taheya

God it really makes me wonder, are these people just really good business people or something?? Just good at selling themselves?! And as for teacher training that only takes 3 months!! I have noticed that dancers/ teachers who do not have that much experience will harp on about other things that they have done to make up for their lack of experience in middle eastern dance ie, yoga, pilates anything really!! They also sneakily avoid letting you know how long they have actually been studying bellydance in particular and avoid letting you know what style they specialise in. All these things set alarm bells off for me!!
Anisteph are you going to Brighton Orient? Ill be interested to hear how it goes!

Aisha Azar

Dear Taheya,
You have exactly described a person here in Spokane, who has followed your "guidelines" laid out in your post to the letter. She was dancing for about a year when she started teaching, never did state when she started dancing, lists other types of movement arts she is involved in, etc, just as you say! She also lists that she teaches about 20 different kinds of Middle Easrn and Fusion dance, mostly after having taken one workshop in each of those dances. I am also constantly amazed by that. It's just flat misleading the public, but I guess that's what you do if you have no real credentials.
REgards,
A'isha

Aniseteph

Some people just have no sense of humility. Or perhaps it's OK because their inner goddess spirit has been touched by (insert mystic life-changing experience here) so that's all alright then, that makes up for years of learning technique. Sometimes I envy them their sheer nerve.

I am going to Brighton Orient but not to Shake It Like Shakira - more to worship Orit Maftsir and Khaled Mahmoud, and have my humility levels topped up.

TiaSerena

Hello everyone,

I don't get a chance to post a lot, but I am an avid reader. I don't know if anyone is addicted to reality tv, but I watch So You Think You Can Dance in the US because I love to see the different styles of dance. Anyway, they are in the audition phase of the show at the moment and it drives the "judges" (who are dancers themselves, chereographers, and have the true abilities) CRAZY to read that someone writes dance teacher on their resume, and you can tell from their audition have no clue.

It really bothers me to read hear that interview... grrrrrr. I mean I want to learn everything I can about the true nature of all styles of belly dance... not just what people think they know.

lol... okay i've said my piece. I guess I should go back to work.

Addicted to the forums,

Tia-Serena

taheya

The problem is i think these people who claim grandiose expertise in the dance when clearly they are nothing special is that they really believe they are brilliant dancers. This may be wrong and they could be deluded but realistically what can we do about it???? Other than avoid their workshops, there will always be newbies around who will go to these teachers and they would not know the difference initially.

teela

I think one way to go with teachers who have the experience we deisre is to actually question their claims. For instance if they say they studied with dina, then ask about it. Get details. When I started, I had a teacher who was one of those who had been dancing about 6 years and taught for 5 because she was a natural dancer. Thing is, I really didn't learn from her as she didn't talk about styles, or much of anything else. I learned more from another lady I found who actually went to egypt to take lessons with Raqia Hassan. She gave tons of details about her lessons and did teach us egyptian style. I often think that people begin teaching after one or two years worth of lessons because they believe they have learned enough and know enough to teach. As I said, if we want to know about our potential instructors is to ask indepth questions. Any good teacher will be willing to give the answers and not feel they are being insulted. Afterall, in most any other profession, we want to make sure the instructor or person has the proper background

Salma Parvaneh

Hi!

there is a video on youtube from two of my egyptian dance teachers:

YouTube - Aladin El Kholy

For me, they are really experts in this, but it definetively is not "ladies style" in cane dance, if you know what I mean (sorry, my english is not so good, but I guess you understand).

Kind regards,
Salma

charity

sorry, interrupting thread.

yasmine, i got this move down. i was trying to use the obliques/abdominals to twist and lift the hip. it wasnt working. my posture was leaned back to the degree that it was easier to use muscles in my lower back to push the hip forward.

it never crossed my mind that you could use back muscles for anything other than support. i am using the same mechanics for this move as for the hip twists. i think it uses the lower back extensors. dont know the technicality of it. either way whatever muscle it is, its low and in the back. i was way off in initiating this move with my abdominals.

and as far as jillina's instruction for this move, i have a feeling her suggested body alignment is more vertical than in suhaila's posture. suhaila leans back quite a bit but contracts abdominals to pull the lower back straight. so obviously your abdominals are tied up with maintaining posture. should that have been common sense?

perhaps this makes sense to noone but me...