Belly Dancing
One Woman’s First Experience Wearing yoga pants and a T-shirt, as instructed, I took off my shoes and socks and wrapped the offered purple scarf with coins attached around my hip. The class had about a dozen women of various ages and sizes. After warming up with stretches, we get down to bellydancing basics. Learning the hip roll leads to making figure eights with our hips. No problem. We learn how to pop our hips up, the theory being that you’re doing it right if the coins on your hip scarf jingle. Pretty successful so far. We then learn three different types of hip shimmying, and I am semi-successful with two of them … until we add simultaneously walking. I suddenly need to reconsider the idea that I am coordinated. I can’t stop laughing at myself, and am surprised by the support I get from the other women. (When I relayed this to Ayperi-Alizarin, she assured me that “everybody feels super-uncoordinated at the beginning. It takes time. It only looks easy.”) Actually, there was a lot of laughing all during the class. Jessica, the instructor, alternates the unfamiliar music from slow rhythms to faster, depending on what we are learning. I have since become obsessed with “Bounce,” by Solace. The shoulder rolls and wrist movements work as a nice stress reliever, especially since I work at a computer every day. I never look to see how anyone else is doing, nor does anyone look at me because we are all focused on looking at ourselves in the mirror and following the moves. We learn part of a routine, adding some arm movements. (The class is going to work toward a recital.) The hour goes by in a jiffy. I never thought about the outside world until the end, when the writer in me returned. Alex, one of my fellow belly dancers, says that she finds herself practicing shoulder shimmies in her car at traffic lights. She sums up the class by saying, “We move and laugh and it’s a lot of fun. It forced me out of myself. I come home happy.”
Is proud to announce that
Michelle J. Yoon, MD has joined our practice.
Dr. Yoon is Board Certified in Otolaryngology and specializes in general ENT- Pediatrics and Adults.
Dr. Yoon will be available to see patients in Albany (Guilderland) 482-9111 Troy 274-4110 and Clifton Park 383-0065
— Wendy Page
- SINCE 1931 -
To learn some basic belly dancing moves from Habiba, see our video at timesunion.com/healthylife, or scan the QR code at left.
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