BellyDance
My instructor recently asked me: A. why I was in her class, and B. what my dance goals are.
Superficially both of these answers are easy, A. I take BD because I like dancing, and her classes because I like her teaching style. B. I want to be a better bellydancer.
But it caused me stress. Because really, why am I paying $30 a week to take 2 classes with her? I’ve been taking classes with her for 20 weeks now. I’ve taken 3 of her classes total. I’m re-taking one of them and taking a new class this session. Each class is $15/ class. Not exactly cheep for someone who can’t even afford her own apartment. I pay for the 10 week session up front, so I’ve already spent $750 for just under 6 months of classes. Plus associated shows, travel costs, etcetera.
Ouch. I could have done a lot with that money. (immediately I think of a dagger for fencing, a new lap top, and sundry other small electronics, not to mention that ’61 bug eye sprite…)
So why do I take her class?
-I’m not currently performing, nor do I plan on performing any time in the near future. I feel that my dancing is atrocious right now, I would not even perform for friends right now. (but I might dance ‘just because’ if I thought no one would be looking)
-I don’t plan on teaching.
-I don’t do it to make friends, but that is a nice side effect.
-I have so many hobbies that it is hard to come up with free time, so I don’t do it just for something to do.
-I don’t do it for exercise, 2.5 hrs of dance a week will not counter act 40+ hours a week staring at the monitors combined with a nasty habit of eating when bored, and binge eating.
-I don’t do it to become more empowered or self confident. Dance class makes me feel less comfortable with my body image, and less self confident. This is partially because dance class re-enforces my negative body image (large quantities of mirrors abound) and reinforces that my negative body image is skewed, and largely inaccurate. Which reinforces that I have confidence problems. This just starts a really bad cycle of forcing myself to look critically at myself in the mirror and focus on the movements not the fact that I hate what I see. Which just makes me hate what I see more, and reinforces that I suck at dancing.
I do enjoy belly dance both as a spectator and a dancer. I think that being more knowledgeable about it means that I am able to appreciate it more. But I could get knowledge from a video.
I Do like the classes that Bella teaches. I didn’t think I would be a tribal fusion-y dancer. I really like Oriental style, it is relatively easy to start on, fun, you dance to choreography quickly, and involves a whole lot of ‘Follow the bouncing Bambi” or insert your instructor’s name here… In contrast I have had 30 classes with my tribal instructor, and she hasn’t taught choreography yet. I actually consider this one of the reasons I am in her class. I Like her teaching style. It is very technique oriented, musculature in nature, and builds a network of solid fundamentals that a student can build on with practice on her own. A student learns how to properly execute a movement isolated from other movements. This instructor does teach choreography classes for her more advanced classes, but I really like that her intro and intermediate classes are drills and exercises that strengthen the muscles needed to isolate the movement so that your dance becomes extremely specific and deliberate.
But with no over-arching goals to my dance, I still don’t know why I am in these classes.
For the record, I answered “To become a better, more technical dancer.” So I suppose the journey can be an goal its self.
Superficially both of these answers are easy, A. I take BD because I like dancing, and her classes because I like her teaching style. B. I want to be a better bellydancer.
But it caused me stress. Because really, why am I paying $30 a week to take 2 classes with her? I’ve been taking classes with her for 20 weeks now. I’ve taken 3 of her classes total. I’m re-taking one of them and taking a new class this session. Each class is $15/ class. Not exactly cheep for someone who can’t even afford her own apartment. I pay for the 10 week session up front, so I’ve already spent $750 for just under 6 months of classes. Plus associated shows, travel costs, etcetera.
Ouch. I could have done a lot with that money. (immediately I think of a dagger for fencing, a new lap top, and sundry other small electronics, not to mention that ’61 bug eye sprite…)
So why do I take her class?
-I’m not currently performing, nor do I plan on performing any time in the near future. I feel that my dancing is atrocious right now, I would not even perform for friends right now. (but I might dance ‘just because’ if I thought no one would be looking)
-I don’t plan on teaching.
-I don’t do it to make friends, but that is a nice side effect.
-I have so many hobbies that it is hard to come up with free time, so I don’t do it just for something to do.
-I don’t do it for exercise, 2.5 hrs of dance a week will not counter act 40+ hours a week staring at the monitors combined with a nasty habit of eating when bored, and binge eating.
-I don’t do it to become more empowered or self confident. Dance class makes me feel less comfortable with my body image, and less self confident. This is partially because dance class re-enforces my negative body image (large quantities of mirrors abound) and reinforces that my negative body image is skewed, and largely inaccurate. Which reinforces that I have confidence problems. This just starts a really bad cycle of forcing myself to look critically at myself in the mirror and focus on the movements not the fact that I hate what I see. Which just makes me hate what I see more, and reinforces that I suck at dancing.
I do enjoy belly dance both as a spectator and a dancer. I think that being more knowledgeable about it means that I am able to appreciate it more. But I could get knowledge from a video.
I Do like the classes that Bella teaches. I didn’t think I would be a tribal fusion-y dancer. I really like Oriental style, it is relatively easy to start on, fun, you dance to choreography quickly, and involves a whole lot of ‘Follow the bouncing Bambi” or insert your instructor’s name here… In contrast I have had 30 classes with my tribal instructor, and she hasn’t taught choreography yet. I actually consider this one of the reasons I am in her class. I Like her teaching style. It is very technique oriented, musculature in nature, and builds a network of solid fundamentals that a student can build on with practice on her own. A student learns how to properly execute a movement isolated from other movements. This instructor does teach choreography classes for her more advanced classes, but I really like that her intro and intermediate classes are drills and exercises that strengthen the muscles needed to isolate the movement so that your dance becomes extremely specific and deliberate.
But with no over-arching goals to my dance, I still don’t know why I am in these classes.
For the record, I answered “To become a better, more technical dancer.” So I suppose the journey can be an goal its self.