This is Aziza. She teaches Belly Dancing lessons at the Homewood Community Center. I took my first lesson last night with her and I am simply enchanted. Yes, I'm taking belly dancing lessons 5 months pregnant and it's awesome. My good friends Allison and Mary took her last 5-week session and I am so excited to join them this time around.
This is a wonderful dance created by women for women. In fact, in some cultures, men aren't even allowed to see the belly dancers. So, it is truly a celebration for and of women.
And Aziza's philosophy is that a woman's body is made to be soft, curvy and sensual. She encourages freedom in movement and expression, even as she is teaching us particular moves, like the shimmy, or hip drop, or figure 8, or some other kind of hip shake.
So, last night I poked my pregnant belly out, shook my hips, shimmied my shoulders, waved my arms in what I imagined in my head looked like beautiful, fluid, graceful movements (yeah, right) and felt absolutely wonderfully feminine. I even got to wear a hip scarf with beads that rattled and made such a wonderful sound as I shook my hips .
I recommend belly dancing for all women. Women of all ages, sizes, and hip widths were in our class. It's great exercise, but it's really more than that. It's freedom. It's liberation. It's a celebration of the feminine body and the curves and softness of the woman's body. It's a connection to a dance that was specifically made for women by women hundreds of years ago - so it's a connection to our history and women through the ages. And you can't help but smile because it's just so fun. It's definitely a happy and wonderful dance.
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