How to Strut Your Stuff (and why it might be scary)

When animals in the wild escape from dangerous situations, they literally shake off the flood of defense chemicals still in the system, exhale explosively, and often celebrate! Which is sometimes called … pronking. Um, what?

“Pronking comes from the Afrikaans verb pronk-, which means show off or strut…” It is related to the English word prance. Since we’re all still alive if we’re reading this, we all have reason to celebrate.

I’ve been inviting my SE clients to strut, as part of feeling success. It has been amazingly challenging! We are so often waiting for the other shoe to drop. We are so often afraid that letting down our guard will lead to ruin. That feeling good about something is dangerous. That feeling good about ourselves is dangerous!

And yet…

Belly dance is all about strutting our stuff. It’s about feeling good, feeling confident, reveling in agency and owning the room.

Strut! Photo By Yathin sk – I photographed this springbok in Etosha National Park, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21251829

So how do we get there?

Connection the feet and the ground is vital. Fear lifts us up and away. Grounding can bring us back.

This is one of the themes we’ll explore in the upcoming class, Philosophy of Belly Dance. Last week, we talked about Feet First—grounding in gravity, bringing our movement up from the earth. In Strut Your Stuff, we’ll expand that to explore agency and attitude—using our grounded connection to power presence and confidence!

Each week we explore deeply cultural elements of the dance. Other elements include Energetic Activation, Breathing Music, and more.

Philosophy of Belly Dance starts Tuesday, April 23 at 4pm est.