i'll be your private dancer
do me a favor while you're sitting there reading this: try to move your rib cage, just slide it to the left and then to the right, and back again. Nice little stretch, good to get some movement, right?

okay, now try doing it without moving your shoulders or hips.

my midsection (especially my back!) is so incredibly sore because I spent 2 hours on saturday trying to master this impossible skill. the key to belly dancing is isolation; those best at it can move all sorts of parts without effecting other parts. Crazy. At least this time the teacher was a little more normal... err, comparitively, I guess. She's a rather large woman with tri-color hair and was wearing a tied-up shirt as a bra. And she's definitely all about the belly in belly dancing (yeesh). But her pedagogies were a little more identifiable. The lady I had last time was this incredibly skinny, tall blonde thing who told us to "just follow along." She started sashaying around and shimmyshimmyshimmying all over the place. The rest of us were running into each other and going into convulsions (shimmy?) trying to emulate her movements. Worst, we're in a many-window room in the front of the athletic complex... and i happened to be the model (i was closest to the window) for the many on-lookers we attracted. Join us next week as we attempt to figure out the difference between a shake and a shimmy!