In Which the World Becomes a Better Place

So I went to Little Egypt's Chicago workshop and it was awesome. Not only was I inspired but I danced pain free. I fully participated in 4 of the 6 workshops. I can't even describe how good it made me feel.
Now I am back home and back on schedule. Shimmy Mob is this week-end. I only learned the choreography last week but I learned it and I am ready to go. I am back on track with my lessons and feeling on top of the world.

So how was the workshop? Awesome. First, Aida Nour. She is everything you have heard. She is a great dancer and a great teacher. All 3 of the instructors did an excellent job explaining things and making sure we understood.
I went to the workshop not really knowing much about Asmahan. What a firecracker! I loved, loved, loved her style and had a blast even though I looked like I had been hosed down I was so sweaty after he classes. She is funny and very kind. Plus with her accent Shimmy sounds like Jimmy so now when I practice I hear her in my head saying "Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy."
I only participated in the first hour of Kazafy's Shamadan workshop and then set out and took notes for the rest. I loved the choreography. Shamadan is one of my favorite things so this will definitely be a piece I work on. I did not participate in his Saidi workshop at all. My back was very sore and I knew I couldn't do both of Sunday's workshops so I sat out of his in order to be able to participate in Aida Nour's oriental workshop.
There were shows both nights with Asmahan doing a 4 costume change show in Saturday. I am so sorry I didn't force my husband to go to that show. Since he is a trooper and will go to any show I want him to if he says he would rather not then I never try to convince him otherwise. I should have.
Aida and Kazafy performed on Friday both solo and with each other. Here is the awesome thing, they didn't rehearse together. Since they were both in the Reda Troupe they were able to just hop on stage and do Reda combos together. INSANE! I have study with Reda himself and from several instructors who teach his combos/style so it made perfect sense to me but the dancers who hadn't studied Reda were bowled over by this concept. Study your Reda people!
I loved the workshop so much I am putting more Little Egypt events on my calendar. I hope to get to go to Ahlan Cairo Nights in Dallas this year.

Now that I am better all I want to do is dance. I am trying very hard to overdo it and am including a lot of walking in my fitness routine. Getting ready for Shimmy Mob has kept me on my toes and I am looking forward to a full dance season.

Let's try this again

Well, the day of my last post I got some bad news. My blood work that I had done to explain the fatigue I have been feeling since February came back abnormal. So I freaked out. That stress made me susceptible to the cold that was going around my office so I got sick again. I gave up. I was so disheartened to be sick yet again and get my life derailed twice in a few months.
But there is good news. I got over my cold relatively quickly and without anti-biotics (the way I usually do but did not with my February cold). I also had a retest and all but one of my abnormal tests dropped back into the normal range.
The big problem was high muscle enzymes. Like body builder high when I was doing shimmy drills and lifting 3 lb hand weights. My cold might have come at the right time because I stopped everything. As I said, I gave up. My enzymes went down. So while my muscle enzymes were higher than they should have been given the amount of work I was doing, it was coming from that work so that's good news. The bad news is that I don't know why. A reasonable explanation is that the very bad cold in February was more than that, like mono or the flu.
The other bad news is that I am having trouble getting motivated again. I am scared to try anything more than walking because what if it hurts again. Not doing what I love so much also leads to depression and not feeling like I'm good enough. Last night I was lamenting about being scared to dance but in not dancing, I feel like I am not advancing enough and falling behind. But then I wondered, who am I falling behind? Why do we set ourselves up with these imaginary benchmarks? I mean goals are good. Goals give us something to work toward and way to quantify what we are doing. But what about when you don't meet your goal? I wan to be a great dancer but compared to who? Why does it have to be compared to anybody? I feel disadvantaged because of my rural location and age. But why? Why is it not good enough to be the best dancer in my town who's over 30? That should be good enough. I have no desire to teach outside my hometown or travel to get gigs so why am I comparing myself to those who do?
Needless to say, I'm frustrated. I was ready to give it a try this week and I set a schedule, asked my husband to be in charge of dinner for one whole week to take a little off of me and then my favorite Aunt passed away. So, I will be going to Florida for the rest of the week.
Next Monday, I am going to try again. Maybe 15 minutes a day for the first week. I am going to a workshop in Chicago that week-end and if I can't hang then I am perfectly comfortable with hanging back and taking notes. Thankfully, I learn a lot by observing.

Let's play the alphabet game

This was actually Amanda's idea, but I am going to blog it anyway.

How many letters of the alphabet can you fill in with the name of workshop instructors? Here is mine:

A - Ava Fleming, Ansuya, Ahmad Hamad, Amani Jabril, Aziza
B- Bahaia
C-
D- DaVid
E- Elena Lentini
F- Frank Farinaro
G- Gina
H-
I-
J- Jim Boz
K- Karim Nagi
L- Leila Gamal, Linda
M- Malin, Momo Kadous, Mohammed el Hosseny, Michelle Joyce
N- Nourhan Sharif
O-
P- Princess Farhana
Q-
R- Raksanna, Roxxanne, Ranya Renee, Ruby
S- Samara, Shahira, Shana of Little Rock, Sahra Saeeda
T- Tito, Theresa Tomb
U-
V-
W-
X-
Y- Yousry Sharif
Z-

Not bad. I am attending Bahaia's Camparet again this year and will be able to mark off C and Z with Conchi and Zafira.

Play the game. Leave your alphabet in the comments.

Dance and my life balance

I think it is fair to say that all of us have self-doubt at one time or another. We think we aren't good enough or a similar negative thought.
One of my common negative thoughts is about my age. I am relatively young. I am only 30 and began bellydancing when I was 23. Now I came into this with little to no dance experience, and to be honest quite a klutz. Sometimes I see amazing dancers and I hear that one of the reasons they are so good is that they started young and have already danced a long time. Now I don't mean Ansuya or Suhaila young, just 23 young like me.
That makes me panic. At only 30, with 7 years dance experience I should be on my way to the big time.
The thing I have to step back and realize is that I don't want to be in the big time. Yes, I want to continue to grow and push myself to limit but my limit is not that of some others. Part of why dance makes me so happy is that it is a part of my balanced life. I have a full time day job. I keep a clean house. I like to cook and bake from scratch. I have a nice lawn and flower beds. I visit my elderly grandparents twice a week because I want to spend what little time they have left with them. At the end of the every day, I watch about 1-2 hours of tv with my husband. We chat during commercials and it is the time that we are together and not really distracted. This balance in my life is what makes me happy. Yes, I could dance 2 hours everyday and push myself to advance faster than I am but then what? Do I think it would still make me happy? I am not sure. I love dance and I spend a lot of time practicing, choreographing, attending workshops, and reading. I could spend more time doing those things and even though I love it more that many of my other activities, I am not willing to give any of them up to make more time for dance. In the short term, for a special performance I will but that is different.
My husband came up with this analogy for how I feel about progressing my dance:
There are people who play golf. There are people who play golf really well. Those people may never go into the PGA. They may not want to. They may just be the Country Club Golf Pro. They give lessons, know about all the latest equipment, and almost everything there is to know. They may give lessons to someone who ends up in the PGA. This is me. This is who I want to be in the dance world. I do not want to be a Bellydance Superstar, have an instructional DVD or be a master instructor like my mentor. I want to be always learning and getting better and sharing my knowledge but never pushing so hard that I have to give up any other aspects of my life for dance. The balance is part of what keeps me happy, grounded and moving forward.

'Azraa's Dance Space

A fellow member of GypsyNet asked to see everyone personal dance sanctuary. I decided to share mine here.

When my husband and I moved back to my hometown from the place we had lived for 8 years, one of my requirements for our new home was my own dance space. Ideally, I wanted a finished basement. We systematically looked at every house in our price range with a finished basement and none of them fit our bill (mostly lacking in other important features). We then started looking at house with an extra bedroom, den or any spare space that I could turn into my own. We finally decided on a house with an extra small bedroom. It only holds about two dancers but is perfect for my practice or private lessons.

Our whole house has laminate floors (installed by my crafty husband) so the floors are great. It had mirrored closet doors which helped and we removed the fan and replaced it with a plastic light since it will most likely get beat with a stick.

Pink and turquoise are my dance colors so the decor was a no brainer. I bought a large mirror to finish out the mirrored wall at a consignment store. You can also see my giant goals/to-do list posted on the wall.

The fan veils are part decoration, part I have to iron them less this way. The mirrored doors made less work in setting up the room.

I found this great screen at a flea market. I feel so lucky every time I see it.

 My corner shelf is filled with photos, nick-knacks, autographs and memories of my dance time. I use my little PA for sound and the small drawers hold my Cd's and things I need while practicing.

 In our old house, my dance stuff shared the closet in our office with our less worn formal clothes and all my craft supplies. They finally get there own space which make me feel better since I am an organizational freak.

The other side of the closet holds my TV and DVD which I can roll out if I want to work with a video. I tacked up shirts and bags that have meaning to me.

I wanted to paint the whole room pink but my husband asked me not to, so the closet is pink instead. "Sexy Pink" if you need the exact color.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my dance space. 

On being challenged

So a remarkable thing happened to me this past week-end. I became a 1st rate dancer. Now let's not argue the semantics of what that means because that is not important to this post. What is important is that we talk about how that happened and why it is important.

I arrived at the workshop and saw that MY NAME was listed as the last performer before the headliner. Now whether or not the organizer considered it such, I consider that an amazing and incredible honor. Not to mention I was proceeded in the show by some dancers who already intimidated me with their poise. A show has to flow and you need the preceding dance to really be incredible and set the stage. - again, my opinion. The organizer of the show may have drawn names out of a hat but that doesn't matter. What does matter is when I saw my name there, I freaked out. And then you know what I did? I brought the heat.

I can say without a doubt that I danced this week-end like I have never danced before. To make matters better and worse, my music cut out. It cut out several times in the first half of the song. I didn't let it phase me. I just kept dancing like that music was loud and clear. I think the audience heard it in my head. Only once did I get off track and the music cut back in and I was not with it. I just winged it and let the music catch up with me.

Typically, when I am done dancing I hate everything that just happened. I want to see the video and nitpick every little thing even though friends and family swear that it was awesome. When I left the stage out Saturday, I felt unstoppable. I danced my heart out. I took it and I handed it to that audience, even with the music skipping.

Why? Why was this time different. Why did I dance with everything I had and leave nothing left? Because I had to. I was the last act before the headliner. I was first rate.

I wrote this post earlier and published it but I have decided to come back and add another anecdote about being challenged.


When I was a beginner, I worked really hard at becoming a better dancer. My self-esteem issues that come from physical appearance made me push even harder because I thought I needed to be that much better than the "pretty" girls. The thing that was holding me back was my own self-doubt. Self-doubt that was perpetuated by my lack of an encouraging mentor or teacher. Maybe that isn't the right word. I was encouraged to get the moves within my level. I was also challenged with more difficult things. I was not however, encouraged to take on tough challenges, or pushed to try something on the next level. I needed the kind of encouragement that resonates with your whole being. When I decided that I was not getting what I needed and started looking elsewhere, I was still a beginner. I had been a beginner for almost 4 years because no one had ever told me I was anything more.
I found what I needed in teachers and mentors that when I was faced with a difficult challenge said to me, you can do this, you are a really good dancer. For them I became a really good dancer.

I take this lesson with me when I work with my own students now. You have to find that line between challenging them at the next level and making it so difficult that they get discouraged and give up. I think it is important for instructors to try to not only understand their students learning styles but to understand what sort of challenge they need to be presented with.

Update

For any reader who doesn't know me outside of reading this blog, some major changes have just happened in my life.

My husband and I have moved in order to work for my family's business. We are in house limbo, waiting for our old one to close and trying to find a new one. Once we have a home, I plan to take up teaching. I am also registered for some great workshops in 2010 and think the year will bring many big changes to my life including my dance life. So hang in there.....shimmy on....

This is it!

Okay, I know it is not the best quality picture you will see today but see the bridesmaid leaning against the column? That's me. And see the blur? That's my friend's cousin dancing at her wedding.

This is it. A picture of the actual moment I decided to start bellydancing. It's not the moment I became a bellydancer, that is another story.

I am happy that Maryam decided to get nostalgic and post some wedding photos so I could share this moment with everyone.