Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Belly Dancing

I have been looking around to join a dance class for the past 6 months. Fitness One's schedule is unsuitable. Fitness Studio is too far. Heritage Club doesn't seem to have much to offer. So, thanks to my ever resourceful mum (who must have spreaded the word around with the result) that my cousin's wife turned up at our front door one fine morning about a month ago to share with me about this amazing dance class she is attending.

Now what is amazing (according to her) about the dance is that it focuses on trimming our waists and enhancing our (ahem!) breasts and hips; in other words, it is the answer to every woman's dream of having a figure 8. My cousin's wife, Shiao Huey hails from Taiwan, so she spoke to me (a banana) in mandarin. I am proud to say that I caught the gist of what she's saying, assisted by her half demo half explanation of how those steps might concentrate on burning those stubborn fat surrounding my tummy and waist.

Anyway, what with Zerlynde catching chicken pox and my busy work schedule with a KL trip thrown in the way, it was not until last evening that my cousin Choo Choo and I paid the dance instructor a visit to enquire about the dance course. It transpired that this "amazing" dance is no ordinary dance. We're talking serious Belly Dancing here!

So, after work today, I headed straight to the instructor's house situated 5 minutes away from my home, meeting my dance buddy Choo Choo there. Neither sandalwood-scented incense nor veiled exotic goddesses greeted us at the door. What we found instead was a group of 15 women age ranging from 15 to 60 all dressed in sweat pants and short tight t-shirt baring their midriffs, the dress code for the class. (Our dance instructor donned on an extra hip scarf for effect)

To cut a long story short, we spent an hour learning new steps, shimmying (a new vocab I learnt just now from a Belly Dancing website, link provided here) our hips and making complicated arm movement. How did it go? I'll just say that it's SO VERY DIFFICULT! My abdominal muscles weren't co-operative at all, I lost my arms when I focused on my hips and how on earth does one shimmy gracefully? Was I glad my sisters and mum were not there to witness my humiliation. Our instructor Elaine was very patient and paid us newcomers extra attention. I was fairly embarassed at being so stiff (a revelation even to myself!) To prove my point, I couldn't even touch my feet with my hands when my legs were outstretched.

Despite all said and done, I shall brave the great challenges ahead and shall persevere and shall practise whenever I can. And I shall start shopping for a Belly-dancer costume too as an incentive, haha. Who wants to bet if I'd still be shimmying my hips three months from now?
Link

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