h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been wanting to go to Belly Dancing classes for around 3 years now... but despite all the old buck and psuedo confidence that is offered, I am, on the quiet, rather reserved - shy even (stop spluttering into your tea,over there, please, it's true and I'm sticking by it) - and sadly lacking in confidence. And I'm good at putting things off, too.

Plenty of front tho... both metaphorically AND literally, which is another reasen to put off going to Belly Dancing.

I mean... it draws attention to one's belly for starters, doesn't it?

And since the op, I have noticed the muscle tone that I have so carefully and assidiously worked for in the pool was beginning to slacken a little, so currently, although I'm delighted my body is... in a different sort of (hopefully healing) pain and I can now lurch with reasenable confidence, I'm not generally comfortable with my appearance. The Body Image is shot. I used to be able to look in the mirror and approve of what I saw. Currently I am avoiding mirrors big time.



GET ON WITH IT!

I was NOT, by the end of yesterday afternoon looking forward to it. Had I not rung Granny and wailed down the phone"I don't wanna go!" and had a pep talk from her saying basically I'd GOT to go because the following day's entry "here" would be worth reading (for once) I think I would have bottled out. So thankyou Granny

Suitable bludgeoned I packed my bag with loose skirt, scarf for hips, (considered a hip flask of V&T but decided in the end on some Evian) and.. being brave, decided NOT to take the stick... it's a 50yd lurch to the bus stop either end of the journey, and frankly, I think its about time I stopped using the stick like a dummy all the time. I CAN walk without it, it's a comfort blanket. OK, MOST of the time I can walk without it, Stop waffling woman.

I got to the next town and booked into the class early. Its in the new, very very pretentious Art Centre shaped like an upturned boat...
and the classes are held... wait for it... on the third floor.

I hauled myself up the stairs, and sat quietly in the "gym" whilst the kiddies Self Defense Class finished kicking several shades of whathaveyou out of each other in the name of self control......

All the other girls for the class were outside the gym; you could tell it was the belly dancing girls because they all had bits of string tied round their foreheads, sequins sewn onto their crop tops, and were weraing long diapherous baggy skirts that clanked when they walked. And lots and lots of kohl. I felt rather underdressed - I was wearing a black vest and a full black skirt - whenever I've gone for dance classes before the idea was to keep the limbs free so A) you could see what you were doing with them and B) You didn't get snarled up in your gear. I've always left the dressing up till I knew the routine inside out and then dressed up for stage work....

And the various shapes and sizes and ages! It was refreshing to feel unremarkable - I wasn't the fattest, or the thinnest, the oldest or the youngst... but I was the stiffest!

So much for "Specially for the disabled"... apart from me, who hasn't been made offically so yet, there wasn't an Orange Badge between them!
Apparently its "Good, especially if you're disabled"

Bit of a subtle difference there, right?
So after the other 2 newbies and I had been shown how to tie our hip scarves, we began the warm up ..... well... THEY did the warm up... and I sort of stared aghast and did my best. I am APPAULED at how very very unsupple I have become, even in 2 months. I never realised just how important it was for me to continually move to be even remotely supple.

THAT SETTLED IT

I'm going to do these damned classes and out shimmy those supple birds if I have to have physiotherapy for a fortnight after every weekly class. I am NOT going to let a bloody gang of muscles and tendons and bones stop ME from making a pratt of myself in a Belly Dancing Class. Or anywhere else, for that matter! My body thinks it can rule ME, does it? H'mmm. This means war, I think!

Having decided that I went for it with a vengence.

The Teacher is of the "Let it all go and sorta Feel ya way inta the groove babe" type teacher.. and when asked "HOW do you do that, again>" the replies were of the "Look (waggles hip) "Boom-bum, yeah? and then Bum-boom" type reply. In the end I got her to come over and let her PUT my hips into the right position so I could feel which muscles I ought to be using.

Its a fallacy that one uses the belly to dance with... most of the moves, from what I learnt involve using the thigh muscles, and either lifting or dropping the hips in time to the music. I cannot, for the life of me see how ANYONE can shuffle their breasts from one side of their torso to the other without twitching their shoulders (or cheating by using either their own hands, or better yet, someone elses') but I saw it done, and reckon it'll be a good party trick once I've found some working muscles to use in that particular area.

The only move that actually uses ALL the stomach muscles is (I think) called The Camel, and isn't used a lot - not surprised really. Lets say its a challenge, and leave it at that, eh?

All in all, it was good fun. We learnt to veil dance last night (DON'T ask....it's supposed to be seductive, apparently. You're supposed to SMILE whilst you're waving this bit of gauze around and undulate into it. With a group of total strangers... some of whom have interesting tattoo that have a life of their own in this particular class? I don't THINK so!)

I found it more painful to hold my arms up to hold the veil taught than I did to hip waggle (and altho I don't know what the muscular difference actually IS yet, between the 2 apparently I can do both moves fine). Its the suppleness I painfully lack.

I don't think it helped that I also got an awful fit of the giggles, because I don't know my left from my right and if the teacher yelled "Left turn" I immediately did the opposite.... it was so bad it was good, and the more I tried to do it correctly, the worse it became!

But like I said, it was good fun. I ache like no one business today, but its "good" pain rather than miserable, and I'm swimming tonight anyway to get the knots out. It has also brough home to me just how much catching up I have to do, once I get the feet sorted out, by re educating different muscles to carry me around. I always thought I had good musculature - and I do. Unfortunately, I've been using the "wrong" muscles due to postural probs caused by the back always being out of kilter, and now the pain referring nerves have been cut I am, for the first time in 47 years able to "stand" almost correctly. And "walk" correctly, too. And that means the muscles you lot have got and use are all new(ish) to me.

Anyway, I think I have rabbited quite enough for one entry.

The main problem is... next week, if I wear a string around my forehead, do you think it will enable me to dance better???

Crickey

Don't know what to say






what does the hip scarf do again????

So,just tell me again,how does one do all this from a wheelchair????Now i could cope with the band round my head
Glad you enjoyed it...if we manage to get together as and when ,can i have a demo???
Ooops,well done ev.

An intelligent set of questions lady and gentleman.

(afternoon, each)

H'mmm.

The question how on earth can this be done from a wheel chair was one that flitted accross my mind, too Smurfles - especially when I found out it was on the 3 rd floor (and no one told ME there was a lift - big enough for someone around size 12 standing on one leg and holding their tummy in until AFTER the class)

I imagine if you wanted to to you could hold the veil up and twirl it around (in itself quite a complicated manoever, believe it or not)

ALSO - and its only because I've spent most of this morning in the library reading up on stuff in the reference-y bit - there are LOADS of stuff the teacher didn't cover last night - you can do with your neck/neck/protruberant bits and ribs - all independent of each other... OR mix and match. The hip waggling Boom-bum, Bum-boom bits are just tip of the ice berg, so you *can* actually belly dance from the waist up, as well as the waist down, sort of thing.

All joking aside, if you could find a good enough teacher who made it really good fun and who REALLY knew her subject thoroughly - almost physio therapy standard, I reckon it would be a great form of exercise for wheel chair users to get some of the less utilised muscles working again. Its not exercising I mind, it's the SERIOUSNESS its done with that rats me right off - if it was made more fun,instead of being earnestly told "If you don't exercsie you'll stiffen up and never play the violin again sort of thing" perhaps more folk'd do it for fun rather than necessity!

I think the string round the head is optional, somehow. I shall wear one next week - rather like the go faster dice that were compulsory enjoyment for Mk2 Cortinas in the 70s - and see if it magically transforms me into something sinuous, slinky and sexy. If it does, then I'll bottle the formula, sell it at exhorbitant profit levels, make a small fortune and retire to the Seychelles!

Wass the hip scarf for?

Again... a toughie.

I came to the conclusion that the sole purpose of the hip scarf was to ensure your bum didn't drop off when waggling your hips!




*I* dunno! I have a sneaking suspicion its supposed to be alluring.

Alluring? A hip scarf?


Are you sure it didn't start 'cos they forgotted to tie the belt correctly?

It all sounds facinating

Alluring


....apparently


And if you want to be super alluring you buy one that has jangly sequins on it......

I STILL want to know how dressing up will cause me to use my muscles and dance better!!!

that'll be fighting off all your fanciers when you've danced for them dressed up I guess

You're joking!

(And you're making me blush a bit, too. Go on with you!)

Nahhhhhhhh thats what it'll be for all right - no doubt about it

Well....

the little one in the class with the tatoos was kinda cute!

AHA !


you hadn't mentioned....."little one in the class with the tatoos " before now had you!!

Yes I did...

You just sped read, is all.

5foot 3, every visible inch of limb covered in biker chick tatoos..female.... and acne.

Just my type!

hey ev,i think you must be a bad influence on me(only joking,honestly)
Tonight i was out in the garden ,on my little scooter,and i bet i had as much exercise as you had last night.I hit the edge of the flagstone a bit funny,and ended up lodged under the handrail,just on the back two wheels,with my hands,arms,and other sticky out bits wedged as well!!!
Lets see what tomorrow brings,when i try to get out of bed!!!(ouch!)

Oh Sal!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry love! I cannent help it if you were inspired to wear the go-faster string round your head!!!! (You wait till I introduce you to playing Zils!)

How did you get out from the hand rail... if you see what I mean? If you had your hands (and etcs) wedged then how did you de-winch yourself out - did you have to wait for your husband to get home or what?

I hope getting up isn't too much of a trauma....

(Mind you, I find every day getting out of bed is horrendous - and that's before I even consider the aches and pains...)

"under the rail" - you must have been goin at a heck of speed to get "under"


Must have looked like one of those suicidal deer that throw themselves at pretentious hotel walls eh!

Hope the aches and pains go soon

Suicidal deer and pretentious hotel walls, S'hhh? (Kamikazi Bambis?) I've never heard of this phenomina before.

Whats it all about?

Sounds interesting - tell us about them?

Have you never walked into a newly built (ish) hotel thats been made to look like a Baronial hall in the reception area - or often in the dinning room ??


And then spotted the deer with it's head stuck through the wall?


You must have!!!

I don't *do* hotels...

but I now know what you were talking about!


I had a literal picture of some whacking great Elk trying to head butt a Holiday Inn from the outside, with security guards running around like dervishes trying to catch the damned thing!

precisely right - exactly my thoughts!!!

Good morning .I don't know how it happened,but hubby was in the drive,so he rescued me.Because my hand MUST have been on the levers for either forward or reverse,and wedged there, i managed to start reversing out,but it was on the back wheels,and i shot forward again.I sha'nt complain about any of my sticky out bits sticking too far out anymore,they saved me from possibly been stopped when the rail hit my neck!!!
I'm a bit sore today,and bruised ,but nothing too bad.I wonder what i looked like from the neighbours side of the fence