Why belly dance is like hummus ( and how to make it right)

It’s a funny thing about food, especially ethnic food. However your grandmother made something, that’s the way it’s supposed to taste. Unless you didn’t know your grandmother, or she couldn’t cook worth a damn, or she was scary and not safe, or some such, of course. That happens, and I’m sorry. But for most of us, she’s the culinary heaven to which we aspire, the yardstick by which we measure all other things.

My kids never got to taste my grandmother’s hummus, but I did, and they got to taste mine. Ironically, I learned how to make hummus from my non-Arabic mom, but she learned from my grandmother. So it’s not a matter of ethnicity, but understanding and valuing.

So the kids know what it’s supposed to taste like, and what’s supposed to be in it (and so will you, shortly). And oh my god, you should hear my daughter’s disdain for what she calls “hippie hummus.”

You’ve eaten it, I’m sure.

Bland, grainy, tainted by sun-dried veggies or roasted garlic, or even made with other legumes entirely! Like non-basil pesto with no pine nuts, such foods may be fine inventions on their own, but they are not hummus, which has a specific ingredient list and texture.

Hummus bi-tahini means chickpeas with tahini. So there are two essential ingredients right there. The others are massive quantities of fresh garlic and lemon juice, and some olive oil. In addition, a smooth, creamy texture is essential. Everything else is frippery.

I realize this is a bit draconic. But this is the way I learned. I’m Levantine (Syria, Lebanon, Paelestine). So if you’re fam is from somewhere else and the ratios are different, that’s fine. But I have been to a ton of old school restaurants and they all make the same hummus, so I’m not just being nostalgic. It’s a real thing.

Belly dance is also a real thing.

It has a basic recipe. It varies by region, but like chickpeas and tahini, there are basic ingredients and textures that one changes at one’s peril, and with each variation it becomes further removed from its own truth.

What are the basic ingredients of belly dance?

For me, there are three basic ingredients, though each one expands to encompass several other things. These include the basic movement vocabulary, the music, and three conceptual frameworks: the feeling in the moment, same but different, and bring the joy.

The further you get from these basic ingredients, the further you get from belly dance as a cultural jewel, the closer you get to white bean dip with sun dried tomatoes and soy sauce calling itself hummus. That is to say, it won’t make sense to its own people.

Most of us are familiar with the movement vocabulary, less so with the music, and often not at all with these textural concepts. Let’s take a closer look at them, with the music in context, since the music and the dance go together like chickpeas and tahini.

1. The feeling in the moment

This is the dancer’s feeling from the music, which she shares with her guests, both its emotional timbres and her body’s enjoyment of the movement itself as it follows and interacts with the music. The goal is to embody the music, to be connected to it and to any guests in a visceral, immediate way.

Most of us are trained to judge how we look and ignore the pleasure of the movement. What if we flip that and get back to enjoying how the dance feels?

2. Same but different

Musicians of the culture pride themselves on never making a song the same way twice. The melody and rhythm may stay the same, but the feeling and the ornaments change. In addition, musicians tweak the notes themselves to better express their feeling in the moment.

Dancers who improvise make their dance different every time. Even with choreography this us possible, allowing the body to react from its feeling today differently from yesterday. In addition to this, we have micromovent, with which we tweak the dynamics of our movement, their force, speed shapes and textures.

Why spend all our energy on perfecting choreos? We have all this agency as dancers. What if we take this back, teach this, and give dancers this confidence? Even groups of beginners can do this. And it’s beautiful.

3. Bring the joy.

The arts of the near and middle east tend to have the intention of meditative entrainment. You see it in the music in the concept of tarab, musical ecstacy. We’re talking joy. The dance is always characterized as a dance of joy. It is meant to bring joy, to the dancer, musicians, and any guests.

Yet so much of what I see is dancers working hard or showing off. When our goal is to engage a room in joy, to give joy rather than to get approval, our dance changes. What if we dance to experience and to share our love and joy?

These are important questions, important skills worthy of the time and effort it takes to change our focus. So we might need some food to sustain us…

Here’s my Grandmother’s Hummus Recipe

You’ll need a blender or food processor.

  • 1 can of chickpeas, up to 20 oz.
  • Freshly squeezed juice of five lemons (nice juicy ones).
  • An entire bulb of garlic (nice and fat. Really).
  • Tahini to taste
  • Salt to taste (if any)
  • Olive oil to drizzle on top

If all that garlic scares you, put it with the lemon juice and blend that first. Blend the hell out of it.

Then do the same with the chickpeas. Add them to the liquid and blend until it is liquified, smooth, smooth, smooth.

Add tahini to taste. This is a bit subjective. Too little and the hummus stays watery and gross. Too much and it gets bitter. Just enough and it suddenly becomes creamy and pale and delicious. It usually takes a few tablespoons. (Please note, this is how I cook. It’s a little slap dash, but it works.)

Olive oil drizzled on top, and or mixed in. Tastes vary.

Serve with pocket bread, marouk (super flat mountain bread) or even veggies. I can live with fresh veggies, lol.

And here’s my grandmother, Shukria Swyden Thabit
Shukria

So there you have it. Belly dance and hummus. Let me know how it goes.

Love,

Alia

How to practice effectively with the Mini-Snack Method

It’s been raining a lot recently, when it should be all pretty and warm and lovely in a late summer kind of way. Rain often makes me feel frazzled–helpless and overwhelmed. There are just so many drops, all falling on me, all cold, all wet. Ugh!

Sometimes dance practice feels the same way.

There is so much much to remember, so many things to improve. When I tried to do it all at once, I just felt harried and overwhelmed. So I stopped. Because I realized there was  something important that I wasn’t practicing: having fun.

Worse, that not-having-fun was bleeding over into my performances. I was working to hard and it showed. Since then, I have changed the way that I practice. If too many things is too much, then what if I do just one thing at a time?

Welcome to the Mini-Snack Method. It’s light, fun, and it has a lot of benefit!

Wait, what’s a Mini Snack?! It’s little bite-size snacks of assorted practice themes. I graze through my practice like a bee in a snacktastic flower garden, alighting as I notice something I want to refine or  explore, or a technical puzzleI want to solve.

It’s light!

With Mini Snacks I focus on just one thing at a time (well, maybe two). Just my posture. Just my arms. Just my gaze. So I can be in a state of enjoyment, but also hone some little element. This way, I never get overwhelmed and I can practice having fun, too. That’s right– 

It’s fun!

Mini Snacks let me dance around enjoying myself while I flip from one focus to another. My focus on joy can stay constant as I only have a little bit of other things to include. When I notice my posture is off, I switch to that, and I dance with my beautiful posture fore for a while. When I notice an arm is lagging, I switch my focus to my beautiful arms for a while. I go in and out of these focal points and little by little everything gets attended to, yet I never have to spend my time squinting at myself or despairing over my ability. 

And, you know what? Mini Snacks have serious benefits.

One of the hot topics in learning science is interleaving. This means practicing many things in short bursts, coming and going from the practice. The benefit comes from the coming and going–in fact, leaving something until you are a little rusty and coming back to it is especially beneficial. It’s the spaces in between that heighten the learning. 

So there you go! A great way to practice a lot of things in a short amount of time while having fun. What more could you want?

How about a practice planner?

It’s a free gift from the folks at the Belly Dance Bundle, and it’s been getting great reviews. Just click here to get it:   https://aliathabit.com/what-to-practice

Thanks for checking it out!

Lots of love,

Alia

 

How to empower authenticity in performance

Last week, the toilet in my house backed up. It wasn’t the toilet, exactly, but some obstruction between it and the septic tank. Which hadn’t been pumped in over twenty-five years. Which is generally a Bad Thing, but it has worked perfectly all this time. The simple solution was to open the tank and snake backwards from there to break up the obstruction (and pump it, because, why not).

There was only one problem.

I only had the vaguest idea where that dang tank was (it had been decades since I last saw it). On top of that (so to speak), two feet of fresh, heavy, wet snow covered everything. We managed, but it took three guys several hours of intense effort to do the job. It would have been a lot easier if we’d known where to look.

Finding our authenticity is a lot like this.

We know we have an authentic self down there somewhere, but danged if we know where (or how) to find it. Why is that?

I wonder if it is connected to how the dance is currently taught.

Most of us are taught through choreography. We focus on how we look rather than how the dance feels in our bodies. We learn stylized versions of each move and copy the teacher as we fit them together in chains of movement. Chains is an apt metaphor here, because when we are constantly doing what we are told, what does that make us? Yeah. Not cool.

So what’s the alternative?

One of the key aspects of our dance is Agency. We belly dancers don’t need no stinkin’ badges. We are not anyone else’s to direct. We have all the power–we make all our own decisions in the moment. This is pretty heady stuff. But when all we do is pre-set choreography (even our own), we don’t have much time to engage with the moment–we are too busy remembering and executing an exact set of steps. For many of us, this pushes us away from power, confidence, and the authenticity that comes with them.

When we do our own creative heavy lifting, however, we regain our agency. We have creative control in the moment, at every moment. We become skilled improvisers. But improvisation often scares dancers raised on choreography. And why is that?

Perfectionism.

Perfectionism is the bane of our existence. Yeah, yeah, we all want things to be good. Blah blah. Whatever. I’m not talking about quality control. I’m talking about the serious problem of dancers hating on themselves to the extent that they are afraid to take the tiniest risk for fear of Making a Mistake.

Amity Alize owning the moment.

First off, there is no true learning without mistakes.

It just doesn’t happen. No one can be Little Miss Perfect all the time, try as we might. Remember that thing about omelettes and broken eggs? Yeah. Can’t have one without the other. There’s a reason it’s called a Comfort Zone. Going outside it is uncomfortable.

Though you may feel frustrated at first, after a while, you get used to the feeling of learning and start to welcome it. And yes, you can do all this on your own, but it’s nice to have (or be) a teacher who empowers students’ artistic growth. But how to do do that?

Teachers empower authenticity by providing Opportunity, Scaffolding, and Practice of creative agency.

This means they make space for student creativity in performance. They provide opportunities and create a series of baby steps to walk the student through the process. And they do this over and over again, tweaking the process and providing practical, productive feedback along the way.

Practice doesn’t make perfect–it helps us recover more gracefully from mistakes. That graceful recovery, where we surf over all the weird, effed-up random stuff that happens in a show (or in life), while laughing with our guests? That’s where we want to be.

I’ll be teaching a one-hour video class on Empowering Authenticity for the Belly Dance Business Academy’s Online Teaching Summit, May 22-26, 2017.

The Summit will run 25 classes in 5 days with leading experts in the belly dance community. You can participate from your computer anywhere in the world. There will be 30 minute versions of each class available for free during the summit, but you can also purchase the entire package at a ridiculously cheap early bird price. Then you OWN ALL the classes and can watch at your leisure, AND you get bonus interviews and pdf extras from each teacher.

If you (or your teacher or your friends), might like this, please share with them this special, early-bird link:  http://bellydancebusinessacademy.teachable.com/p/teaching-summit-early-bird/?

Love and thanks,

Alia

 

 

Happy Birthday, Bobby Farrah! (+Alia on Geek Clubhouse tonight)

Bobby Farrah1. Happy Birthday Bobby Farrah!

Many of you know that Ibrahim “Bobby” Farrah is one of my major influences. I attended his classes in NYC often several times a week for several years. One of the things I have become aware of over the course of writing the book was just how well his teaching methods prepared me for improvisation and performance to live music. Here is a short piece I wrote for his neice, Tarifa Salem, for his birthday last year.

Bobby Farrah

What Bobby had was firstly a deep understanding of the soul of this dance. He realized the dance is about expression of the dancer’s feeling from the music, that it is about embodiment and timing more than steps or combos. He encouraged personal expression and style in all of his classes. But he did so much more than this.

Bobby’s classes, especially in the early days, were models of learning science.

One of the hottest concepts in learning today is interleaving. This means that rather than sticking with one thing until you get it, you keep the brain always reaching. You do different things so the brain never knows what to expect. You cycle through things and make them different every time.

Bobby never repeated. You could go to his class three times in a week for two hours at a time (and I did). He never repeated. Every single time, he would do something completely different. There was a fairly consistent format of options—for example, a combination, traveling across the floor, following Bobby as he improvised—but it was never the same combo, the floor crossing was always different (and sometimes different for each person), and the impro—well, that, by its very nature, was different every time, even to the same music.

The result of all this multiplicity was that we learned.

We learned musicality, how to combine moves, how to transition between them, how to improvise, how to interpret music, how to compose, how to use a stage—without him ever having to say anything about it. And we learned how to present ourselves, even though we giggled to see Bobby swan across the floor, beaming at himself in the mirror. We learned. It was hard, but it was worth it.

Even in his later years of choreography, the dances were deceptively simple. They embodied this deep understanding. They didn’t beat the music to death. They made space for the dancer’s own special sauce. For her feeling. For the love she brought to the guests. For the expression and communication of her feeling.

You can tell a Bobby dancer by the way she uses the stage. He marked us all, in the best possible way. It took me years to realize what gift he had given us, what a world-class education I had received. It took watching a lot of dancers, many famous, and slowly realizing, Huh. I can do that. I get it. I see it.

Bobby taught me to own the dance.

He taught me that I had something to say. He taught me how to say it with dance. I am proud to carry on his legacy.

2. I’m delighted to be a guest tonight on Nadira Jamal’s Belly Dance Geek Clubhouse!

Every month, Nadira interviews a belly dance luminary about something cool, interesting, and useful. This time, it’s me.

We’ll be talking about how a performer’s emotional resonance enriches both herself and her guests.

Here’s Nadira’s description:

My guest, Alia Thabit, will talk about how the gift of sharing your feelings with your audience can enrich not only your performance, but their experience.

Imagine a world with less fear and detachment. A world with more joy and connection. 

As artists and performers, we have the ability to share our emotional responses to the music with the audience, inviting them into our experience. Amid the glamour, the flash, and the hip drops, we have the amazing power to spread joy and cultural understanding through our dance.

YOU’LL LEARN: 
– The power of dance as a personal practice
– The gift of connection in dance (for you and for the audience)
We’ll also have some discussion time, so you can ask Alia your questions.

LOGISTICS:  

This free call will take place TONIGHT, Monday, February 27th at 8pm Eastern time.

To see that in your own time zone, visit:
http://bit.ly/2lhC25x

There will be a recording and Nadira generously makes these available to everyone. Clubhouse membership, however, does give you some great perks: you can join the monthly conversation live, get notification of call recordings, and an invite to join the private Facebook group where you can interact with each month’s guest (and fellow dancers from all over the world). If you are already a member of the clubhouse, check your email for the details. If not, it’s free and easy to join.

Thanks and see you then!

Love,

Alia

Why Good Enough really is good enough–and so are you

Inktober 3. Collect

I’ve been reading a lot of novels in the last few weeks, since I discovered OverDrive, which lets me take ebooks out from the library and read them on my phone. I am ridiculously happy reading on my phone, which, as a book person, I never thought would happen. I’ve been binge-reading Ursula Le Guin, Richard Kadry, and Neil Gaiman. It’s been such a pleasure to read beautifully written books!

The other day I read a passage in Gaiman’s book, American Gods that just floored me. Sighing, I thought, “I will never be this good, no matter how long I write.” Oddly, this didn’t depress me–I get such a lift from great work. More oddly, the rejoinder that came right to mind was, “No, but if I put the effort in, I can certainly be good enough.”

It’s funny to think that, isn’t it? “Good enough” is kind of second best. It was was a catch-phrase a friend and I enjoyed over the summer. “I’ll never be as amazing as you,” one of us would sigh. And the other would kindly respond, “Well, if you work reallly hard, someday you might just be good enough.” And then we would laugh our heads off.

Good Enough has a lot going for it. 

When I had to make a lot of repairs to my house so my insurance wouldn’t get cancelled, we worked like dogs–but as the hour of the inspection approached, I realized we would never be finished in time. I almost just gave up. Then I thought, well, it won’t be done–but maybe it will be good enough to succeed anyway. And it was. So many times this has happened. It’s not perfect. But it does what it needs to do. It’s enough. And that’s good. And next time it will be better.

It’s like this with the book too–which is so close to done, it’s scary. What if it’s not good enough? But it will be. It won’t be perfect. Nothing is. It won’t please everyone. Nothing does. I’m sure it could be better. Everything can. But it will be good enough.

We are so hobbled by the notion that if we can’t be the BEST we might as well stay home.

That anything less than perfection is failure. Every artist struggles to reconcile the image of what they wanted to create with the reality in front of them. Even Neil Gaiman finds a typo in every book he publishes, yet American Gods still won every award in sight and is being made into a TV show. I don’t have to win every award, nice as that would be. I just want to make work that satisfies me and that readers buy and enjoy.

It’s the same with dance.

You put in the effort, and you get better. But there will be mistakes, errors, disasters. That’s how you know you are learning. After a while, you have fewer, but each time you put yourself in the position of being a novice again, you go back to that awkward place of beginner-dom. but there is nothing better for us than to be thrown periodically back into that place. Real learning is a difficult, messy, uncomfy process. But that;s how we increase our intelligence and gain new skills. By putting ourselves outside of our own comfort zones, taking risks, and–failing.

It’s not the failing that’s important–well, it is.

Failing means that we tried to do something new and difficult. We put ourselves out there. We went for it. But there is more to it than simply falling on our faces. There is the getting back up again. There is the continuing. The keeping going. Persistence. Perseverance. That is what makes a difference. So many of us have had dreadful setbacks–but we continue on. Not everyone gets to do that. Some of us are unable to go on. Those of us who can have something for which to be deeply grateful.

I will never be Neil Gaiman.

Or Bill Watterston, who created Calvin and Hobbes. Or Elena Lentini, queen of our dance (and that one does sting). Here she is, thanks to Tarifa Salem (Bobby Farrah’s niece): https://youtu.be/regqBiXdLrc

But I can be me.

And I can be a pretty darn good version of me. Maybe not the Me I see shining in my mind’s eye–the Platonic Ideal of me. I’m just too damn tired for now. But I can keep going. I can keep learning. I can keep challenging myself. I’ll fail. But I’ll also succeed.

We spend so much energy bemoaning our failures and not nearly enough appreciating our strength, good fortune, success, and persistence. Let’s cut ourselves a little slack. Let’s be grateful that we are all here, together, and that we can dance.

Let’s try liking ourselves. 

I like you. You like me. Why not like ourselves?

Love,

Alia

 

PS I’ll be teaming up with Rosa Noreen and Nadira Jamal for another Compassionate Critique Salon. We will celebrate each dancer’s strengths as well as some suggestions for growth. Get some feedback for yourself or watch and learn. It all happens on November 15th.  http://www.bellydancegeek.com/compassionate-critique-salon/

Thank you all so much for the Compassionate Critique event! I appreciate your discerning eyes on my dance, especially I have had no outside critique in over 12 years. I have just been bumbling along on my own, doing my best to apply what I learn as I can. I also took copious notes on everyone else’s critiques too because, as it was pointed out, there is so much to learned from other people’s critiques.
All 3 of you were great at articulating what I see in dancers but can’t always explain. So it was also very useful to me as far as being able to give better critiques as a teacher. I also really appreciated the different perspectives that each of you brought to this salon.
Thanks again for offering it. I hope you will do it again.

 

PPS more upcoming events: 

November 1-31,
National Novel Writing Month
Write a 50K word novel in 30 days.
http://nanowrimo.org

 

Saturday, November 19 at 7:30 PM
Gina’s 12th Annual Belly Dance Showcase
“They Called us Gypsies” in Lebanon, NH
http://ginadances.com/events-page

 

Wednesday, November 23-30:
Sausan’s Raqs Al-Masriya,  Internet Choreography and Belly Dance Challenge
www.raqsalmasriya.com
Everyone makes a dance to the same piece of music (available on the site) and posts it online. Register with the Challenge to display your video with the others and let the open web view and Like favorite videos.

 

Friday and Sunday, December 2 + 4
Tarifa Salem (Bobby Farrah’s niece and protege), teaching in Danbury CT. 
http://riskallah.com/tarifasalem.html

 

August 4th, 5th, & 6th 2017:
Raq-On Strong: VT Festival featuring Leila Farid, Sahra Saeeda, and Tamalyn Dallal
(registration and payment plans now open).  https://www.facebook.com/events/1701852790031831/

 

And just in case you missed them…
Great Books, recently or nearly published. 

Erotica, Love and Humor in Arabia
Spicy Stories from The Book of Songs by al-Isfahani
Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani. Translated and Edited by George Dimitri Sawa (georgedimitrisawa.com). Spicy!  http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-1-4766-6365-4

Trance Dancing with the Jinn 
The Ancient Art of Contacting Spirits Through Ecstatic Dance By Yasmin Henkesh (sandsoftime.com). She is brilliant. This will be amazing.  http://www.llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738737942

 

 

 

 

How to Build Confidence so you can Dance with Joy

Smile, honey!

SmileHoneyTake a walk in any big city. Walk like a boss–and listen to the catcalls rain down upon your head. Mmm, baby! Gimme some of that! The more confident your walk, the more demanding the comments. Smile, honey! Why don’t you smile? Something about a confident woman inspires endless commentary. An appreciative glance is always nice, but who likes to be the object of unwanted attention? No one.

Still, the catcallers have a point. Smiling is magic. Especially when we smile for ourselves. A smile lifts mood, melts stress, and ripples outward to lift up those around us. It is part of the secret sauce of self-love that brings us confidence and joy. And one great place to smile is in the mirror. That’s right–smile at yourself!

I learned this from Bobby Farrah. It took me a looong time to understand its value–and longer to put it into practice. Bobby gazed at himself lovingly in the mirror. I mean, yeah, he looked at us to correct us, too–but when he looked at himself, as he did going across the floor and at many other moments, he damn near simpered. It was pretty interesting. Now I see (as I do with so much of Bobby’s material), how advanced and amazing his models were.

Think about it. Most of the time when we look at ourselves in the mirror–particularly doing practice–what do we do? We squint accusingly. We watch ourselves like hawks for any mistake, deviation, or flaw. And then we berate ourselves for them. We are always looking at ourselves with mean, narrow eyes. And we all know that what we do in practice, we do in performance. So those mean eyes go out into the world with us. We frown in concentration when we dance. At our guests. At our friends. Yikes!

So what can we do?

Smile! Now, when I practice, I don’t look at myself for flaws–I beam at myself! I give myself flirtatious glances! I laugh with myself! I treat myself like a loving friend and share joy with my reflection in the mirror. And you know what? It works. It’s far easier to express joy when I practice it every day. My dance is more confident. My affect is more welcoming. My practice is much more fun. And the warm feeling I get lasts into my day.

Try it! When you look in a mirror, give yourself a flirty wink. When you dance in front of a mirror, focus on flirting and laughing with yourself. Twinkle your joy at every opportunity. It may be hard at first, but persevere. True learning is uncomfortable. But gaining joy is well-worth the effort.

It’s okay to love yourself. You won’t turn into a narcissist, and you won’t suddenly become a schlub, either. It’s okay to feel good. It’s okay to smile. Maybe not for catcallers, but certainly for yourself and your friends. We could all use a dose of confidence. We could all use some more fun. And we could all use joy. Let’s make it a habit to give that to ourselves.

Breath helps bring the joy. Breath has become such an integral part of my dance, I can’t imagine going back to the way I was. Last call for the early access to The Road to Joy: Step 1, Breath.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do.

 

Love,

Alia

Fake smiles good and bad

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/health/22really.html?_r=0

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/fake_it_till_you_make_it

How to Trick your mind for Happiness

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_trick_your_brain_for_happiness

 

PS We have some friends who could use some love. 

PS In the 2012 and 2013 90 Days, Dawn Schmidt Ventimiglia gifted us with buckets of love, insight, and great improv prompts. Dawn’s beloved husband is surgery bound. If you’ve been wishing for some of Dawn’s wonderful painted bowls, glamping lamps or other bright, whimsical creations, now is a very helpful time to buy.  https://www.etsy.com/shop/EclecticDawnArts

PPS Someone unlocked my cage, so I will be running around loose much of the summer. It’s not all set yet, but it looks like I will be in

If you might be around, please hit me up. I’m available for parties, coffee breaks, workshops, and private lessons.

 

Lots and LOTS of love!

Alia

 

 

 

Ever think you’re Not Good Enough? Read this.

Our Crisis of ConfidenceThe Road to Joy

Thanks to everyone who wrote back to me last week.

We have quite a cross section of walls. People cited finding community, performance freeze, practice habits, illness, student readiness, and where to sell vintage vinyl (ebay or FB groups). We will get to all of these.

But the number one wall?

“I’m not good enough.”

Many of us believe we are not good enough, will never be good enough, or worry what others might think of us. This fear is so common, so pervasive, we don’t even realize the Bad Voices are lying. This destructive perception colors everything–it hijacks our happiness, short-circuits our success, and corrodes our souls. And it’s a perfect opening, since we planned to talk about Confidence as one of the 3 prongs of Old and Hot. But it also raises an important question: Not good enough for what? Belly dance?

Belly dance isn’t about being “good enough.” It’s about sharing a physical and emotional enjoyment of the musical moment. Traditionally, it’s a casual, loving, dance of the people, not a tour de force for highly-trained professionals. Sure, there have always been professional dancers, but relaxation is a virtue–plus millions more folks do this dance at home for their own enjoyment, with friends and family. It’s not rocket science. It’s a fun, playful dance. You are already good enough—seriously. But you still feel bad. Wtf?

That feeling won’t go away—until you see through it. For most of my life, I was the poster child for Not Good Enough (and it’s twin sister, Perfectionism). I believed every disheartening word the Bad Voices said to me. I just thought they were the truth. Subsequently, I have spent a lot of time and energy exploring this. I believe that dismay at our perceived lack of quality is largely an artifact of trauma. The way I see it, perfectionism, self-censure, and other control issues are all about staying safe.

In the past, others hurt us, found fault with us, or shamed us. So now we are going to beat them at their own game. If we judge ourselves first, if we point out every flaw, we will pre-empt those who might burn us with their critical flamethrowers. We will hurt ourselves first. We place our own flies in the ointment. We disappoint ourselves so we will not be disappointed. How sad is that? Pretty darn sad.

What can we do about it? Many things help. Dance and breath are among them. But there is one shift that helps all the others to come through: Mindset.

What is Mindset? Mindset is the set of beliefs that people have about themselves or the world. The researcher Carol Dweck coined the term to characterize the beliefs students held that caused “smart” kids to fail and less “smart” kids to succeed  http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/.

What does mindset have to do with dance? Our belief that we are not good enough is just that: a belief. It is a mindset and nothing more, a sad, Eeyore-like conviction that “We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.” Well, that’s not all there is. And the secret is NOT working harder, practicing harder, or otherwise punishing the body for its supposed infractions. The secret is changing our mindset and developing self-compassion.

How do we change our mindset? By observing, challenging, and releasing our previous beliefs. Full directions are here. We CAN change from self-blame to self-compassion. Remember last week’s self-compassion quiz? Go back to that aliathabit.com/old-hot/. Then come back to this. Mindset shift is the first step. Self-compassion is our new mindset.

Next, we need strategies. One of the first strategies is breath.

Breath grounds us. It calms, energizes, and heals. It cures performance brain freeze, helps us develop confidence and resilience. It is a miracle drug! And it is available to all of us. Numerous breath strategies help with our assorted needs.

Try this, right now: Inhale a count of 4; Exhale for a count of 8. Do this a few times. Slow down your count after the first few breaths. Keep going until you feel calm and grounded. It won’t take long.

Remember this for next time you feel stressed, anxious, or negative—in life or performance, alone or with others. It works because we are biologically wired to connect safety with long exhales. This was the first exercise I learned in my trauma resolution journey. Now it is yours.

Love,

Alia

PS Interested in more?

Remember that Small Product Challenge from last week? What we most need is Confidence—but let’s go a step further: Joy would be nice, wouldn’t it? The Road to Joy. Now, this is a huge, huge topic that includes pretty much everything that interests me. So we have to start small. One of the primary strategies is Breath. This is where we start.

Announcing

The Road to Joy, Step 1. BreathBreathe!

The Road to Joy: Step 1. Breath will be ready to roll on May 16. But if you want to get in on Trust the Chef early pricing (and you know you always get the best deal), feel free to jump right now.

https://aliathabit.com/road-to-joy/

Thank you for being part of this journey!

 

 

 

 

What’s your wall?

Sometimes we hit a wall. 

SoHigh2

So high, can’t get over it. So low, can’t go under it. So wide, can’t get around it…

Where is your dance wall?
What stops you, gets in your way, or keeps you from dancing what you feel in the moment? What walls do your students or dancer friends face?

Here are a few things I, and other folks, have struggled with. 

Confidence
Never feeling good enough, creative enough, or anything enough.

Presence 
Getting stuck in one’s head, losing energy, falling out of the zone.

Introversion
Feeling constrained in performance or navigating social scenes.

Improvisation
The feeling in the moment ; )

Not Performing
Why is this such a crime?

Technique
How the heck do I… ?

Age/Looks
We don’t fit the mold, but have so much to express.

Personal Style
How do you find it? Does it take forever?

Finding Spirit in Dance
Is it really all hoodoo?

 

What’s your biggest wall?
How does it affect you?
What would help?

 

Write to me. Or post on the blog. I’ll write back.

Love,

Alia

PS I am once again endeavoring to create a little something new, this time in two weeks. This week is for figuring out what to make. Next week is for making it. It shall be done and ready to roll on May 1. I want it to be something that solves a problem for my dance friends–that’s you. Hence my question. More on Thursday!

How to be Old and Hot (what else is there?)

Self-CompassionOne summer on the Coney Island Boardwalk, I saw two Hispanic ladies in swimsuits dancing to salsa music blaring from a portable radio. Since it was New York at least 40 years ago–and salsa–they were probably Puerto Rican. These ladies were a lovely shade of tan that glowed in the sun. Both were older, maybe in their 50s–but I was just a kid, so hey, maybe 30s. Neither was “pretty.” Neither had a “good” figure–one had a big round belly and skinny little legs and arms. Both were saggy and lined.

Unabashed by the hundreds of other people strolling the boardwalk, they laughed and danced in the sun, completely engaged with their pleasure. They were relaxed, confident, and present. They were radiantly beautiful.

Hotness has nothing to do with looks. We have been told all our lives, in ways both explicit and implicit, that as women, our value is all in our physical attractiveness. We are encouraged to compare ourselves to unattainable models and work incessantly on our face and figure. We pity and despise anyone who doesn’t measure up, even as we are secretly delighted to scratch out the name (if not the eyes), of one more competitor in the big contest of attraction. No wonder so many women are so angry.

And then we get old.
That first grey hair. That line. Someone calls us ma’am. Some hot new property appears on our horizon. Our days are numbered. Somewhere we realize this is all a shuck and a sham. That our value is deeper than than our skin. But it’s a rough road, people. Even if we are not “pretty,” youth conveys a certain dewy hormonal veil of attraction. When we base our worth on youth, beauty, even athletic ability, we build our house upon the sand. Once that’s gone, we are pretty much washed up.

All of us over 40 have been there. Some of us live there. All of us are going there. Aging is no cakewalk, my friends. Take some notes now, so you, too, can be a beach-dancing beauty in your so-called “golden” years. If you are already there, listen up. There’s no time like the present. The three keys are Self-Compassion, Confidence, and Personal Pleasure. Today we will look at Compassion.

What is Self-Compassion?
Compassion is generally defined as Loving Kindness. Compassion exists outside of the duality of good and bad. In this case, we are looking at Self-Compassion, extending loving kindness to the self.

Most of us are pretty hard on ourselves. As we age, we have even more opportunities to hate on ourselves. Every glance in the mirror is an ordeal. We attempt to shame ourselves into doing better. This keeps us in a state of perpetual unhappiness. We never feel good enough. We fear that simply loving ourselves is suspect, a short slide to a slovenly satisfaction with our crappy lives. It’s not.

Self-Compassion IS treating ourselves kindly. It is how we might treat a good friend. It is mindful, honest, and kind. It does not involve evaluation. We are no better (or worse), than anyone else. We are all humans, each with our own challenges. It doesn’t depend upon our failure or success, if we are beautiful or not. We are all beautiful, we are all unique, and we are all deserving of kindness and love.

Self-Compassion means having our best interests at heart–we want ourselves to be well, and we are willing to help. We can look at negatives from a place of love. It provides all the benefits of self esteem without the narcissistic downsides.

Self-Compassion is key in releasing trauma. We give to ourselves the love and comfort that we needed in the past.  The sooner we start loving ourselves, the sooner we can let go of shame and fear.

How do we develop Self-Compassion? Part of it is a mindset shift. Accepting that we are worthy of love and kindness is a big step for many of us. We re-write our inner scripts–we replace scathing put-downs with understanding such as we might offer a suffering friend. We forgive ourselves for having been hurt, and for hurting ourselves. We hold ourselves close in our own hearts.

Kristin Neff is a pioneer researcher of self compassion. She has put together a quiz to help folks see just how self-compassionate they are–and a compendium of exercises to help develop it. So let’s get to it!

Self-Compassion is key to our development of Confidence. And confidence is key to presenting ourselves as more than a pretty face. We’ll take a look at that next time.

Lots of love,

Alia