Elizabeth's Dance

Elizabeth joined BellyUp about a year ago. I remember the day she contacted me. She told me she'd been bellydancing to the same Neena & Veena DVD (aka the bellydancing twins) for some time and wanted to learn more about bellydancing. DVDs are great but they never can replace what you can learn in a class and I was happy to hear that Liz wanted to broaden her horizons. As good as a DVD might be, it can't correct things that you may be doing wrong. Anyway, Liz signed on and she's been a devoted regular ever since. I don't know if I've ever known a student to practice as much as Liz does. She recently told me that apart from her classes, she practices about 20 hours a week at home. And it's not as though Liz has a whole lot of idle time. She's a busy woman with her own successful business. Bellydancing has become her release and her passion just like it has for so many students at BellyUp. She's so engrossed in class, I almost can feel her level of focus and concentration. One thing is for sure...Liz has a gritty determination that dancer's need if they're going to excel. Sure some days I know she's gone home feeling discouraged that she didn't get something I was teaching, but she never ever lets that get in her way of returning to class to relearn that move and get it down. And while some moves may be harder for her to learn, there are plenty of others she's mastered and feels very proud of. Liz may still have a very long way to go, but she certainly is enjoying her journey of learning. In fact, she's brazen enough to want to perform and through BellyUp there are always opportunities for students to perform. Last year I invited Liz to perform a routine with three other BellyUp students at the Oakville Wholistic Fair. They did a simple, yet moving routine that was soft, slow and very sensuous. Liz also enrolled in the challenging Fall Term Class and learned a classic bellydance routine from Nagua Fouad's CD "The Princess of Cairo". Plus I added on a short drum routine as well to complete the performance. Liz has worked for months on getting these routines down and the other day she contacted me to ask if I'd watch her perform the full routine and give her some pointers which I was more than happy to do. I was excited to see Liz dance because I know how much learning this choreography has meant to her. At BellyUp we learn alot of choreography and combinations from class, but often we don't really take them beyond the class to truly perfect the movements, the arms, the hands, the gestures and the stage projection. And here's Liz still working on something she learned many months ago, still as eager and determined to get it right because to her conquering this choreography means achieving a goal. As I watched Liz perform for me, I choked back tears as I saw her inner beauty transcend the veil that floated behind her as she danced across the studio floor. Her dancer soul emerged and she softly disappeared into the music, swaying with figure eights, hitting all the accents with hip drops and shimmies. She moved well through the routine, posed at the finale and then went on to show off her isolations and shimmies through the drum routine. I couldn't help but give her a huge hug after she finished. I am so proud of Liz. Proud that she found her passion and proud that she stuck with it. In my eyes, Elizabeth has grown as a woman in this last year by leaps and bounds. The lady I saw with quite a few inhibitions is beginning to shed them in a very big way. She lets herself go much more than the lady who attended her first class over a year ago. To me Liz is pure inspiration and I'm inspired as a teacher by her dedication, her discipline and her self-determination. She realizes that learning to bellydance isn't a 10 week crash course. It's a voyage of personal discovery. May our feet never touch the bottom of all there is to learn about the dance, and about ourselves, through the dance. Keep dancing Liz ... like nobody's watching.