My Plan For Health

From Shelly Dembe's Web site, A Healthier Balance

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

This blog has given me a lot to be thankful for. I’ve learned that I can make changes in my life at age 39 that make me feel better and help me enjoy life more. I’ve discovered that there are many resources at Ohio State to help me accomplish my goals.  I’ve had the chance to write about health and fitness for the first time in years. And I’ve enjoyed the support of so many people across campus — including those who notice when I don’t post updates for a while. For that I am thankful indeed!

But this year, the thing that I am most thankful for is dancing.

I’ve been studying belly dance at Habeeba’s in Grandview, and yoga dance at Ohio State through Lunch & Learn. The classes are very different — Habeeba’s technique is very controlled, while yoga dance is about moving however your spirit takes you.

Habeeba's dancers at the Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival 2009

Yoga dance teacher Shelly Dembe, RN, tells us to “move like no one is watching.” There is just something about Shelly. She can get a roomful of self-conscious people to open up and dance as if we’ve been doing so all our lives. Her class is the most fun I’ve had since kindergarten.

“Think about how you felt when you got here,” she said to me after class, “and how you feel now. That’s what it’s all about.” She’s right — I always arrive tense from the office, and leave relaxed and buoyant.

Belly dancing has been a different experience. The class has been difficult, and I must have quit and unquit dozens of times early on. Now I love it and can’t imagine not doing it.

Me dancing on stage after the show. It's the shades that make the look.

I worked backstage at a Habeeba’s performance at the Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival, and one of my teachers even pulled me onto the stage afterwards. More recently, after we’d just finished learning a new move in class, teacher Sharon Buhrts got me to think about how far I’ve come. “When you got here, you were afraid to move your arms,” she said, “and now look at you!”

I turned to Susan Van Pelt Petry, professor and chair of the Department of Dance at Ohio State, for an academic perspective on all this fun I’ve been having. The following text is from our email Q&A.

Enjoy, everyone, and have a healthy and happy Thanksgiving. Dance with those you love — to burn some holiday calories, and let your spirit soar.

PFG: Do you have any advice for people who are pursuing dance for fitness, such as myself?

Susan Van Pelt Petry

SVPP: Find a teacher who has some dance credentials - either a degree in dance, professional experience, membership in a professional dance organization, etc. Notice if the teacher communicates instruction about movement with clarity and anatomical awareness. They should be able to address things such as how to protect knee joints, how to develop core strength so the back is not at risk of injury, and how to pace a class for appropriate levels of muscle fatigue, stamina building, warmth, and flexibility.

A dance class should have an aesthetic component – it is an art form and one of the reasons it can be an attractive way to “exercise” is that it has that very quality of the mind that makes moving a pleasurable, engaging activity, and not just something to check off your list. Seek an experience where you feel the quality of your body and moving changes, where there are sensations of lightness, resistance, speed, etc. and not just the making of exterior “shape.”

PFG: I am taking two dance classes right now — belly dancing and yoga dance. The form of belly dance I’m studying is Habeeba’s, which is largely based on ballet, and thus very structured and controlled (and up on our toes!). The yoga dance is unstructured, freeform. I enjoy both very much! Can you tell me — what different benefits might I gain from the structured dance versus the unstructured?

SVPP: More structured classes teach dance “vocabulary” and instruct in the building blocks of a style. Often the style will have a cultural or historical context and that can be a very interesting and satisfying experience. In a more structured class one might be able to assess one’s progress quite clearly, as skills get added as you progress through movement sequences. In a less structured class, such as an improvisation group, or some forms of modern dance, or hybrid styles such as “yoga dance,” you have the advantage of learning more perhaps about yourself and you learn how to observe your movement from inside and not from outside instruction. In a less structured class there is often a higher degree of creativity, and that can be very fun. There might be less physical rigor as it is more self-driven.

PFG: Dancing is uplifting, psychologically. For instance, I’m more confident and I don’t mind wearing more revealing clothing (especially while I’m belly dancing — it helps me see my moves in the mirror, right?). The yoga dance is uplifting because it’s just wild and crazy and fun. Would you have any comment about how dance has been uplifting for you personally? Do you find that many people (dilettantes such as myself) get this kind of emotional boost from dancing?

SVPP: Absolutely! Very uplifting. Dancers even joke they get addicted to it…. And there are studies that show there is real brain chemistry that changes as exercise, music, and expression conjoin for powerful rise of seratonin levels. I am at my desk a lot more these days, and I do feel fundamentally somewhat diminished without dancing as much as I used to.

With FSFP’s water aerobics program over for the summer and only one week left in my belly dancing class, I have to think seriously about what I’m going to do fitness-wise between now and September (aside from going to the gym, that is). I can’t just go to the gym every day, and I miss being in the pool!

Currently, I’m looking for places to do water aerobics on my own, and have bought a pool membership from Hilliard Recreation and Parks. FSFP instructor Ya-Ting was kind enough to share her lesson plan with me. I’m going to laminate it and take it with me to the pool!

As to belly dancing, it was fun and challenging, and I plan to continue practicing at home. I’ve recorded many episodes of Shimmy, and discovered another show — All Star Workouts on FitTV — that has a belly dancing episode. While Shimmy has excellent production quality, I’ve decided that the All Star Workouts show is easier to follow, since it offers a more traditional classroom experience.

Some of the girls in my class at Habeeba’s have commented that they don’t know where to find belly dancing music for practice at home. So I put together a list of songs that I especially like. They are all available through Amazon (most via MP3 download if you want) and most of them are probably avialable via iTunes:

Marco Polo — Loreena McKennitt

Maris — Stellamara

Nahan – Niyaz

Hayati Inta — Natacha Atlas

Moi Et Toi – Abdel Ali Slimani

Dari — Zachary J. Mechlem

Gayatri Mantra Shuffle — Adham Shaikh

One new class I’m going to try this summer is Zumba. RPAC is offering it — here’s the description:

Zumba - Tired of the treadmill? Zumba is a high energy, heart pumping, dance-inspired workout that fuses traditional Latin rhythms such as Salsa and Meringue with hip hop. Each class will feature simple yet incredibly fun routines that will help tone your body and get your heart rate up! Dance experience is NOT required - Rachel will work with the group to ensure the best results. Best of all, you will be having so much fun you’ll forget you’re even working out!

Upper Arlington is offering it as well. And last Saturday I took a Zumba class at EquiVita in Grandview, which is offering free class trials for the month of June. I think most people don’t know about EquiVita yet, because I was the only student in the class! I got lots of personal attention, as you can imagine.

I think I’ll try several different Zumba classes to see what I like best. If I decide to stick with it, I’ll have to put together a Latin dance playlist!

A belly dancing class. Photo by Meredith James, via Flickr

Some of you have been asking how belly dancing is going. I am four weeks into an eight-week program at Habeeba’s, and I have to say that belly dancing is really hard. Harder, even, than I thought it would be, and I tried to keep my expectations in check.

On the first night, I learned that the rest position for belly dancing is basically a squat. You stand there, knees slightly bent, and your pelvis tilted outward just a little, so that your back is straight. Standing like that for an hour is really tiring.

Just hours after my first class, my legs started to ache. The aching got worse the next day, when it felt like my legs were going to fall off. Just walking was hard!

Photo by Meredith James, via Flickr

It amazes me how, every time I start a new activity, my muscles find a new way to hurt. But I guess that’s the point of pursuing many different forms of exercise. Muscles that aren’t often used grow stronger.

The instructors gave us a hand-out with exercises to do in-between classes (we only meet once a week) and I think those exercises are helping — I am not so sore after class now.

I do, however, feel a great deal of frustration during class, when I can’t seem to get a particular move right. This is the first dance class that I’ve taken in my entire life, and I found that it’s just like what I’ve seen in the movies or on TV. The instructor shows you a move. Then you do the move. Then you do it again. And again. And again. And again and again and again and again. And then you do it again. And then the instructor says, “Hey, that last time was better!”

Last week, we started using finger cymbals, or zills. They are way cool and lots of fun to play with. Their purpose is to accent the moves you are doing, so that you strike them together in time with the dance. But I discovered that dancing and playing the zills at the same time is beyond me, at least for right now. Habeeba’s gave us some sheet music so we could practice at home.

My zills and sheet music

A belly dancer, via Wikipedia

Leave it to me to find a form of exercise where I get to wear jewelry (once I get good at it, anyway).

Tonight I take my first official belly dancing class at Habeeba’s. I heard about Habeeba’s when I took a free introductory class at EquiFair, a wellness fair offered by EquiVita in Grandview. (Thanks to Shannon Chaney of the Upper Arlington Lifelong Learning program for alerting me to EquiFair.)

Belly dancing is an ancient form of dance that provides aerobic exercise and works the core muscles — which, if you remember my recent post on 30-second abs, includes the abdominals and other muscles that help us maintain good posture. I am looking for a low-impact exercise routine to supplement the higher impact work that I’m doing in the gym, and belly dancing seems like a good choice.

The Dance of the Almeh (The Belly-Dancer) by Jean-Léon Gérôme

I should say that I’m committed to using all the resources available to me at Ohio State, but I know of no belly dancing class that is offered here, nor any fitness dancing class for that matter. Should one be offered, I will definitely try it. But for now, I will look to other Columbus community resources, such as Habeeba’s.

The free class at the EquiFair was loads of fun, and hard work. The three teachers were so confident and healthy — and curvy. I felt like I belonged.

We learned how to make snake arms and do the shoulder shimmy (see a description of some belly dancing moves here), and performed just the most basic of hip moves. Then the teachers offered us scarves, which we flipped over our head while we danced. That was one step too far for me, I think, because I kept getting the scarf tangled around my head. I need to practice this maneuver a little more, so that I don’t strangle myself.

Afterward, I was tired and exhilarated — and completely smitten. I signed up for the new eight-week class at Habeeba’s, and have been watching the belly dancing show Shimmy on FitTV to prepare. Expect a review of the class, and of the TV show.