hey stephanie, once my friends showed me how to bellydance and told me that once you know how to do it that u just basically make it up as you go,that it is about expressin yourself.
my friends were from egypt and syria and we danced along to some lovely arabic music, i really enjoyed it!so is there any use in goin to a class?
While I think your friends are right and my instructor kind of teaches that way, there is a lot of benefit to going to class.
Our studio, of course, is special, lol - in that we have become a group of close friends and it has become a sacred sanctuary. We have hafla once a week after our Wednesday class almost every week.
We share our passion for dance and our instructor teaches us a lot that we wouldn't necessarily learn on our own. We learn from each other and most of all respect and appreciate the unique way that each person - and their body - has of interpreting the dance.
We also have a goal - to educate the community about the culture and spiritual benefits of belly dance as well as its health benefits. The studio is fairly new and we have one performance scheduled.
It is so very sad that most of the women my age (very late 40's) respond with the attitude that bellydance is sleazy shaking around when I approach them. We're in the Bible belt and these people have stereotyped anything that's not Southern Baptist <img src="/images/graemlins/angel.gif" alt="" /> but it's sadder that they don't honor their bodies.
Stephanie, I hope your mom is better.
