Belly Dance and belly fat

I recently started taking a belly dance class. I love it intensely. Over a decade ago, I had previously taken a couple classes taught by a friend in high school and feel head-over-heels with the style. It was fun, it looked cool, I liked the music, and it was really self-affirming.

Backing up, I was an overweight kid, who surprisingly grew up to be an overweight adult. It wasn't always that way. When I was a very young kid, I was short but skinny. Sometime around 3rd grade something happened and by 4th or 5th grade, I was plump. There was no change in my constant level of activity - there were dance classed, soccer teams, softball teams, even a short lived basketball team. I loved moving and sports and generally being active, and I still do. I loved vegetables and still do. Just something happened with my internal chemistry that changed how my body managed chemical energy conversion.

It was something frequently on my mind - that I was bigger than the other girls. I looked different. My parents weren't really sure what to do, and weren't helped by both having been skinny kids and skinny adults (neither started really putting on additional weight until after starting a family and all that entails).  It was just beyond their own experience, and there were no easy answers of why.  I stood out in pictures with the skinny girls, and I felt in many sets of company that it was my differentiating characteristic.  For many years, it was a source of pain and shame. I remember praying that I would miraculously wake up some morning and discover that it was all gone - that I would suddenly be normal.  Probably at least partly to compensate, and partly out of natural personality, I've developed over time a thick skin to the sources of social shame and have found reasons to appreciate the body I have instead of feeling shame for what it isn't.  As I've mentioned before, I'm also very muscular (it's not all fat) and stocky. I enjoy lifting weights and engaging in powerful movements because it just feels good. And that feeling of physical strength and power has done a lot for me to remind me that I am unique, but I am capable and powerful.

So now, back to the belly dance. The first classes I took, I remember the instructor telling us during hip circles to use our hands to "celebrate those hips".  I think it was actually the first time I heard any woman say anything positive about hips. Previously, they were things to try and minimize either with weight loss or with flattering clothing - certainly nothing to celebrate. It was an incredible wake up moment for me to think that, even though I don't look like the models in Seventeen magazine, I could still celebrate my body.

Over time, after watching many different belly dance videos from different sources, reading about it, even researching for a senior thesis, I discovered one incredible thing. Belly dance really is amazing for all different body types.  There are moves that just look pathetic on a lithe ballet-dancer-type body, but on a woman with some serious junk in the trunk, those same muscle movements become incredible poetry. There are also moves that can be lost under a layer of fat that look incredible on a lean, muscular torso. Got tits? Awesome, do some of these moves and you will look amazing and have a blast. Don't got tits? Also awesome, try these other moves and you will look amazing and have a blast. Muscular, pear shaped, apple shaped, hour-glass shaped, bean pole, anywhere in between, there are moves that will make you look awesome and some that won't be quite as impressive on your particular body.  For me, with my fat belly, even a little of a certain movement and I can jiggle for weeks fabulously (and there are ways I can further encourage those jiggles).

And now, to the present day, I've been learning a lot about ways that growing up chubby has created unexpected consequences for belly dance for me.  The teacher I have now teaches a very specific form of Egyptian Cabaret style (and she is amazing).  The movement all comes from the muscles of the butt and lower back, rather than relying on the abdominal muscles. In fact, it's important to keep the abs loose so that everything jiggles properly and visibly.  I hadn't previously recognized how much I internalized a posture of maintaining tight ab muscles and sucking in my gut during the day.

 At some point when I was a tween before tweens had a name, I went to an aerobics class where the teacher always reiterated "Abs tight, all day, all night" at least twice per class.  It's my typical posture. It makes me look even more muscular and less fat, helps clothes fit better, etc. But it's crap for these belly dance moves - it takes away the glory of the shimmy and mixes up my camels and figure 8s.  It has become a mental battle - my mind says relax, it'll look better and work better. My abs say "no, I'm not listening, la la la la la! Abs tight, all day, all night! La la la la!" I'm sure I've been somewhat aware of this stance all this time, but just never thought about it.

Now, I can't help but get angry because it just feels like all these years were infected with this shame that if I ever relaxed, if I ever let go, I might realize how fat and horrible I actually am. Intellectually, I know that it's bunk and just malicious garbage propaganda spread by media, magazines, and companies that want me to buy XYZ product to make myself "better." It just angers me that this piece has been so deeply internalized that I am having trouble getting rid of it. And it's not at all influenced by the feedback from other students - with women (this class happens to be just women) of all sorts of body types and dance backgrounds, everyone is incredibly positive and supportive of each other. This is the monster that lays in the back of my mind waiting for days when my armor is weak, when I don't have the emotional strength to shove it back in its jail. This is the doubt, the self-disgust, the fear, all created by messages from my environment and how I perceived someone's reaction to me and to my body and a million other things that filtered through. I thought I had been able to work through most of my issues with my body and up pops something new.

I suppose this is the first step to solving the problem - to at least be aware. I had started to get some idea that I had actually managed to conquer these stupid monsters, but now I know it's probably never going to end with a nice tidy bow.