create a balanced practice where Yoga is not always about accessing my emotions front and center and uprooting deeply inlaid trauma.

  Looking back I can see how making one kind of practice dominant over another drastically changed my state of mind and ability to function as well as how that dominant practice affected my body. I have found that a strong and in depth practice of Belly Dance creates a strong foundation mentally for me. I believe it is from my current practice of Belly Dance for why I am more solid and more strong physically, mentally and emotionally than when I have made Yoga be my dominant practice. When Yoga has been my dominant practice I am in more pain physically because I am hyper flexible which means that my body is better suited to focusing on toning exercises and practices. And when Yoga has been dominant I have been more vulnerable and upset because an in depth yoga practice will for sure bring up stored emotions and memories at some point.

 Trauma is something that never goes away. You live with it all of your life and with each person it is different how different things will affect them. When you mix Yoga or Belly Dance with a person you are creating a unique chemistry and that chemistry will differ with another person depending on their experiences and where they are coming from. So when everyone says how Yoga healed them and changed their lives I don't understand it very well. Because I did yoga from a young age and it did not "change my life". All of the traumatic things that happened within my family still happened and all of the traumatic things that happened in my early adulthood still happened. In my experience Yoga is not about "changing my life" or about making myself a better person. It's more about continuing something I learned through solitary Hatha practice in the eighties. To be with myself, with an experience or with another person because even if it's just a stretch it's still a listening to the body wisdom. So whenever I see Yoga being sold as a way of making yourself into a better person or that it should be about more than "stretching" in order for it to be real Yoga and to be more spiritual I don't understand. It seems overly "postured" to me. Of just trying too hard to be " the yogi" and fit into a magnificent awesome box that you don't mind being in because you can do all of these awesome yoga poses within it. I only understand Yoga to be a practice to be actual Yoga if it is without judgement. If people scoff at Yoga for being too on the surface if it is practiced just physically then they would scoff at something as wonderful as Yoga Therapy.

 I don't believe that the body can be separated from the emotions at all, ever. So even if a practice is being sold as a practice to get a yoga butt or to lose weight, I may not like that way of selling it, but I know that the body wisdom that is inherent in people will wake up and way "Wait a minute...I want a practice that listens to what I have to say. Not one where one intention for yoga practice is God!" And people will naturally gravitate to what is healthier for them anyway because the body is wise even when it's being led by ignorance. Sooner or later we all wake up and I'm not a fan of yoga teachers who assert their dominance by making their students feel inferior when they talk or write excessively about how the only real yoga has a spiritual component added. And I say this being a fairly spiritual person myself. I don't try to make what I do spiritual. I don't believe that my yoga practice is more real if I add a mantra to a yoga pose or if I do yoga asana every single day. Yoga is not made more real by doing it on front of an image of Ganesh or any other Deity. And I don't consider a person is doing Yoga that is more real after they have read and studied the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras. Yes, these are part of the history and roots of Yoga but so are other practices that have nothing and everything to do with Yoga Asana. Yoga is Yoga by a persons intent to be present. It isn't more real with a Headstand or amazingly flexible postures and it isn't more real by how often it is uprooting buried emotion. Yoga is something worthy of practice even if it hasn't turned your whole life around for the better. I can't say that practicing Yoga has ever done that for me but I still practice it and I am open to discovery rather than cementing into a tight knit box of rules.

  To put anything into an inflexible set of rules cuts off the life and breath of an idea, an experience and or a practice. And without breath there is no growth and no life. To make strict and inflexible rules is to use the excuse of discipline simply for egoistic notions of mastery. And then when we form these ideas and cut off the air to them we set people up as idols and work ourselves towards being idolized which is anything but yoga. Because of this I see no one, including myself, as a "master" of yoga. It's simply a practice to get in touch with our humanity, to humbly see, hear and feel our own limitations and possibilities as well as others with compassion. So yes Yoga is more than a stretch. But it's also great when that's all it is because even when that's all it looks like on the surface it usually amounts to more anyway. It's all good.

 People can go years practicing Yoga or Belly Dance as a means for performance and gaining respect but again I believe that the wisdom in our bodies is so strong and inherent that eventually a person practicing in this way will realize that they don't have to practice this way anymore. The simple experience of practicing Belly Dance or Yoga will call to a person subtly to reach for something more. So even if a persons original intentions were only to " be awesome" and to wow the crowd it's likely that the process of dancing or doing yoga will actually speak to them. An experience they did not call on with intent will visit them. Intent creates for a stronger practice no doubt about it. But it's absolutely wonderful that we can trust the wisdom in our bodies to reach out for a greater experience than the one we had originally intended.

 In this way I feel that both Yoga and Belly Dance are both very magical whether they alter outside circumstance to perfection or not. I don't expect either practice to do this for me, to change me into someone else to change my life into something perfect. And I would not sell either practice to anyone to create these kind of results. Instead I encourage people to begin or to continue because deep down they need to even if they may not know it yet. I would rather a person discover that they are already awesome, already "The Yogi", already a "Belly Dancer". This rather than desperately trying to manufacture for years the kind of person they think they aren't already, the kind of person who is a "Real Yogi", "Really Spiritual", or a "Real Belly Dancer".

  I trust that Yoga is always more than just a stretch and that Belly Dance is more than tricks deep down for everybody so I don't think anyone really needs to be preached to about how they can become more of a "real " anything. All we need to do is to let go of the idea that real is something that someone else discovered. Guidance is wonderful to receive and is needed but it should be the kind of guidance that truly points us towards our center because when we work from there that is the true integrity. Integrity cannot be manufactured by another person for us to simply piggy back onto to gain enlightenment. In that process of letting go of constant self manufacturing we become more real and let go of the self manufacturing process that has become so popular within all kinds of practices.

  Yoga and Belly Dance are more than props, tricks, glamour or mystery. We may perceive that yoga and belly dance are a mystery if we haven't grown up practicing it or haven't practiced it for very long because it comes from another country than our own. In our culture though we are brought up to see our country and culture as " the best" we also tend to fetishise and objectify someone or something when we want to lay claim or own " it ". In this way we are attracted to what mystifies us but in that process we further distance ourselves from what taking part in practicing any of these things means. Being in touch with something deeper is a mystery to us because our culture fragments our sense of self. Spirituality and people who are in a stronger connection to the Earth are surrounded by mystery with the way we tend to look at people "over there". But when we do actually drop our cultural notions of what these things are and mean we could find that "they" are not so different than " we". We could find that the state of being which is strengthened by a Yoga or Belly Dance practice is not so mysterious because it's right here and just as real as what is over there and over there is just as real as what as here. And we also could find that maybe we don't have to ascribe mystery to something or someone in order to give value to it. Without mystery we could find that we have even more sense of adventure because we are open to discovery. When we plaster something like Yoga or Belly Dance with mystery we close off our ability to discover and grow because we have already decided what we think we know about it and we tend to not want to know anything more because that would ruin the feeling of mystery and adventure. But as a result we are distanced from what the practice actually is and separated from the roots from which it came.

  If there are things that we do not like about our own culture, we should try to understand what we are hoping to discover when we become mystified by another culture and it's customs and it's way of life. We should understand that inherently deep down we were attracted to what a dance form or a yoga practice or to what a way of meditating means because deep down we are wanting to remember something that our own culture has forgotten. Some part of us knows deep down that a particular practice will help us to be in touch with.....something. Something we may not even know we are looking for, something we may have never known but that even so that we remember deep down.

    I think it is very sad that a culture would fragment itself so much that it would steal, colonize and appropriate other cultures as well, hold racist views as well as fetishising a culture and it's practices. To keep seeing a country, a culture and practices such as Belly Dance or Yoga as "other" degrades the people and degrades the quality of our practice. Deep down all of us want more than this and I know that deep down we are wanting to reach beyond the experience of mystery and intrigue. I believe that we all can do better and more than a stretch and a wow. That we can try with our western minds to remember what the practices of Yoga and Belly Dance have the potential to teach us. We can remember this easier I think when we can remind ourselves that we perceive these things differently if we did not grow up with them as being part of our lives and or if we did not grow up with them in the culture where they originated where they have a strong history.

   In the way that other cultures are viewed it reminds me too much of the way a lot, not all men, but the way a lot of men view women. We all know that a lot of men keep a distance between themselves and a woman to keep that mystery there and so it would be easier to objectify and fetishise a woman than to get to know what she is about. If he knew her too well then it would be more difficult for him to assume responsibility for how he sees her and treats her. It is similar to how our culture tends to view and treat other cultures. As long as a woman or an entire culture is held at arms length while we seek to have some kind of relationship at the same time, then we are not valuing a person or a culture. We are in fact dishonoring them. We act like we know all there is to know about a person or a culture and forget they even existed! Surrounding a person or a culture with mystery and then seeking to own it through whatever act and then forgetting it's existence is dishonor. For a culture to take on a style of dance or yoga without getting to know what it's really about and without committing to it for the long term is wrong. It's arrogant for an entire culture to assume it knows what something from another culture is about when it's only been part of one part of the culture for a century and then to forget and not practice it anymore because it's no longer hip. Women are still seen as primitives and cultures that are not western are seen as primitive and therefore lower on the evolutionary ladder than white men. I see racism, and cultural appropriation as not separate from issues of gender identity.

  The idea of how to respect these traditions is very complicated and yet very simple at the same time. Though we have had a taste, we still have a lot to discover on our path to demystifying these traditions and a lot to discover on how to embody what these traditions actually mean to express.

  If you read this entire blog entry good for you! It is certainly long and a lot of what I wrote didn't come to me on the yoga mat but just came to me as I was writing. So I didn't expect or intend for this post to be so long winded!

  But a lot of what we intend rarely happens that way!

Why You Need to Try Princess Farhanas' Drama Queen Technique and Emotion Cards!

  To begin. when I refer to dancers as "she" in this blog post I am not implying that all dancers should be a "she" It's a base word that I am using in the same way that many people use the word " he". I don't swear a lot in my writing but I do when I feel it's the best word to describe what I am trying to get across. I believe swear words serve their purpose in this way rather than littering an entire piece with cruddy words! Somehow using swear words here and there seems to give a more personal flair rather than tacky if they are used sparingly rather than glaringly. However if you don't like my little sprinkle of swear words in my piece simple move on! If you do then read on!

  I have been looking at this deck of dance cards on-line for awhile now and hadn't bought them yet.
They can be found on her site at http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

   Recently in an Intermediate 1 Class we played with these cards in class and it was very interesting! We picked a couple of cards that would be the moves that we would work on and we picked a card that would be our emotion. My first card for emotion was nervousness and my movements were upward eight, hip lock up and shimmies. We also layered emotion with veil work which was also an interesting exploration. We first did the movements to the music to discover the flow of the moves that suited us and the music best. Then we layered the movements with the energy of the emotion from the card we picked. At first I was unsure of how I would dance nervousness without it being a mime like activity or a mime dancing in a musical! I totally did not want it to be hammy! But as the music was playing the intention of using the emotion blended with the energy of the music and I could see how my dancing transformed.

   I found that the holding of the intention of nervousness actually made for a powerful dance even in just a few simple movements. The nervous energy created a pulled in effect which felt like it was wanting to over flow the entire time I was dancing all while I was concentrating on containing it. This inward intention changed how my movements looked. Eventually as I danced it transformed into not being nervous because I wanted to let it go. So the story of the dance was containing oneself and limiting oneself but then setting oneself free. The nervous energy I noticed had created a lot of  extra heat. The bodily feeling of this energy was like a rapid flurry of a tight tornado whirling at my center around my face and heart area. I am this descriptive because I have studied and believe in the chakras and the movement of energy. Hippie Dippie and New Age Goo but it does transform how I experience life and how I experience dance.

   The next emotion was jealousy. This one I found my arms changing position. I wanted to create a bigger and more intimidating presence so I found my arms going into 2nd Position in ATS and Tribal Fusion. And my face was stone and angry with my chin coming down a little. This energy also created a lot of heat. Unlike the previous emotion it did not transform or evolve into a resolution. It simply stayed put solidly which I think is what the energy of jealousy usually is about. It does not get resolved easily and the person feeling jealous holds the emotion very strongly. They may feel vulnerable but try to create an ominous presence to intimidate a person into not doing something that has hurt them. Also my hip movements became stronger, bigger, sharper, crisper. I saw my hip shimmy transform into the way I had been trying to get it to go for awhile! So, I was astonished! Which is amazing because most people describe the hip shimmy as being relaxed and taking less effort. But in this case I captured the movement by trying to express determined action with the turbulent emotion of jealousy. I also bent my knees more  rather than standing taller which also makes sense. Someone else might have stood taller to create a larger presence. But in my experience when I am jealous I work to ground and earth myself. More hippie dippie language I know. It's just the best way to describe it!

   The other card I drew for emotion was bewildered. I was like, " How the hell do I dance bewildered? " Again the whole image of doing a sappy dance with mime like facial features and body gestures came into my mind! I tried to dance it, mostly feeling bewildered of how to dance bewildered. This was the emotion done with veil. I think the effect it created in the dance was that I was searching, searching, searching. But like in life, I don't like to be bewildered. I like to come to conclusions as soon as possible and to let go of the feeling of being bewildered. If it's something I absolutely can't understand or figure out or accept I let it go and move on. In my dancing I quickly decided to set myself free from being bewildered which then made my dance free and exploring, present, liberated. Again this was another interesting evolution of plot within the dance. I love stories and plot and am always captivated by seeing a character grow and change by change of environment or outside events.

   As dancers and as humans we need to be "Round Characters" and "Dynamic Characters." I'm talking about a few kinds of characters that writers work into the plot of their stories. Without them the story would not move forward and because the story would fall flat we as the readers would simply stop reading. And just as it's hard to write a well rounded plot with well rounded characters it has gotten to be more and more challenging for dancers to explore other emotions besides power, strength, joy, sensuality and sass.

   Even though our culture has grown to understand emotion more and it's more in the open and accepted that we are not perfect by going to therapy and needing help, all of us tend to feel more in need of putting on a good face than ever. As a result our dancing has changed. We become focused on technique. But something I knew from the beginning when I started dancing was that if you embody the emotion while dancing the dance dances with you. The dance flows through you and speaks to you while you listen and answer back. The movements transform into something alive and juicy, not pasty, cardboard and flat exercises.

   Also what I knew then that I forgot over time was that when you dance emotion you grow 80 times quicker! With the emotion suddenly there is a place and a direction for the dance to go and for you as the dancer to go. And though it is improv the dance becomes crisp, ripe and fresh. The dance might be simple but it becomes amazing in way that hours and sometimes years of obsessing over technique and tricks fall short. Situating practice completely around technique stunts dancers by years and years. With the emotion she flies light years ahead of the rest. Her body is able to incorporate more movements with more detail faster and her reflexes become refined. Why?

   Because the dancer is no longer putting their body under a microscope. The dancer is no longer treating themselves like a thing to fix but instead is being a living, breathing human being who dances. The dancer is being a human being that has a wide variety of emotions that range from the most vulnerable to the most powerful. We try so hard to run as far as we can and distance ourselves from the animal kingdom and embodying the full spectrum of our emotions is the expression of our roots as animals. We don't like to remind ourselves or each other that we are animals rather than that we are people falling short of the "neon god" that we've made. The neon god that is so-called perfect. All technology breaks all the time, it never lasts and becomes obsolete pretty quickly. But everyday we strive more and more to be so called perfect machines. Robots with a few of the best traits that we humans see as being palatable. Our bodies have wisdom yet we tend to always believe that our bodies do not. That our bodies need to be controlled, disciplined and set to right because our bodies are so messy and seem to have no logic or reasoning. But to those who listen closely or have studied any of the healing arts understand just how wise our bodies are to ensure our survival. We look at all our bodies do wrong rather than what our bodies do right.


   What we often fail to realize is that the more we distance ourselves from our roots which are not airbrushed but is instead caked with earth, is that the more we distance from those roots the more fractured our culture will be. It is the root of the breakdown of families, communities, groups, spirituality, educational and hospital institutions. I'm not saying that there is nothing right in the world or that there was a time where everything was the way it could/should be. I'm saying that in our evolution we are dropping our emotions and feel more of a need to put on a show and face because all of us are so public now that we are on-line. My reach to the rest of the world changed after I discovered chat rooms in 1997. And it changed again when Tribe, Facebook and Youtube came along. These things have been very good.

   But at the same time we struggle between accepting our emotion and understanding them in a holistic way and having the basic human need of privacy. As dancers or any kind of artist which is used to putting their souls out there for everyone to see we have an unspoken need that gets translated into our dance. The natural and human need for privacy. At the same time we want to only express to the world through art what the rest of the world says is worth something. It's safe and being out there alllll the time feels very unsafe indeed! Before the net artists of every kind could more easily put up their walls enough to get to work in their studio. Some are still able to do that today. But I think most dancers and artists are more hyper aware than they ever were because of the internet and what it means to be on it everyday.

   In this way a lot of art, music and dance has lost it's magical edge. The edge that cuts through all of the bullshit and reminds people of something within themselves they had forgotten. The part that's human because most of the time they are forever trying to mold themselves into something rather than just be. We still get artists, dancers, musicians and writers that have allowed themselves to be open to the creative void and to allow inspiration to pour forth from it and through them into whatever medium they use to translate that message.

   These pieces are jewels and even though we are all so busy with technique and perfection, being what we "should" be part of us wakes up when an artist taps us on the shoulder. Whether it's the dancer who has claimed and held onto her soul who expresses the spectrum of emotion in her dance or a painter that did every motion with awareness as they laid paint or other objects to the canvas in a kind of yogic dance deep down we know how sacred and valuable it is and how much we need it. Not just from outside but from ourselves.

   So, what's the solution? How do we change our practice? How do we stop obsessing over technique when it has become almost a compulsive addiction? How can teachers get this important message across to their students? That they can really dance right now, not when they have perfected more and more techniques and tricks to be "amazing. That we can stop criticizing and practicing compulsively to silence the self hate and criticism. The more we allow ourselves to dance with emotion the more our confidence will grow.

   Mine did after this experience. For years I had tried to re-capture an ability and a feeling I had earlier on. I have actually felt I was a better dancer then even though since then I have learned so many techniques and styles of dance. I know so much more than I knew then but over time came to trust myself less. I lost my ability to trust in myself to teach myself to dance. In the beginning I had that I think from my first teacher and from not being exposed to the greater culture of belly dance that grew and changed since 2002. And now that I remember this very important part of the dance in a way that's more than intellectual I'm different. I feel and think differently not just about dance but about myself and my body. And that is very powerful.

   This is why you should get these cards and incorporate them into your home practice and or your dance class plan for your students. Without emotion we become lost as artists. Without a structured frame work to hold that emotion we run away. Without  a structure we also push and push to get past our horrible beginner ways rather than exploring the sacred within the simple and the basic. With these cards, it provides all of these things. It can also remind us again and again that being a beginner is a wonderful thing and shouldn't be something to be ashamed of.

   Yet a lot of us are all the time. But the best students and teachers fully embrace being a continuous beginner. Not just a continuous learner but a continuous beginner. We are always beginning new in the next second and moment fresh. Students and Teachers that are continuous beginners are humble, alert, patient, thorough, and responsible which is wonderful for everybody! This means less division and stronger communities and so much more!

   I challenge you to be a continuous beginner in all things, acknowledge your strengths, cradle your weakness, embody the full spectrum of your emotions in your art and in your dance and in your life. I also encourage you to give yourself the proper amount of privacy that you need so that you can feel comfortable being fully present in your art and comfortable with putting it out there.

Children of the Earth
Do What You Need
Blessed Be

My Journey: Evolution in Creative Expression and Sense of Self Part 1

 

 
 
   In a post quite awhile ago I mentioned that I would make a post discussing why I don't/can't choose between styles of belly dance and forgive me for this post is belated! In this post you'll also get to know me more and my own progression and journey through exploring different forms of movement.

  This post will also lead into another one about how an experience at a dance class with Princess Farhana's cards triggered all of this writing and therefore how great and revolutionary I think they are!

   Over the years I have gotten into different styles of dance as well as styles of movements that I miss when I haven't done them. There are so many out there it's impossible to do them all! So it's only the limits of time, energy and other passions which choose for me. Before I ever did any style of Belly Dance I found a VHS on Latin Dancing. I loved it! And later when I took Belly Dance classes I found there was a parallel to some of the hip movements. It's practice also gave me well coordinated feet and the ability to layer simple hip movements over steps. This is why I believe that all disciplines no matter what they are serve to expand and inform your ability in other traditions. I also around the same time found a VHS for Kickboxing which I also loved. This style also taught me to move my hips in a twisting motion with the leg pivoting on the toe.

   When I started belly dancing it was different but it still helped me to understand better what was going on in the Egyptian Step( also called "Step and Point") in AmCab and the Egyptian Basic in ATS. I recently did Kickboxing last week for the first time in months and was happy to find that even after an hour of weights that my energy was good and I had no arrhythmia! So win/win! But every time I do kickboxing after a time where I hadn't in awhile I realize just how great it is for improving lightness and speed in your feet, leg strength, endurance, hip flexibility and releasing tension in the legs. You also get a great twisting action in the shoulders and spine which also relieves tension. It's also a very different exercise than belly dance and found that I wasn't used to that particular flavor of intensity anymore. But because belly dance is my thing and takes a lot of hours to practice and energy Kickboxing will only be an every now and then practice for me unless I can travel in time like Hermione from Harry Potter!

   When I found a VHS of Veena and Neena's Basic Belly Dance movements at Zellers in Fredericton NB in the winter of 2002 I was over-joyed! I had wanted to for a few years and never knew where I could learn! I still don't remember how I found out about what it was called. All I know is that when I was a teen-ager I saw a Janet Jackson video where they were doing amazing hip movements! I had never seen anything like that before and was like "That can't be possible! But they are!" They were dressed more in a style of Indian Dance Fusion so at the time I thought it's origins was India. Somehow I came across the name Belly Dance, years before I found the Veena and Neena in 1999 I was mentioning to a person from my home town how I wanted to learn "Belly Dance". I remember their reaction! lol At the time I was oblivious to how risque and baaaad it was perceived to be! The way I grew up, I was very separate from the way that everyone else lived and the ways that others thought. It was a very bad thing but in this way it was good. Because I was so isolated and spent a lot of time alone I had lots of time to think and to hear my own voice. Only years later did I find out how rare it is for others to have this and that if they did it was only after years of being very very busy with no time or space to think, to know themselves.

   For me it was different. I grew up with a mentally ill parent where her condition was not properly controlled by medication. And so I was isolated from other people a lot. When I should have been at school but wasn't because my mother didn't make sure I did, I was exploring ideas in psychology and spirituality, yoga, lifting weights, playing guitar, drawing, reading, and writing poetry. Art and being in my body was my own culture that I created. There was no fussy ideas surrounding it about one thing being better than the other or why. There was no judgement, only exploration, growth and setting my own goals. I created my own self discipline and made sure to keep learning and growing even if I wasn't in the school system. And this way of life also had me expressing my own voice in a safe place even if the only person to listen was me. That is why no matter how strongly and fiercely I have been silenced by my mother, this culture or any one else that I speak up. I am still surprised when I speak up because I think, shouldn't I keep silent? But even when I have been silent, just by me being who I am I ask for trouble. And anyone who thinks freely and feels freely will attract abuse from people who have cut themselves off from their heart in some way. I sometimes wish that I could create the kind of wall, veneer, image that others seem to do so easily. But whenever I have tried it has hurt me too much.

   Over the years I have felt like all of these creative forms that I loved and developed a relationship with was demanding of me to turn to stone. To create a false facade rather than to become more real. I even felt this when I was focused on developing my success as a yoga teacher years ago after I completed the teacher training. To those of you who have read my previous posts you know how I came to stop teaching yoga and how I became afraid of teaching for years. I have often thought that even though I hated what happened, and that all of it was so very wrong and still hurts me to this day, that it forced me to keep up with a facade that I felt I had to create as a yoga teacher. With everything that happened with being assaulted and people who I thought were my friends not understanding or caring it was too much for me to put on a front that none of these things hurt me while putting on the amazing yoga teacher facade that I felt was going on all through the yoga world at the time. I thought this was the only way for a teacher to get success all the while I thought it was bull. I grew up doing yoga so again it was a shock to learn that there were so many embedded projections, expectations, politics and ego involved in the simple practice of "stretching" and " breathing". This is why I don't adapt to the way that the rest of the world works. Though I was brought up in an extremely unhealthy and insane home I was not cultured and forged by the surrounding culture at all. So as I forcefully left the nest and explored the world desperately trying to outrun the fate of my ancestors I have found I can't adapt. And that I have to try very hard to hold on to myself while nearly, mostly everyone around me is trying very very hard to hate and reject themselves or to only love the show that they can put on for others.

  I don't love the show. I love the humanity that which most people are rejecting and holding at a distance. As a result I feel like I am always immersed in a new culture and experiencing culture shock. And I always feel like I am doing something wrong. Did I say too much? Was my communication or my dance or my writing, my singing too personal? Is the image I just drew or painted too close to the truth? And then I feel and worry that honest expression doesn't belong anywhere. That art is only accepted if it's in a very tidy box and only if it expresses strength, entertainment, absurdity to entertain, perfection. I have had many real things get in the way of all of my creativity but one of them has always been "Where does it belong? This culture seems to not want this." And so would progress to money being equated with acceptance and belonging by the greater culture and that therefore meaning "success" All of that rather than a human being defining for themselves what success really is and that it isn't really success if your warping your vision and creative expression to get more students, sell more paintings, get more followers, likes etc.

  Stay tuned for Part 2 of My Journey: Evolution in Creative Expression and Sense of Self !

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.

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!