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I wanted something to helpDate published: 10/17/2001
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN attracted to belly dancing because the dancers I have seen were not thin. I liked that their bounteous bodies looked more like mine. And since I've never been skinny, particularly now, not having lost all the weight I gained after I had a baby a year ago, I wanted something to help me move, but also celebrate the body I did have. That is why I signed up for a belly-dancing class at Fredericksburg Department of Parks and Recreation in September. At the first class, I met my (slim!) instructor, Anthea Poole, who has been belly dancing since 1985. She wore a brown leotard and hip scarf with tassels secured below her belly button. She looked strong and graceful, and I knew I wanted to be just like her. I remember standing stiffly with about 20 other women in the small classroom at the Dorothy Hart Community Center on Canal Street. My classmates were all shapes and sizes. They wore long skirts, sweat pants, shorts or leggings and a T-shirt, like me. A couple of women wore short tops revealing their stomachs. Two others wore leotards and scarves with gold dangles. Nobody spoke as Poole, who lives in Spotsylvania, explained the requirements of the class and gave us some background about belly dancing. I did not know what I was getting into. I suppose I had the same images of belly dancing as most people: wiggling hips, exotic veils and sensuous gyrations to hypnotic music with a bare, not-flat belly. After taking the class, I know that my notions were not entirely accurate. For one, the dance is not really about the belly, at least it wasn't in the four-week beginner class. Right away I discovered that it would be my upper legs, along with my arms, that would do most of the work in dance--and that I would feel it after class, too. At my first class I learned that the knees must be bent at all times to attain the fluid belly-dance movements. And the arms--they were above or at the side for most of the dance. I felt the burn, hoping for the strong, muscular arms that the instructor had, who admitted that her bulging biceps were not the results of lifting weights, only dancing.
Date published: 10/17/2001
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