Part 24: Shimmy shimmy, burn burn.

Anyone who knows me or has seen me uncontrollably yawning during an elevator ride at noon can tell you that I am not even marginally a morning person. However lately, after only two and a half years of practice, I am finally really getting motivated to become a good belly dancer; it is getting me out of bed in the morning - or in some cases, keeping me up later at night.

I’ve been studying with some great teachers the last couple of years and having a lot of fun, (shout out to Nadira and Unveiled) but I think that it is my recent bout of performing in public in a few student haflas that has been pushing me along to actually be a better dancer. I’m finding that I love performing with all the girls. Getting all dressed up and nervous about going up to perform - for some reason it brings back fond memories of sleepovers from when I was a kid, a group of girls all having genuine fun with each other. Though in that case most of us were nerding out about boys, listening to the New Kids on the Block before they were NKOTB and playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” but I digress.

The weekend before last when the Detroit Raqs Convention was in town, I took a workshop with Leilani from the Double Moon Project (an amazing dancer) and it hit home again more than it had in my week to week classes that I could do this if I wanted to, but I have a long way to go. It was a good thing to realize, because it is making me get up in time to do a belly dance DVD on most mornings (I mean, I’ll be honest with you, I’m not getting up right with the alarm clock every morning, but early enough). When I can’t get up in the mornings, this newfound motivation has spurred me on to work out even in front of my boyfriend - a thing unheard of. I am working out with the dance because I love the dance.

Don’t get me wrong, despite writing about it almost every week for the past six months, I hadn’t as yet reached even close to the steady level of motivation needed to really effect some positive change on my body. So I am as surprised as anybody that this is actually sticking and that I am still thoroughly enjoying it. In fact, I am enjoying it more and more the better I get  and the more I learn. It doesn’t matter that I was waaay off in my performance last Friday (like when I did a little rendition of the twist instead of the cute little bend and shoulder shimmy that everyone else did, you know, the move we were supposed to do), or that I still can’t manage to get the timing right on my arms. It just matters that I’m doing it.

I’m finding it really amazing, though, that you can do something for more than two years and still be so uncoordinated, but eh, coordination has never, ever been my strong suit. Sometime after the age of 8 I lost my ability to balance well, and since then it’s been all downhill. Prior to that I had even taken ice skating lessons and managed to stay upright, at one point well enough to attempt small jumps. Now nearing 30, if I can just walk up the stairs without my shoe catching on the step and sending me flailing it is a victory. In some cases this dancing thing is an exercise in regaining body awareness for me.

Belly dancing also has helped in terms of the whole weight loss conundrum as well. Not so much in that I’ve lost a ton of weight (yet), but in that traditionally, I tend to not have a realistic sense of anything when it comes to my appearance, much less my actual size. I mean, I am only five feet tall, but I never think about it. As far as I am concerned, I could be eye to eye with Andre the Giant. In some ways that is good, and in other ways it can be slightly detrimental. Dancing has really become a great tool for me to use to just get a realistic idea of what my body is like. Also, dancing has provided me great revelations in terms of how my body moves and how it feels when I move. It’s also making me realize that I’ve been largely inert for the better portion of my life.

The fact remains, though, that I have worked out nearly every day for the past 10 days and I’m still yearning to do more.

More Confessions of a (very) curvy girl will come out every Wednesday. Also, look out for the two new “Curvy Girl” supplements, “Unfit” and “Food/Foe Thought.”

Elizabeth Palmer is the Customer Advocate at AnnArbor.com as well as a contributor. She writes about food and food traditions, sustainable development and her experiences as a curvy girl. She has a bachelor’s degree in photography and is finishing her masters in historic preservation. Elizabeth also teaches a course on sustainable development at Eastern Michigan University.

You can contact Elizabeth by e-mailing her at elizabethpalmer@annarbor.com.