New Thing #22 – Belly Dancing

They just started offering a Belly Dancing class at my gym, so I thought I’d try it even though I’m a pretty terrible dancer.  It turned out to be a lot of fun!  The teacher is a professional dancer named Akasha (her website is www.dancersofthenile.com) who teaches classes all over South Florida.  I happened to be the only beginner that day.  The other 3 ladies there had been belly dancing for 3 years so I did feel a little uncomfortable at first, but they were so nice and Akasha was very good at integrating me into the class without taking away from their routines.  As I mentioned, I’m a pretty terrible dancer so I didn’t expect to be good at this, but I had a blast!  She taught me some of the basic moves and it was quite entertaining to watch myself in the mirror while trying to get my body to do what I wanted it to.  It’s not easy to move your stomach, chest or hips without moving your head or shoulders.  They were working on a routine that involved dancing while balancing swords on their heads and it was pretty impressive!  Since I was new, they gave me a scabbard to practice with so I didn’t hurt myself with a real sword.  We also learned a routine with veils which was a lot of fun and not as difficult as the sword-balancing.  I had a great time and would definitely go back to a beginners class so I can figure out how to shimmy and undulate without looking like an idiot!  🙂