I got back from Seattle just fine, but what a long car ride! It took me two days- yick. Helene is a fantastic teacher! We ended up working on 9/8 in a Turkish folkloric style. Wow, what a vast difference from the belly dance style 9/8 I was always taught as "Turkish". The weight changes, steps, and body center are totally different from Egyptian and AmCab. Taking that lesson from Helene has me totally re-thinking how all those things relate to the action of the hips in torso-movement-based ME dances. I've come to the realization that my Turkish dance is too Egyptian, and my Egyptian dance is too American.
If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't try to dance for two hours right after getting out of the car like that. I did get to pick her brain and buy some stuff after class which is always nice. Lots of new info to stew in my brain.