Shimmy-changa

Sorry for the short hiatus. As you know (from my complaining), I was suffering from a debilitating cold last week, and when I got back to work this week was shocked to discover that I’m up for a promotion. A big one too. The biggest one so far in my short career. That means that I had to rush to get my resume together, purchase a respectable interviewing outfit, network a little with the individual currently holding the open position and frantically try to come up with a good strategy for the interview. I’m incredibly excited and also a little nervous. Anywho, I started this post a week ago, but didn’t finish it until last night. It’s about my new belly dancing classes. So. Here you go.

The people from the running workshop that I took a few months ago suggested belly dancing as a fun way to build up your core strength, and, being an avid class-taker, I thought I’d give it a try once cold weather set in. Prior to signing up, I convinced a good friend of mine (Kelly) to take it with me. Last night was the first class, and I was a little disappointed when Kelly emailed early that day to tell me she couldn’t make it because she didn’t feel well. She’d taken belly dancing before, and I’d been relying on her to act as my figurative sherpa.

Five minutes before I was due to be at the class, I called her for some last minute advice.

“Do I need to wear a belly shirt for this?” I said without saying hello.

She took several seconds to respond, and I could hear the soothing sounds of TV chatter in the background.

“No. Just regular workout clothes.”

“Okay,” I stared down at my fleece pants, “good.”

“Do you own a belly shirt?” she suddenly asked.

“No.”

“Well, what were you going to do if I said you had to wear one?”

“I don’t know. I guess cut off a shirt or else maybe just skip class until I buy one… I don’t know. Hey. I’ve gotta run.”

“See ya.”

The belly dancing instructor was around my mother’s age. She stressed right away at the beginning of class that belly dancing isn’t an erotic dance. It’s a seductive dance. When I got home last night I looked up ‘erotic’ in my thesaurus and saw ‘seductive’ listed as one of its synonyms. I suppose the point she was trying to make was something along the lines of erotic=slutty, seductive=sexy. Still, though. The difference is subtle at best. After driving her point home, she insisted that we go stand close to the mirror, gaze deeply into our reflection’s eyes and tell ourselves that we’re beautiful.

Now. I’m not going to pretend that I’m all modest and not vain and am the sort of person that only casts passing glances at herself in mirrors if she can’t avoid it. That would be lying. I have healthy/normal self-esteem, and am generally unself-conscious in public, but the second somebody tells me that I have to vocally admire my reflection in front of a room full of twenty people, I become shy as a kitten. She insisted, though, and the expression on her face told me she was serious so I stood there along with everybody else.

Feeling very awkward.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything at first, but, when I saw her glance towards my side of the room, I caved.

“I love your pants!” I blurted out to my legs.

The woman next to me started giggling and said to herself, “Hey sexy. Can I buy you a drink?”

I started laughing too, contorted my fingers into a gun and shot my reflection.

“Hello there, Poodle. What’s the hurry?” I said flirtatiously to myself while blowing off the pretend smoke coming from my index finger.

She was walking down the line towards us.

Then stopped behind me.

“Tell yourself you’re beautiful.”

“You’re gorgeous,” I said quickly, hoping this would make her move on.

“No. Beautiful,” she said pinching my cheek and waggling her hand.

“Uhh… you’re beautiful.”

The cheek-waggling distorted my voice.

Afterwards, I pettily noted to myself that ‘beautiful’ and ‘gorgeous’ mean the same thing.

When we were finished hitting on ourselves, the instructor made us all tell her why we’d signed up for the class. She started with me.

“I’ve heard it’s a fun way to exercise,” I said decisively.

She mulled this over momentarily before moving on to the next person. I could tell by her puckered expression that my response had displeased her. I felt vindicated, though, when several other people in the class offered the same reason. There were a few people that offered responses she clearly preferred. Like…

“I want to get to know myself better.”

and

“I think it’s such a beautiful, spiritual dance.”

and

“I’ve heard it helps to detoxify your mind and your body.”

I think I must have blacked out when she started talking about our vaginas, because I can’t recall the exact context under which it was discussed. All I know is that at multiple points she referred to our ‘vagina canals’. Prompting my inner voice to scream, ‘it’s my ‘vaginal canal,’ not ‘vagina canal’’. Then my inner voice started laughing in a hysterical manner.

Once we were finished discussing our vaginas, we got down to the actual belly dancing portion of the class. There was ten minutes left. (Note that the class is scheduled to go for an hour.) The dancing part was pretty fun. We practiced swiveling figure eights with our hips and walking in the proper ‘belly dancing’ posture. I could see how it could be good exercise if done for an hour.

After class, I walked a block down the street to this hamburger stand called Muskies* to grab dinner. The owner was there, and while I waited for my food, we talked about how cold it’d gotten. And how awesome the Bears are. And El Nino. It was idle chatter, but that was exactly what I needed.

*Terrible name, good burgers.

When I got home and settled onto the sofa, I suddenly started to worry that I’m becoming petty and cynical as I age. Realizing that I’d mentally picked apart the instructor so that I could comfortably disregard everything she had to say. Because I’d decided almost immediately after she opened her mouth that she was pompous and silly and self-important and a little crazy. I called my Mom to voice my concern.

“I just took a belly dancing class,” I said before she had a chance to say hello.

“Oh good. Ballet is such good exercise.”

“No. Belly Dancing.”

“Oh. That sounds neat. Was it fun?”

“Yeah, but the instructor was pretty weird. She kind of got on my nerves, and I had a hard time not bursting out with laughter because it felt so awkward.”

“Oh,” she said distractedly. I could hear the muffled sound of my Father’s voice in the background.

“I think the problem might have been me,” I continued, “I think I might be turning into a jerk.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m a jerk?”

“No. I was talking to your dad.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve always been like that. You get it from me. You should have seen me taking tae-bo class last week with the other teachers. We put an exercise tape on the big movie screen at school. It was taught by that Billy…,” she thought for a few seconds, “you know that Billy…”

“Billy Blanks,” I supplied.

“Yeah. You should have seen me trying not to laugh during that thing. That guy is so hyper-active.”

“So I’m not growing more cynical with age?”

“No. You’re just a smart ass. Plus your teacher sounds like a nut job.”

“Yeah…she’s kooky. Anways...," I paused to pick a piece of lint off the throw blanket covering my lap, " I guess I’m gonna eat.”

“Talk to you later.”

“Okay.”

I hung up the phone, took another bite of my burger and turned on the TV. The pleasing, simple chatter of the sitcom characters spread through me like syrup making it easy to curl up and relax. And forget about my smart-assedness. And the oversized glass of wine I'd just poured. Sleep came easy.

Update:

I attended the second belly dancing class last night, and was delighted when we got to do actual dancing for the entire hour, instead of the fifty-minutes-of-self-love to ten-minutes-of-belly-dancing-ratio. Also, there was no vagina-talk this time. I did get yelled at twice for talking to Kelly, though. (I was making fun of her shimmies.) The instructor says there’s no talking allowed.

Also, Othurme -- that Abraham Lincoln book I'm reading is excellent. I'd definitely suggest it if you're a Lincoln fan.

-go bEars. thE colts sucK.