A few years back I traveled to Michigan to have a rare occassion in being part of a 2 day workshop with Suhaila Salimpour.  The workshop was amazing and there were many things that I came away with after the two days were over.  Suhaila is very well known for her technique and glute squeezes.  Suhaila is where I learned that in order to have better control over the movements and for them to be sharper it must be down with muscle.  We spent at least the first hour warming up followed by strengthening our arms legs, quads, glutes and stomachs.  Then moving on to glute squeezes standing followed by a series of different rhythms and foot patterns with ups or downs and so on.  We also spent several hours each day on zills.  The workshop was very fast paced and it was necessary to keep up.  I must say it was really hard but I was able to keep up with the class as we were all covered in sweat and sheer exhaustion!  At the end of the workshop which would have been Sunday evening, I was so sore I could hardly move!  It was amazing though and it is one of those workshop moments that I will never forget.  It was very exhilarating and even though I was tired I had a surge of energy going though me.  Suhaila is a 2nd generation belly dancer, her mom who is Jamila Salimpour and was the first her was the orginator of tribal belly dance in america. (http://suhailainternational.com/Jamila.php)

Click on the link below to watch a performance of Suhaila:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIKBQ5ozZU

Photo by WG Images

No matter what we do in life we are constantly at a learning stage and with belly dance there is no exception to this rule!  It does not matter if you have been dancing for 1 month or 10 years there is always something new to learn.  There are certain levels with learning and as we gain more confidence we climb up to the next level.  My motto is: never stop growing and never stop learning.  I have always felt this way with everything I have done and it is even more true with dancing.

The first stage in the learning process is unconscious incompetence. This stage is when a dancer may be just learning or has not started yet but is thinking about learning.  They do not fully understand the dance yet or they do not  know about it.  Each dancer or student will vary at this stage it really all depends on their own desire to learn.

The second stage is conscience incompetence.  In this stage the dancer is still at the point where they do not understand the dance yet, but what is realized in this stage is that they realize their shortfalls and understanding the value of learning.  This is done when a dancer starts processing the steps and or moves and is a big part of the learning process.

The third stage is conscience competence.  This is when the light goes on.  The dancer or student starts to understand the dance and the moves start feeling natural in her own body.  Even though the dancer knows what she is doing it still takes alot of concentration to execute the moves.  I see this all the time in class where I will tease my girls and tell them I see smoke coming up out of their heads!  This though is a fun and exciting time for me as a teacher when I can see my students go through each phase and step.

Unconscious competence is the fourth stage and this is where the moves become part of the dancer inside and out.  This is when the moves are second nature and happens after much practice.  Each dancer will arrive at this stage and different times and there is no exact timeframe.  It depends on you as the student and dancer how far are you willing to go and how much practice your willing to do.  At this stage the dancer is able to layer easily and ad props to her dance such as zills.  This involves doing two tasks at a time.

So I ask you where are you?  It does not matter where you are going it is what is at the end and the final result.  Being able to recognize these stages and knowing where you are will help you as a dancer and to keep you going in whatever you decide to learn.

Copy right June, 2011