Perspective on the self

I believe in being true and in opening myself up to that truth, constantly striving for a true message or belief in myself. It means admitting joy, anger, weakness, accomplishment, success, happiness and so forth; the full spectrum of human emotion. However, sometimes our perceptions and lenses make us incapable of seeing ourselves truthfully.

I have had quite a bit on my mind recently about my own body image and my perception of myself. I had some struggles with nourishment last year that threw my body out of whack and ended up with me not feeling or looking like what I perceived as "myself".

In the last couple of weeks, I've had some pretty interesting things come up that have challenged my own perspectives and beliefs about myself and how I perceive myself, which has then in turn got me thinking about how women see themselves as a whole. It isn't a new idea that women are hard on themselves or that they self flagelate. In fact, we are bombarded with messages of how much women hate themselves and each other, as we are with images of what we should look like.

So for a while I was really feeling down about what was peering back at me when I looked in the mirror. I felt "unhealthy" and embarassed. Then a light bulb moment came.

I was talking with one of my students. A very beautiful and very talented student that I feel incredibly honoured by when she signs up again for another session of dance. Anyways, we were chatting casually while she was trying on some costumes and what she said completely shook my world. She said to me "Are you sure I look good in this costume? I feel really mannish, especially when I look at how curvy and beautiful you are."

I was shocked. I was totally and completely shocked. I assured her that she looked quite lovely (and I mean really wow). After she left the studio I sat down and I thought very intently about what she had said to me and the implications of it. Here was someone who I looked at and thought was incredibly beautiful, graceful and hard working, who thought they looked mannish. And then, to top it off, that the thing I was struggling with the most at the time was an aspiration? This really got me thinking.

I then had another conversation with a different woman. She is a teacher of a variety of dance. I really wanted to learn this new style (new to me anyways) and so I took the class. I felt very self conscious because there were other students in that class that knew me in a teaching capacity. I felt like people expected me to be perfect. That I wasn't allowed to be goofy and awkward as I approached this new style. I felt very compelled to make sure I was doing everything right because I was a teacher of another style. And then this teacher admitted to me that she felt self conscious about me being in the class because I moved beautifully and she felt awkward!

And I thought: Well ain't that some shit?

If the message from the universe wasn't ringing clear enough, it whalloped me once more when a student who I think is very beautiful and has a very sensual body shape AND is doing amazingly well in class emailed me to apologise for not being good enough.Yet again. SHOCK. Total and complete shock.

So here we are. I'm self conscious. She's self conscious. I'm sure if you're reading this, you're self conscious too. Hell, the lady sitting next to you while you read this is also self conscious. So where does that leave us?

I am not writing this for validation or to get people to respond with hokey self-love messages that they don't mean or embody in their own lives. I am writing this because I see all of these experiences as demonstrative of a larger problem in our culture: the lack of self acceptance and the rifts they create in relationships with ourselves and others.

All of these very small moments, which only took seconds out of my life have felt like someone ringing a very large and loud bell in my ears, the tones of which reverberate through my body. I have at times felt like a hypocrit preaching self acceptance to my students, when I stood in front of them at moments not accepting who I was. It all comes down to one very simple idea: If all of the people around you deserve to be accepted for who they are, why don't you?

These women who shared with me how they felt are all very kind hearted people. I've never heard any of them say something bad about another person. I've never felt any sort of judgement or unkindness from them, but like most of us and just like me, they hand out acceptance of others before themselves.

What a terrible disservice we are doing to ourselves. No wonder some of us are addicted to food or shopping or gambling or alcohol or...or...or...or...or. No wonder people overwork themselves, constantly striving to be better. No wonder women enroll their children into 500 activities, plus maintain a perfectly clean house, cook and work. We don't think we are good enough as we are.

These last few weeks have been hugely impactful for me and I can't seem to keep it to myself. I feel like the universe has taken a big shiney hammer and rap tap tapped me quite squarely on the head. We all deserve to be accepted for who we are, especially by ourselves.

Pirating Music

I was recently online looking through dance related articles when I came upon this article by Horatio Cifuentes: http://www.gildedserpent.com/cms/2011/02/02/horacio-khaled-pirating-music/

And it reminded me of an issue that tweaks my cymbals just a touch: pirating dance music. When I lived in Calgary, I went into Son of the Pharaoh one day to buy some new CDs so I could begin to build my own music collection. I understood that buying music was a part of investing in becoming a dancer. When I went to pay for my discs I received a stern talking to from Emad telling me that I better not make copies of the CDs for all my friends. I assured him I wouldn't but was puzzled by his comments about teachers giving out copies to their students.

I didn't understand what he was talking about. But sure enough, within the next couple of years I met a multude of dancers who purchased CDs and then made free copies for their friends. I am not talking about one song for a choreography class. I am talking about a full disc of music to pass along and share.

I understand that file sharing is the wave of the future. But to put things into perspective, a lot of the musicians on the discs that we enjoy so much live in small apartments and struggle to keep food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads. Imagine if you were struggling to make a living and you found out that someone was giving away your hard work for free?

With the advent of iTunes, you can sometimes purchase Belly dance music at a reasonable price ($9.99-$14.99). Otherwise, most dance CDs will cost you $18-$25 (sometimes even $30). I recognize that with the advent of the internet and file sharing we are not accustomed to spending this amount of money on music. However, independantly produced albums do not belong to multi-million dollar record labels that rake in millions of dollars in profits a year. As Horatio outlines in his article, they are produced through blood, sweat, and tears by independant artists who are struggling to support their art.

It is sometimes difficult to find good music without knowledge of various artists names. Some recommendations that I have that are available on iTunes: Hakim, Nagwa Karam, Tarkan, Tanyeli, Amr Diab, Niyaz, 10 Songs Every Belly Dancer Should Know, Shik Shak Shok, Layali Al Sharq.

Costume Chronicles - Episode 5 - Chicken Cutlets

As dancers, we all try to look our best when we perform. That sometimes means adding hair extensions, false eyelashes, padding to our bras, etc. However, when something goes wrong with these delicate additions, things can get very embarassing, very quickly.

I was dancing in a restaurant in one of my most favourite costumes. As a smaller busted gal, I like to add padding to my bras. I recently purchased some clear silicone inserts (which I affectionately call chicken cutlets) to boost my bossom.

I was gleefully dancing away. I came to one table where a man and woman sat. The male customer was politely watching me perform. The female customer kept trying to talk to him. He looked at her and said "Shut up, I am watching the dancer." She was suitably embarassed.

I kept dancing around the restaurant and later came back to the table. The woman motioned me towards her. I was a bit worried about what she was going to say to me considering the fact that her "date" had told her to shut up only moments previously. She said "There's something coming out from under your bra." I gasped and replied "Underboob?" and she said "No, it's something else. I'm not sure what."

So I reached a hand up, not sure what to expect, to find my lovely little chicken cutlet hanging out of the bottom of my bra! I was mortified! I did a little wiggly to try to unobtrusively get it back in my bra discreetly to no avail. Sweat covered silicone is VERY sticky. It wouldn't budge. So I delicately draped my veil over my body and made a grande entrance to the back room (thankfully my show was almos tover and the restaurant wasn't busy).

Upon inspection later, I discovered that I must have lost quite a bit of weight, because I ended up taking in my bra band about 3-4"!!