Cultivating Beginners Mind

  

"Beginners Mind" is talked about a lot in Buddhism and Yoga Traditions. But how can we translate this perspective into our dancing? Most people feel very awkward and even vulnerable when beginning something new and that is normal. But often people want to hurry as fast as they can to get past being a beginner so that they can not look foolish anymore and to therefore feel more comfortable and confident. We want to "Master" something or become an expert. Nothing wrong with that either. But what people fail to realize is the power in the process and that the process should never be pushed past to achieve a self congratulatory label of "Master". To do so leads to ego and a closed mind which is not open to growth and possibilities. A true Masters Mind aims to embody Beginners Mind always and completely because discovery and growth is the goal. Once a person embodies Beginners Mind they discover just how deep the rabbit hole goes and that it indeed goes on forever. This leads to a better quality of experience. The person is no longer rushing and wanting to be somewhere other than where they are. Indeed yogis and people who meditate must start from exactly where they are and so must dancers. Being here now from exactly where you are coming from is a great power which puts you in the position to make use of all of your strengths. It allows you the ability to gently see and accept your weaknesses so that you may encourage and strengthen your weaknesses into strengths 

  

There is much magic in being a Beginner. Even if it's something you have done for years and years you can cultivate Beginners Mind. It cultivates and infuses your practice with fresh energy to motivate you to continue. A curious mind never tires of finding what is around the corner to discover. In this way we study and practice for the sake of it. For our own growth and for the growth of others rather than a self involved form of practice to out do and crush the competition. If we practice in this way Dance becomes Yoga. A supreme experience of union within. Whether a person has spiritual beliefs or not this way of thinking and practicing leads to a solid and committed practice which means that we have achieved success. We often do not continue with anything if it does not serve our deepest interests for the long term. Practicing Yoga, Meditation, Weights or Belly Dance for only competition or only to lose weight will usually cause burn out. To avoid burn out the practice must feed something deep inside and all of us need our curiosities to be fed. We all need that feeling of discovery and magic because when we have that, then all of the world lights up and looks different. The world becomes not so much of a dreary place and that is how the power of the Beginners mind works. Without it a practice will likely be difficult to grow for it to thrive. 

  

When we begin if we have already made our minds up about something we are closed to growth and to discovery. If we need so much to be an expert we push past the foundation of beginning which is where all of the substance of any practice lives. We might never actually know what anything is including ourselves if we do not cultivate Beginners Mind to be open to new ways of thinking, seeing, feeling and perceiving.

  With Beginners Mind we also get to do something that we need very much. We need to have the ability to take an honest look at ourselves to see our imperfections and be ok with it. To be so ok with it that we aren't happy covering it up. The Beginners Mind takes risks and puts it all out there for people to see. It cultivates an almost fearless quality. We know that we may have trouble with something but we know from experience that what we couldn't do before grew into something more. We know that we can do it from experience because even if what we are doing is new in a lot of ways it is no different. It's the same process and all we have to do is invest our time, energy and concentration to see our growth manifest. 

  

  We tend to think that we want certainty, solidity and safety. We are human and of course we want and need these things. But we also need the opposite in order to thrive. We need to not know sometimes and to wonder what's next. It may feel a little terrifying to not know where or what you'll be doing a year from now even if you make a plan but at the same time it's exciting! What will tomorrow bring? Or next year? Who knows what great things, places and practices I could discover! 

  

  Sometimes as we age or as we develop years of experience with something the way we perceive the world and our lives becomes muted and dry of energy. In some ways we embrace a kind of perception that feels depressing though we call it a symptom of ageing and nothing being new anymore. It's true but this only means that we need to remember the kind of sight we had as a child or teen-ager. When we were the ultimate beginner in everything! The kind of sight that endlessly wonders and is curious because they know they have so much to discover. A person can live one hundred years and still be capable of being in awe of something they never discovered before but only if they look. To continue in what we do and to be able to commit ourselves to it we can find may ways to keep it fresh even as our practices become more and more seasoned. We deeply need to have possibilities. When our possibilities run dry often we lose our sense of hope.

  

  A person with Beginners Mind honors the Beginner in everyone and loves to see people learn something new and to "begin" because it's magic! It clears away notions of status, celebrity and one up man ship. All that matters is the dance for the sake of dancing. The art for arts sake. It can be easy to let extra pesky intentions get mixed up in our reasons for doing something. But it's up to us to question them and to filter them out for quality practice, quality community, and quality life. 

  

  The Beginners Mind in me honors the Beginners Mind in you!

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!

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

Photo by Dave Gay 2004 Odell Park Fredericton NB

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you have to study in both styles? No

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

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


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

My Belly Dance Journey Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 My story continues with Part 3.

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!