secret life of an unschooler meme
I started belly dancing about 9 years ago. My friend Kate asked me if I wanted to go to a class with her and I wasn’t all that interested, but wanted to go to a dance class, and also wanted to do something fun with her, so I said sure, why not. There was a choice between Tribal and Egyptian, and we knew nothing about either one, so we picked the class on the basis of what night worked best for us. It was Egyptian.
About 2 minutes into the class I knew that this is what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life, and that class was not even classic egyptian, which is what I do now, it was taught by a woman from the U of C who was very much into folk dancing, and I don’t remember what she taught us, but I know we did a very folky choo-choo step, and she was wearing a ten yard skirt. The next week the regular teacher was there, wearing a leopard print coin belt with huge gold paillettes. She danced the choregraphy she was teaching the class, and I was a goner.
I danced with her for three years, travelling, performing with her troupe, sewing costumes, beading, dying silk veils, going to conferences and workshops with other master teachers. I did a few solo’s, but mostly I loved doing group choreography and veil.
Then along came baby number 3, and I dropped out of the troupe, and just took classes, but eventually stopped even doing that. When he was about 2 I decided to go back to dancing. Jasmin Jahal had just moved her studio to 6 corners, which isn’t too far from our house, and, despite having been exposed to a lot of rumors and gossip which painted her as being not very nice (which, like most rumors, turned out to be false, she’s a lovely person) I thought I’d give her a shot. I didn’t want to walk in and be all “I don’t belong in a beginner class”, I decided to start at square one. In fact, I started with her aerobics class just to get my core muscles a little stronger. That last baby took it out of me, and it’s been a long hard slog back. But after a few sessions of aerobics, I started taking her level 1 class. I relearned, correctly, a lot of things that I had just picked up in my prior dancing life. Starting back at the beginning was so good for me. My posture, my strength, flexibility, all of it, are better and more controlled, I don’t have the lower back problems that I was having when dancing with the troupe. Granted I’m not doing as many back bends-
Just simply being a student of this dance has been a relief. There is no pressure to perform, though there are opportunities. I’m beginning to take those opportunities, because I love to perform- but I know now that I started down that path too soon, without enough information. I didn’t know the music, I didn’t know how to put together a cohesive improv- how to layer movements, how to transition, how to slow down. These are all things that I’ve learned, and am continuing to learn.
I dance almost every day at home, sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for an hour or more. I am now taking advanced classes with Jasmin, and love how hard it is, how I feel like I am working my brain muscles as hard as any other muscle. The choreography is hard, and the class I’m currently taking incorporates a lot of ballet… getting that soaring, upward stretch is hard for my short, earthbound mama body-
It’s difficult, at 41, to know where all of this is heading. Maybe it isn’t heading anywhere, and that is what is difficult to wrap my head around, because I am the type of person who likes to put things out there, or at least that has been the pattern. Doing something just for myself, with no goal other than doing my best for me and for my teacher is odd, and exactly what I need to be doing. In our goal oriented culture though, it’s hard to let go of the notion that all of the time and money invested in this isn’t going to turn a profit somehow. I think I need to re-define the word profit. If I do that, then I am definitely turning a profit.
Last weekend I taught a beginner class at the InHome conference and I loved it. Maybe that is what I will do someday. For now, it seems like the more I learn the less I know, the more there is to learn.
Do you have a secret life? What do you do that your homeschool pals maybe don’t know about? Tag-
2 Comments
- Kim replied:
Lovely picture! Lovely post! I will really have to think about my secret life before I join your meme, but I really appreciated you sharing your thoughts on bellydancing. I think beginner class teaching is a good way to share what you have learned thus far. I remember the Erikson’s stages of life and the 40’s was a time when we need to fullfill ourselves by feeling we are sharing our wisdom/expertise r wealth. Not sure what I can share yet.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:54 pm. Permalink.
- Denyse replied:
wow! I knew you belly danced, but didn’t know you had such a hard core history with it. As I was reading your post it made me think of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth (yes, I read it, and am even taking part in the class Monday nights on Oprah.com) His whole thing is awakening by recognizing that you are not your ego (the thing pretending to be you). In the last part of the book he discusses “awakened doing”. His definition is “awakened doing is the alignment of your outer purpose-what you do-with your inner purpose-awakening and staying awake. Through awakened doing, you become one with the outgoing purpose of the universe. Consciousness flows through you into the world. It flows into your thoughts and inspires them. It flows into what you do and guides and empowers it.”
There are three modalities of awakened doing, acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. Acceptance refers to accepting what you have to do but do not enjoy doing and this brings a kind of peace to menial tasks. Enjoyment is the second modality. “You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end. It isn’t the action you perform that you enjoy, but the deep sense of aliveness that flows into it.. That aliveness is one with who you are. This means that when you enjoy doing something, you are really experiencing the joy of Being in its dynamic aspect. That’s why anything you enjoy doing connects you with the power behind all creation”. That sounds like what you are experiencing through belly dancing. You are doing something you enjoy without a goal in mind or using it as a means to an end. The last modality is enthusiasm. “Enthusiasm means there is deep enjoyment in what you do plus the added element of a goal or a vision that you work toward.” One day it just comes to you. Right now it sounds like you are just enjoying what you are doing Lori, and not forcing a goal on it. Very cool. Very unschooly.March 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am. Permalink.
