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I’m not a very good belly dancer. I think the problem is that I just don’t like it enough to give it my best shot – I definitely haven’t been practicing outside of class or anything. I've been to four – out of 8 – classes so far, so at least I feel like I’ve given it enough of a chance to say that I’m not in love with it.
I wasn’t sure how much I'd like belly dancing even before I signed up. I've never been much of a dancer. (Unless you count shakin' my booty on the dance floor when I used to go to clubs in my early 20s. A friend of mine still calls me "Dancing Queen" to this day.) I decided to take the class largely because 1) my roommate was interested in doing it with me, 2) the location was ideal (the building is literally next-door to where we live), and 3) I wanted to try something new (per #87 on my 101 Things list).
I just feel awkward (the same way I imagine Paris Hilton must have felt a few weeks ago). The hip-swaying and shoulder shimmying isn’t so difficult...but the belly-rolls are a different story. And belly rolling is, of course, an integral part of the whole belly dancing experience.
Push the belly out, up, back, and then out again? Do it in a circular, flowing motion? Our teacher said that students often have a hard time learning the correct motion (without a lot of practice, that is – and yes, I’ll admit once again that I haven’t been practicing) because we’re so used to holding our stomach in, instead of pushing it out and moving it all about.
The instructor is good about explaining how to do the various moves by themselves, but she isn’t as good with explaining how to put them all together. She always plays at least a few songs near the end of class where we’re supposed to follow her lead and try to copy what she does. But by the time she starts a particular move and it registers in my mind what she's doing, there’s a delay of several seconds – and usually by that time, she’s off doing something else. It feels like a continuous game of Try to Catch Up While Looking As Awkward As Possible. It would be helpful if she’d verbally call out some of the moves as she was doing them (especially since there’s about 20 of us in the class and sometimes it’s hard to get a good glimpse of her in the mirror).
What do I like about the class? It's a good ab workout. I can definitely feel the isolation of various stomach muscles when we're moving around. There’s also a range of sizes and body-shapes in the class, which is very cool (although nobody actually bares their stomach except the instructor).
It sounds like Certain Absurdity had the same kind of experience in her belly dancing class that I did. She also has a good description of learning how to shimmy.
Next we learned to shimmy. When you stand with your knees slightly bent, you alternate straightening one, then the other and low and behold, your hips shift up and down. The teacher would vary the speed of which we shimmied. Then after a little practice, she wanted us to try to walk forward while we were shimmy-ing. What?!? It was at this point that I decided that I’d probably be able to belly dance much better if I had a drink (or two) ahead of time!
We learned a few more moves before the class was done. I had fun, but felt completely inept. I think I can probably do it with lots of practice. You’ll know I’ve lost it when I start to shimmy up and down the school hallways...
I think I might like to go to a belly dancing class with Sagan. Her instructor sounds pretty cool.
As we were spinning and shaking and tip-toeing about, my instructor said to us near the end of the class, "now repeat after me: 'I am the best thing since sliced bread'". Because everyone in the class is rather shy, we all repeated the phrase in a murmur, which resulted in more of a cult-ish chant than anything else. But it certainly brought a smile to everyones face!
Amy Reid, a journalism student,
