Surviving a Hiatus

The Importance of Stopping to Search

for Your Authentic Next Move

By Shemiran Ibrahim

“
Even lovers need a holiday, far away, from each other.

” 

Peter Cetera; lead singer of Chicago

When I started writing an article about doing nothing, the first page was empty for months! I had this idea to write about burnout and the ensuing break that often follows, but it all seemed so intangible that I’ve been stuck on even starting until now. It’s needed time to chrystalise in my mind before coming out onto paper. And in essence, funnily enough, that is exactly what happens in a hiatus.

You might think; what is this good for? I want to read about Belly Dance, about performing, learning, teaching, doing. I don’t want to read about stopping. About taking a break. About nothingness. Bear with me and you just might find a treasure inside the madness.

The reason why I feel like writing an article about hiatus is because I’ve been inside one for some time now in relation to my dancing. It hasn’t made sense; after all, I love the dance. It has been painful; as in the words of Adabella Radici “Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health - it rusts your spirit and your hips”. At times it has been scary; the unknown always is. It has also been frustrating; “When will it end? Will it ever end?”

Here, have a quick taste of a hiatus;

Uncomfortable, isn’t it? Weird. Doesn’t make sense. Odd. Unknown. Unfathomable. Seemingly useless. It looks like a mistake, like it shouldn’t be there. Maybe the editor missed it. Shouldn’t it be filled with noisy words? Fancy putting a blank space inside an article!

Indeed, fancy putting a blank space inside a life.

Our culture is so ‘doing’ obsessed it has forgotten the necessity of nothingness. Of space. Of silence. Of time to brew; give me the tea bag please, no need to mess around with tea leaves - they take too long to infuse and are too hard to clean up. Fast, clean, tidy and sensical thank you very much. It’s interesting, a traditional Middle Eastern host never offers their guests tea made of tea bags; “It’s not real tea” they would protest. They know that real flavor takes time to come out.

In this fast tracked culture no wonder we freak out when faced with a natural rhythm of creation; a break, a pause, a fallow time, a gestation period. Farmers know of the absolute imperativeness of a fallow period. After a number of crop rotations on a certain plot, they give the land a break for a season to regenerate with goodness. To fuel up. To prepare once again to birth a harvest. The wisdom of Mother Earth has taught them that not heeding a burnout is reckless, and in the long term futile.

Burnouts happen for all sorts of different reasons. My performing burnout came about with thanks to the affect dancing in the cabaret scene had on me. The restaurants, the function centres, the birthday parties. The audience’s expectation of the dancer was out of synergy with how I view the dance. And the competitive nature of the scene put a sharp edge on interactions with fellow dancers, which to my dismay made sisterhood fly out the window in many occasions. This is not about berating cabaret, not at all. Like everything else it has its good aspects. But at the end of the day, cabaret suits some dancers and really doesn’t suit others.

So with a bad taste in my mouth I stopped. Little did I know of the well of emotions brewing right under the surface. So much so I needed to go to counseling for a while to get my head straight. The break gave me some breathing space to do that, to get perspective from a distance.

Performing in the cabaret scene had brought up some demons that needed to be addressed, but also some desires that needed to be heard. After giving the demons time to come out to the light and be understood, the desires had a chance to emerge. Authentic desires. Desires of the heart. Again they weren’t clear to begin with; nothing seemed to be clear in hiatus land. There were more questions than there were answers. But they were really good questions; what do I want from my dancing? What does it look like? What music moves my soul? What do I want to wear and how do I want to look? If cookie cutter cabaret is not for me, what shape is my authentic dance going to take?

I remember a teacher once saying that there are three stages to learning our dance; the beginner stage when everything is new and exciting, when you are in love. Nothing can make you think badly of your lover. Followed by the intermediate phase when you are ferociously devouring more and more knowledge and you are working on your craft. Then comes the last stage; the one where you become your own dancer. You find your own style, your authentic dance self. She said that preceding the move from one stage to the other can be painful and wrought with fear and confusion. Growing pains are never pretty.

So, as I cleared my head of what needed to be dealt with I could hear the murmurs of my heart more clearly, and it was demanding of me to find my authentic dance. My authentic steps. My authentic essence. One of the major benefits of learning improvisational Belly Dance is to aid in this search for your authentic dance artistry. (For information on how to improvise there are some very useful articles on the subject here at General Belly Dance Information 

I’m thankful now for the hiatus I have experienced. It has made me appreciate my dance as more of what it really is – an artistic expression. And like any artist, dancers learn their craft and model their expression on others until they find their own wings and create their true self-expression. This is where the question of authenticity comes in.

Rollo May, writer of The Courage to Create, explains that “Down through the ages, authentically creative figures have consistently found themselves in.... a struggle”. Sarah Ban Breathnach adds “But is it the struggle to create or to stay blocked because we fear where the creative life will lead?” Sometimes in the hiatus I have felt blocked, and still do. Moving my dance to a space of authentic self-expression takes courage, for sure.

Breathnach continues in her brilliant book “Simple Abundance”; “’Write the truest sentence you know’, Ernest Hemingway encourages the writer in you. Paint the truest image you can render. Wait all day with camera poised to capture the five-second sliver of light. Express the rage and range of raw emotion through your dialogue. Convey passion’s power with the curve of your dancer’s body honed through discipline and denial. Set the angel free when you carve. Make the heavens weep when you compose”.

It is like this with our dancing. Sometimes we forget that we are artists. Dancers create moving art. And sometimes artists need to take time off from creating in order to brew their next phase. Breathnach elaborates “But in order to be true to a creative work, the artist must journey to the centre of the self. Past the conscious sentries in the brain, beyond the barbed wire barricades of the heart, into the trenches of truth or dare”.

A hiatus allows the time and space for that journeying within, for that authentic exploration. So if you are faced with a burnout that demands a hiatus, I hope this article helps you take a leap of faith into its darkness, inspired by Milton Erickson’s words "Enlightenment is always preceded by confusion." And after finding the treasure that lies within, you will be able to reemerge from the chrysalis reincarnated.

Find More Information On:

• Belly Dance Teacher Training DVD
• Belly Dance Classes & Lessons
• Belly Dance Workshop
• Tips for Belly Dancing

The Call to Teach - Answering the Call for Beginner Belly Dance Teachers

The call to teach does not come from external encounters alone – no outward teacher or teaching will have much effect until my soul assents. Any authentic call ultimately comes from the voice of the teacher within, the voice that invites me to honour the nature of my true self.

Parker J. Palmer; from “The Courage to Teach”

Teaching is both an honour and huge responsibility, and to start teaching something as ancient and foreign as Oriental Dance (known as Belly Dance in the West) requires solid preparation. I have heard both seasoned performers and advanced dancers alike admit that the notion of starting to teach is terrifying, and speak of the emotional and physical challenges they encounter whenever they contemplate starting to teach.

When an Oriental Dancer hears the call to start teaching, there are very few courses providing the information and inspiration needed to guide the teacher-to-be through the beginnings of what will become both a challenging and enriching journey.

When I started to teach Oriental Dance I had been training constantly for around 5 years with some of the most reputable teachers in the country. Add to that I was born and bred in the Middle East. Still I was scared out of my wits at the idea of teaching this ancient and complex dance. How do I break it down for the Beginner? Where do I start, and how do I proceed from the start of the term to the end of it? I know how to do the movements, but how on earth do I explain them? No one told me how to start teaching and I couldn’t find any book or DVD instructing me on how to go about it either.

Soon after starting I was invited to teach at prominent Belly Dance schools, but none had a teaching system or curriculum to follow. This seemed to be the norm, but resulted in multi-teacher schools delivering varied learning experiences. In my endeavours to grow as a teacher I attended a teacher training course; but again, a week-by-week course curriculum was missing, together with the answers to burning questions I had regarding how to structure the learning curve, what to teach in each class; how to break down the art of Belly Dance into small pieces in a methodical way, and deliver it in simple and easy-to-digest terms to my students.

There seemed to be a lack of systemisation and methodology of teaching Belly Dance, and a resulting hunger for it.

So I started creating a system for myself that would empower the students’ learning process. I wanted something hugely methodical; a solid structure that would work effortlessly and that had integrity, but at the same time evoked the mystery and beauty of this timeless dance form. Class after class, term after term and year after year I have honed this system, resulting in thousands of students and myself reaping the rewards.

The result is my own “Belly Dancing from the Heart Method” of teaching Belly Dance, based in Classical Egyptian technique which is the foundation technique for all the various modern styles and offshoots of Oriental Dance or Raqs Sharqi, and it is now released in a world first learn-from-home teacher training course: “How to Teach Belly Dance” Teacher Training Course. In this DVD/Handbook/CD package you will learn how to start and grow a thriving and profitable Belly Dance teaching business, and make your Belly Dance classes a successful, uplifting and empowering experience for all involved. For full details of this package please go to “How to Teach Belly Dance”.

When you start out teaching you can be faced with a whole lot of various emotional, physical and intellectual challenges. This course, through the Handbook “The-A-B-C of Teaching Belly Dance” and DVDs, guides you through detailed step-by-step study material in three study sections as follows:

A – Awaken the Teacher in You; covers how to cultivate the sprit & mind of a great teacher

B – Business End of Things; covers how to start and run a successful, profitable business

C – Curriculum & Teaching Method; week-by-week course curriculum and more

Following is an excerpt from section “B - Business End of Things” to help you set up and run some aspects of your Belly Dance teaching business:

Structuring your school/classes

Once you start teaching Belly Dance you start a business, so treat it as one. Seeing things in this light gets you thinking down professional lines. It will get your mind into gear for marketing yourself, laying down your bookkeeping and taxation systems, systemising your paperwork and computer documents, and reaching for excellence in everything you do.

Some of the areas that will need tending to before starting are:

• What is your business intention?
• How to structure your school/classes?
• What works and doesn’t work when choosing a venue?
• How to attract new students?
• How to retain and market to existing students?
• Insurance… and much more.

When structuring your school/classes, you will be faced with some questions and decisions to make. Here are some pointers to help you make those decisions:

How many classes/levels do I offer?

When you start out teaching for yourself you will encounter what one of my fellow teachers jokingly calls the “The Belly Curious” phenomenon. I’m sure it is prevalent throughout all of adult teaching; they are the students who enrol just to try it out for size; the ones who just want to do something different and fun for a term, the ones who come full of expectations that it will be easy to learn, then get discouraged in their first term and drop out. They are the majority. The minority are the ones who will work hard on the dance and actually stick with it long enough to learn to dance. With this in mind, you need to structure things so that you can maximise the returns (both in joy and in financial terms) to you, and make the structure of your school/classes work for the students as well.

When you start you will most probably have a small school/small number of classes per week, with low attendance numbers. If you structure your school to have too many levels right from the start you simply won’t have enough numbers to fill your classes. This is not only financially unviable for you, it also affects the energy in the class (it is very hard to teach only 4-5 students unless it is a group private).

Also, as the majority of enrolments into your standard Belly Dance classes are the “Belly Curious” you will most probably not get huge numbers graduating to Intermediate level from the start. So, you need a way to maximise numbers per class, and so minimise rental and your own energetic output (teaching too many classes per week can burn you out), and maximise energy levels in each class.

To do this, offer mixed level Beginner classes. I started doing this and have never looked back. The reasons why I have found mixing Basic Beginners (first-timers) and Continuing Beginners (Beginners with 1, 2 or even 3 terms behind them) together to be hugely successful are threefold:

1. More people in the class; which is healthy from both an energetic and business point of view.
2. The Continuing Beginners are a huge inspiration for the first-timers, as the new comers can see living breathing examples of where they can be within 2-3 terms, which helps give them vision and drive, which helps reduce drop-out rates due to disheartenment.
3. The Continuing Beginners get to recap, recap, recap the basics, which they NEED to do for at least 3 terms. At the same time they get advanced at a healthy pace with extra tailored direction.

Doing this is not easy when you start; you need to know how to manage it. The “How to Teach Belly Dance” DVDs and Handbook give you clear instructions on how to run successful mixed level Beginner classes, what works and what doesn’t work, and how to make them an effective learning experience for all students involved.

Once you’ve gathered momentum in your school you will graduate your own Intermediates. That is the time to start offering Intermediate level classes.

Terms vs. causal weekly classes?

Also, when structuring your school you need to decide wether or not you run weekly classes all year round, or run in terms. Again, due to all of the points above, I recommend running in terms when you start out. It helps you gain control of your finances as payment for the term is upfront, as opposed to weekly casual classes whereby you don’t know who will attend from one week to another. Terms are the way to go for sure! I like to run 7/8 week terms inside school terms. This also gives you the flexibility to run holiday workshops to offer different challenges to your students. Plan your whole year in January and lock it into your diary, so that you can plan your life around it.

What do I charge, and how do I structure fee payment?

I have also found pre-payment a good way of controlling your finances, so you know upfront that you can pay your rent and yourself, and it is a good way of weeding out those who are not really serious about learning. Although you might be afraid of asking for pre-payment upfront (I was when I started!), I highly recommend it as you need to pay your venue rent upfront so you really need to know your numbers before starting the term. Make casual classes available by all means, price them considerably higher than the class price in the term costing, and do not advertise them widely - make the thrust of the advertising your term fee. When pricing your term do your homework for what is around and check community college prices. There is no use you running a term that is considerably more expensive than the local community college if you are in direct competition with it in your area.

To take enrolments or not?

Collect enrolments in writing! Verbal phone enrolments are not taken seriously. Get students to either email a filled-out enrolment form back to you, or post it with cheque/money order. When people fill out their name and details on a form they take the enrolment seriously. People saying they will come to classes verbally and not attending is an epidemic, and you can’t run your business like that. If you are like most Belly Dance schools starting out in your local suburb, every enrolment counts especially in the beginning, so take this seriously – I’ve seen the lack of enrolment taking break businesses!

So to sum up; when creating a structure that offers all of the above, I have found the following a good solid working structure for when you start out:

• 4 terms a year, inside school terms
• 7 or 8 weeks per term
• Offer mixed level Beginner classes; enrolling both Basic Beginners and Continuing Beginners in the one class
• A competitive price per term
• Pre-payment of term fee upon enrolment
• Take enrolments in writing

Section “B – Business End of Things” of the Handbook also covers how to look after marketing, how a venue location can make or break your business, insurance and much more.

Of course the most difficult aspect of starting to teach is creating a solid and successful curriculum, and “How to Teach Belly Dance” gives you a week-by-week curriculum that has been tried and tested over years of teaching, covered completely and comprehensively in 2 feature length DVDs. This is a world first to be offered by an award winning Middle Eastern teacher.

* * * * *

If you are new to teaching, Congratulations! You are at the doorstep of a very enriching time in your life! Teaching Belly Dance not only gives a gift to the students, it helps each teacher get better in touch with her own hidden gems and beauty, and provides an avenue for unlimited creativity and self-expression.

We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path
without brightening our own.

Ben Sweetland

I must say at this point that once you start teaching you take on an enormous responsibility towards your students and towards the dance itself, so please only start teaching for the right reasons and when you have enough experience under your belt (or should I say hip scarf!). Starting to teach prematurely or for the wrong reasons, such as making a quick dollar on the side, can be destructive to students and ultimately to your own sense of integrity. I encourage teachers to go into teaching Belly Dance because they have a burning passion for this beautiful and ancient dance, together with a calling to be of service to women, and a heart yearning to pass on something precious.

I wish you happy teaching!

Shemiran Ibrahim
www.shemiranibrahim.com

* * * * *

Shemiran Ibrahim’s “How to Teach Belly Dance – Belly Dancing from the Heart Method” Teacher Training Course - is a world first DVD/Handbook/CD teacher training pack. It has everything you need to start and grow a successful and thriving Belly Dance teaching business, offered by an award winning Middle Eastern teacher. This course is complete, easy to follow and affordable. Go to "How to Teach Belly Dance".

Find More Information On:

• Belly Dance Teacher Training DVD
• Belly Dance Classes & Lessons
• Belly Dance Workshop
• Tips for Belly Dancing

Secrets of Improvisation - Part 1

Understanding Improvisation in Belly Dance

Improvisation is the essence of Belly Dance in the Middle East; free movement that channels the spirit of the music through the dancer. Movement that lives in the moment has a very different feeling to it. It has the power to shift the dancer to the heights of ecstasy, and the audience to the vulnerability of tears.

Belly Dance improvisation can be uncomfortable to many dancers, and to others it can be downright terrifying. Some Western professional dancers will not dance to a live band or improvise if their life depended on it. There is a good reason for this, and there is a way out of this tunnel. Read on to find out the secrets of improvisation for yourself.

Why is Improvisation so Scary?

Improvisation is dancing in the moment, in full abandon, without any pre-planning of routines and choreographies. Just instant reactions to music the dancer may not have even heard before, and capturing not only the essence of the music but also every beat and nuance. This can be very challenging to students of Belly Dance and professional performers alike.

Ultimately, the moment of improvisation is a vulnerable one. Many people are not ready to experience it as it makes them feel like they are in some sort of danger. It is a moment of fear of the unknown. The mind says a lie; “if you stop using me and let go, you will lose control of what happens to you and your environment”. This is inherent to any situation when we are faced with the unknown, and people’s ability to deal with such a moment is directly linked to their relationship with control. People who keep a tight lid on their self-expression have a fear of surrender and release, qualities that are needed for improvisation. The moment of improvisation is a moment where you could spontaneously just be yourself; your true unrestricted, unbridled, uncensored self. A moment of truthful emotional expression.

In addition, the moment of improvisation is a very sensual moment, one where you experience life in your senses and in your body rather than in your mind. In the West, there is an epidemic emphasis on mentalising life. Very early on in childhood a rift happens between heart and body, and plays out in many ways throughout adulthood. This goes on to shape Western society. I can say this because I come from the Middle East and have the ability to see the West from an alien’s point of view. Objectively looking at the West, I see many ways that this rift happens, and it starts to explain why so many Western women who come to Belly Dance class or perform Belly Dance professionally find improvisation so challenging.

Observing the child-rearing habits of a society can explain a lot about that society. Most Western adults have trouble being in a space of pure emotional expression and release, as the systematic disconnection children go through from their emotional selves in the West is quite staggering.

Just go to any place where there are many young children or even toddlers, and see how many times their expression of emotion gets told “lower your voice”, “don’t jump in puddles”, “don’t scrunch your face”, “stop crying now!”, “where’s your happy face”, “smile”. Boys still get told to “stop crying like a girl”, yes even in 2007.

Be a fly on the wall at night in the home of an average Western family, and watch what happens when the baby cries. Because some “expert” somewhere wrote in a book that control-crying your baby is the only way to teach babies to sleep (this is simply incorrect, check out www.babywhisperer.com for better sleeping techniques), many Western mothers will leave the baby crying on its own in the dark. I have seen mothers do this to the point of when the baby is literally panic-stricken and in so much emotional pain you’d have to have had a lobotomy to not run into the room and scoop the child up in your arms. The funny thing about mentalising life too much is that we can become just that; mental. Control-crying is just one of the ways Western society disconnects its children from their emotional needs.

Of course children become adults, and in the West we end up with a society that honors thinking and berates feeling, and this lack of emotional agility affects ones ability to improvise. An illustration of this is the West’s aversion to “bad” feelings such as sadness. Joy is the reverse side of the same coin as sadness. So to make crying invalid and unheard, and to make sadness a no-go-zone, we inadvertently shut down the same emotional channel that helps us sense joy. As the Sufis say, the extent of which you allow yourself to feel one feeling, you will be able to feel the flip side of it. So, only if you allow yourself to experience and feel deep sadness will you know the heights of joy within your being. So what has all this to do with improvising Belly Dance?

I see many, many Western women come to class in a frozen state. They’ve lost their natural ability to smile comfortably. They find it hard to move freely in their bodies. There is a palpable disconnect between the spirit they were born with, full of spontaneous joy and expression, and the person they are today. Something happens along the way on masse.

Coming from the Middle East I see there a very natural child-rearing culture. Babies and children are held a lot and their natural needs for the language of touch are fulfilled. Control-crying in the Middle East is unheard of, and in fact if a mother did it she would probably be admitted to psychiatric help. Children are more emotionally expressive, and that leads to emotionally alive adults, and an emotionally rich society. Negative feelings are expressed more and as a result positive feelings are felt on a deeper level. At a Middle Eastern funeral people wail to release the pain in their hearts. At a Western one, people wear sun glasses so nobody can see the sadness in their eyes, as if it is something to be ashamed of.

I believe this core difference in culture is one of the reasons why improvisation comes naturally in the Middle East and seems to be the exception rather than the norm here in the West, as improvisation demands surrender to emotional expression. Child rearing is only one way Western society disconnects its citizens from their hearts, their emotions and their sensuality, core ingredients of improvisation. It is all part of the excruciating disconnect the West especially has with all things Feminine. For more on this subject read the three part series “Unveil the Feminine”.

Inner Abilities That Are Cultivated Through Improvisation

Nothing is a life sentence, so anyone can improve their improvisational ability. Just because you may have had a history that didn’t support your ability to improvise doesn’t mean that that’s the end of the story. But knowing where the roots of a weak tree lie helps in strengthening the tree.

Self knowledge is the key to personal power, as the ancients said “Know Thyself”. To find out why improvisation scares you so much, it is useful to acknowledge your history, and that the culture you grew up in may have not nurtured the part of you that is needed in improvisation: your Feminine nature and what it encompasses.

Belly Dance is an alchemical dance for a woman’s Feminine spirit; it is a training ground and a practice that can strengthen the very aspects that you may be challenged with. For example, if you have trouble with improvisation and emotional expression, simply by training in it through Belly Dance and pushing through your pain threshold, you will cultivate those very inner abilities you needed in the first place.

Following are some of the inner abilities you will develop through training in improvisation:

1.  Emotional Training:
Emotional connectedness and the ability to feel and express the whole spectrum of emotions. This is at the core of improvisation. Just watch a Middle Eastern dancer; what she feels in her belly and heart shines through her face.

2.  The Unknown & the Void:
Feeling comfortable with the unknown. The unknown can feel disorientating as the mind loves certainty, but feeling comfortable with not knowing what comes next is essential to improvisation. As there is no choreography every moment is an adventure, a jump into The Void where many treasures can be found. It is the place were receiving happens, as the poet Rumi puts it “Darkness is a visionary place”. The unknown is a Feminine principle.

3.  Surrender:
Surrender and letting go of control. Improvisation needs a lucid mind, one that can lead a little, and follow a little as well. In the moment of improvisation, the mind must take a back seat to the ear, the body and the spirit. When you improvise, your ear receives the music, your body feels it and channels it out, and your spirit flies.

4.  Meditation & Mindfulness:
An ability to meditate; to be physically in the moment without mind chatter leading your action. Silencing the chatter of the mind is where improvisation becomes a meditative exercise, training the mind and body to be in the moment as good as any recognised form of meditation.

5.  Honesty:
To stand naked; no frills, no bells and whistles, no masks, nowhere to hide. This is again in the Feminine realm, as the mind is not taking over the moment. There is a space for pure heart expression.

Go to Part Two of Secrets of Improvisation – P2 .

Footnote:
Read more about the degradation of all things Feminine including heart, emotions, sensuality, receiving, intuition, the unknown, experiencing the moment, listening to the body not just the mind, living in line with nature and much more. This degradation is a long-standing malaise in the world, and seems to be exceptionally strong in the West. For more information on this topic, and how Belly Dance helps in resuscitating and reviving a woman’s Feminine spirit, please go to the three part series Unveil the Feminine .

Read about helping to teach babies to fall into sleep without control-crying, please visit www.babywhisperer.com and look up sleeping techniques. Tracy Hogg is a master of keeping baby rearing both true to nature and practically real.

The Emotional Aspects of Learning Belly Dance

What a Belly Dance course can bring up for a woman and how to overcome doubts and fears

I have been a Belly Dance teacher for many years now, and have seen how many of my beginner students come to class with a deep disconnection to their feminine body and the Feminine in general. In the West especially there is an epidemic rift between women and their femaleness. The reasons for this are based in the effect patriarchy has had on society over thousands of years. Many of the articles in www.ShemiranIbrahim.com will cover some aspect of this, such as Empower the Feminine and Find Your Beauty through Belly Dance .

Many Beginner Belly Dance students leave prematurely because of the emotional journey Belly Dance can give rise to. Having said that this topic is seldom discussed. It is my hope that by opening this subject up you will know you’re not alone. Also, I hope that this will help you ride any challenging emotions until you find the treasures that lie beyond them; the gems that hide deep inside your beautiful, luscious, creative and powerful feminine soul.

“ Through dancing people understand their feelings. Through the movement of the body the heart opens”.

Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi f rom her book
“Belly Dancing – Unlock the Secret Power of an Ancient Dance”

The movements of Belly Dance can awaken many latent emotions that are linked to our body. When Beginner Belly Dance students start classes, they have a lot to deal with. Not only are they plunged into a whole new world of movement and music, but they also start to move parts of their female body that they are neither used to moving, nor are they necessarily comfortable with even the idea of moving.

Body image cultivated through the media, and the resulting social beliefs about what a female body “should” look like pervade our thoughts more than we’d like to admit even to ourselves. In the West  especially, women’s breasts, bellies, thighs, hips and bottoms become a major source of mass scorn that ultimately leads to private humiliation. When a Beginner Belly Dance student starts moving the offending body parts, many deep seated emotions can start to surface such as fear, shame, self-loathing and anger.

When strong emotions arise it can be difficult not to react to them. Some students may find it too much and leave the course mid-term. Others may be more aware of what is happening and work through the fear. Self-knowledge is the key in such circumstances, so attention to yourself and what is coming up for you is the first step in pushing through limiting, sometimes debilitating, feelings.

Some of the common thoughts and feelings that come up in class are:

I’m not good enough

I’m useless, I can’t do this movement

Look at that woman, why can’t I move like that

My bum is too big, I’m ashamed to move it in public

My breasts are too small, I don’t look good

I’m too short; I wish my legs went on forever

I can’t move my rib cage at all, jeez I’m not good that this….

Some feelings are less articulate. You may simply feel horrid in class and not really know why. When I started Belly Dance classes I was so fearful of the Feminine in general that I felt sheer terror in class for a very long time. I really didn't know or understand what was happening at the time, but luckily I was self-aware enough not to run out the door and never return. I am very thankful for that; if I had reacted to my fear I would have missed out on all the gifts this dance has to offer. Reacting to fight or flight seldom really gives us an outcome we truely care for, unless of course it is a life-saving response such as getting out of the way of an oncoming car.

If you become aware of negative thoughts and feelings challenging you in class, it is useful to start a journal and write them down; this will help you get perspective and clarity on yourself. I repeatedly ask my students to become aware of what is coming up for them, and NOT REACT TO THE LIES. Just know that the mind will bring up things from the past all the time, but we choose wether or not we focus on them. Personal choice is the tool, and a decision made within yourself to help yourself is of utmost importance. The price may be to endure a certain level of discomfort, but that is the journey of a woman who is finding her true self. When fear stares us in the face, our only real option is to pick up our sword and slay a dragon. Any other action leaves us feeling smaller than we really are.

When fear stares us in the face, our only real option is to pick up our sword and slay a dragon. Any other action leaves us feeling smaller than we really are.

At the time of writing this I have been in professional Belly Dance training for eight years. It has seriously taken me up to last year to conquer my fear of the shimmy. Now I can actually have a smooth and balanced out shimmy for longer, and I have the ability to flick the switch in my head that had stopped me from enjoying a free shimmy for such a long time. It only took seven years! My hips were so locked, and my pelvis carried so much shame.

As a teacher of Belly Dance I see these switches or fuses go off in students' heads all the time. Whether you are a student or a teacher, it is useful to understand that each woman has a different relationship to her body in general, and to the different parts of her body as well. Some students will happily shake their bottom and thighs for the entire world to see, but will have trouble expressing emotion through their face and upper body. Other women will have locked hips and blockages around the pelvic area, while feeling much more comfortable using their arms, hands and face for the emotional expression of the music.

Stiffness around a movement is a messenger not to be judged by the teacher, other students or even ourselves. It is trying to tell you something and the most useful line of action is to be present with it, and feel whatever emotions that it gives rise to. Emotional blocks can stiffen the muscles and joints in the area that is being challenged. Breathe through the fear and other emotions that come up. Also, just knowing this information will help you be stronger in those moments.

Also, when in class make your first and foremost focus to have fun, and that will energise you through any negative thoughts and feelings. Becoming aware of what’s going on in your mind is empowering because only then does it lose its hold on you. Any journey will have dark places that need shining a light on, so too is a woman’s journey into herself; a journey which Belly Dance facilitates naturally. The upside as always is more joy that we are able to feel because of our discoveries.

“Dancing is an element that heightens life and a feeling of wholeness. Belly dancing leads to the deep dark cave, to the centre of the earth, before flying, in all its pride and life-force, up to the light, to inspiration, and to new awareness”.

Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi from her book
“Belly Dancing – Unlock the Secret Power of an Ancient Dance”

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This article is an extract from Shemiran Ibrahim's "Belly Dance Student Guide". To read more and download click here.

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