Belly Dance and Teela Gets Her Groove Back

Yesterday I gave an hour dance class. It was the first time I have taught in probably 4 months. Spring and summer hit and the heat came faster than expected. The few students and I agreed “Summer in the South” was not a time for dancing and sweating. There were other seasonal tasks to attend.

If I told the truth it would be this: I haven’t danced since those spring months. I played around with giving it up. It’s been over 5 years now, and that’s not a long time to learn all the ins and outs of belly dance, but I wondered if I really had it in me to continue.

I’ve been so involved in writing and rewriting and getting manuscripts together to publish this late fall and beyond, I didn’t think I had much energy to expend on other things. The garden had to be rebuilt after the sewer debacle of this summer and there were other events that pulled on my energies.

Well, some ‘things’ don’t die so easily.

I gave a class to a new student, a woman about my age, a little younger, who had no dance experience. She had some yoga, but there were problems with that discipline and she had a bad back.

We were introduced about a month ago and hit it off from the start. She doesn’t know me as a dance teacher, and I didn’t know how she would turn out as a student. But something was definitely clicking in that hour.

I have been using the “Luscious Workout Belly Dance” dvd from World Dance New York for about a year now. It’s one of the best dance programs I know. I’ve had a few videos and dvds over the years, but mostly classes in a studio. There were times, months sometimes, I would drop out, bored with the routines, the choreography or perhaps just not extending myself to dance in troupe-like behavior. I overall loved belly dance, but I was restless. There were also long standing injuries to one knee.

I had four years of Turkish/Egyptian technique, and sometimes dancers get into a rut.

I think part of my problem was this: I wasn’t seeing anything new to do. You can get awfully bored with the same combinations.   It  can become so automatic you aren’t being very creative.

“Going through the motions” I think applies here.

I knew I had to shock myself out of this malaise. To that end I went in January to Montreal to attend a 4 hour intensive class under Audra Simmons. I picked Audra because she was about as ‘out there’ as you can get…At least for me. Her teaching and class opened my eyes to a lot of Tribal techniques but there was also a good dose of flamenco influence. What evolved was a regeneration in my own stalled technique. Now I had some new examples ….had started the basis of developing the necessary muscle memory of these new techniques, and new movements.

I came back in the dead of winter to some students for the first real classes.

Stepping into the unknown of these other styles allowed the most important thing to happen: I grabbed from all of it, but I made it my own. In other words, I incorporated it into my natural dance movements and layered some different techniques.

So yesterday was a test run: to see what she could do, and also for me to see what I would do.

One thing I have learned with this new avenue of teaching: Every student is different and a teacher must attend to those differences. Many things need to be corrected and positioned, but there also is a question of the basic style of the dancer. This is an amazing thing to see unfolding. One lesson doesn’t tell you much about a new dancer except her attitude and little about the range of her body.

This new student was a quick learner. And I had such a ‘transforming time’ it knocked out any thoughts of giving up.

We started with infinity loops (vertical and horizontal) and pelvic circles…staccato and fluid. Some layering with arms and a little kick out but that is actually a lot for a new student to grasp. The muscle memory has to be developed and the muscles have to be warmed up to receive all these ‘messages’. So we went slow, and then flipped on the dvd so she could see what it looked like in costume and by better dancers. It was quite overwhelming for her as it always is when you see three dancers going through their paces. A new student just doesn’t know where to look! So, I demonstrated for her some of the movements…breaking them down piece by piece. The point is this: you can’t really learn from a video….you have to know how to place your body, your butt, your shoulders, how to stand, how your neck and head lifts and elongates, what the bottom half of you looks like: the knees never locked but gently bent…’soft’.

Many teachers shun dancing for their students in a studio. I always wondered why. It’s so instructive for students to see their teacher ‘make real’ the movements they are learning. It’s good when we fall out of just endless, disconnected (or barely connected) movements and really show how they so naturally combine and the myriad possibilities for it all. And they are really endless.

We are DANCERS, after all!

I flipped on some music and did a short beledi for her, a barefooted dance that can be very vigorous. And then I felt it. This Hyperarousal Trance, this state of brain activity and endorphin change, and she said that there was an immediate shift in mood, appearance and energy.

Ah God! I have missed this endorphin /whatever rush! I got so used to it dancing before. I didn’t really appreciate how it looked from the outside. I used to be very self-conscious about my dancing and how I was doing ‘the steps’….but later, I chucked all that concern because I had developed enough confidence and style so I could free-float in the dancing.

I was coming into my own as a dancer.

She said my whole face changed and I radiated a bundle of obvious energy. Hah! I don’t know what it looks like from the outside, but inside I was flying. I have to be careful about this because you can spiral outward for a long time, and about time? It seems to have a different meaning under Hyperarousal Trance.

Movement, repeated movements, an internalized ayoub rhythm is the portal into Hyperarousal Trance. She saw it happen and she saw the transformation. There is no drug that can match it. And she wants to ‘be’ in that same space….that ‘zone’. She will get there in time. It’s very much worth the effort.

The upshot was this: it was a good class. Both teacher and student had fun and our collective energy level rose and lasted for hours. I really believe a major part of dancing is having fun and discovering the movement-potential of our bodies.

Yesterday it was only one student, but it was the particular one- on -one that can be so good and instructive. I am anxious to see how the two other students work together and feed each other.

That will come, and soon enough, but yesterday? I found my groove again, and this time I’ll be careful not to lose it.

Teela…who is Lady Nyo….who is Jane

Tags: Audra Simmons, ayoub, Belly dance, Hyperarousal Trance, movement, students, teaching