Serena Wilson's 'The Bellydance Book' Foreword

[mekyria]

Or the whole title:'The Belly Dance Book - The Serena Technique for Learning Belly Dancing for Fitness and Fun by Serena and Alan Wilson'

I received this book as a inheritence gift from Ada. This book was originally published in 1972 and reedited and republished in 1983. If you are interested, you can get your own copy from Amazon starting at roughly 4 usd. I don't want to bash this book as it is very useful and contains many interesting and helpful hints. However, reading this book, some things struck me as rather odd. Part of it is due to the times changing in the past fourty year, part of it in changes to what is healthy for our body or the amount of control we have over our bodies/ SOme of it is about the position of women in society. It will take me a while to go through the whole book, but I'll share some gems with you in a series of posts.

For your viewing pleasure, I present to you: the WTF review of Serena Bellydance Book.

Foreword, page ix
'Mideastern dancing was often performed in tents, in a kneeling position or posing on the floor'
OMG I've been doing it wrong all these years with standing and walking around and such.

'Students of yoga have aske Serena why she does not do breathing exercises. She answers that she does not need to. As long as we live, we breathe'
I read this as a major smackdown between the upcoming yoga cult in 1970-1980. A long haired hippy person yelling at Serena 'WHY DO YOU NOT TEACH BREATHING?'. And Serena calmly replying 'I call your breathing exercise bullshit, for if we don't breath we would die!! We should not learn how to breath but how to breath better. Bellydance is teaching you how to move while breathing, take that you Lululemon wearing scum!'

Page x
'Another benefit is instilling in obese women the impetus to lose weight.[...] In Serena's studio, each student must check her movements in the mirrored wall, and cannot avoid comparison with her teacher or other students with beautifully trained bodies'

This is the reason why I often teach without using the mirror. Well, and because my beautifully trained body contains delicious rolls of fat. I am not inpsiirng people to lose weight, I am inspiring them to move. I can't help but wondering about this comment, as somebody who was considered fat in the seventies would be regular sized these days. My parents were tiny in the seventees. On homevideo's, everybody in my family plus all bystanders were decidedly skinny. I would definitely not go to a class that would fat shame me, but in those days it probably was a good thing according to this book.

'Another movement in Mieastern dancing is unique.[...]Serena calls this movement the head slide  .[...]Many a tension headache has found dramatic relief from this exercise, which is difficult for most of us to do.'
Next time you're having a headache or a migraine, try headslides. It never helped me to relieve my headaches, but then again I am doing tiny headcircles and slides every day while I wait for my train to arrive, so maybe I'm immune for tension headaches.

I am going to leave you guys with this, as going through the whole book might be  bit much in one post. Stay tuned and remember to do your tent dance, it is heartily recommenden and great fun!'

Comments

hhmm

[abbie-normel.livejournal.com]

not surprised really. all the old timers I know are weight obsessed and in person many look pretty bad.

prior to the I'd say the 80s living on diet pills, speed, cigarettes, booze was normal. I had female relatives I do not think I ever saw eat.

it's only recently people are expected to be thin with healthy diet, exercise & not use foundation garments.

I don't do yoga breathing it messes with my sinus'

Re: hhmm

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Yeah! Everyone's all "people were thinner in the 70s OMGZ" but they were also a) smoking b) scoffing diet pills and c) snorting all the cocaine they could get their bony hands on.

AND the ones who didn't live that way were also eating OMGZ CARBZ and OMGZ SUGAR when they did eat and yet somehow were not HIDEOUS BLOATED MONSTERS.

[beafarhana.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to dig out the Serena book I've got and see if it's the same.

[wooglethealien.livejournal.com]

As a sufferer of many types of headaches/migraines, many of which extend to tension and soreness in my neck i can't imagine anything worse than head slides which make my neck feel overstretched and weird on a good day!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

LOOOOOOL. Wendy Buonaventura spun that tent knee dancing shit in the precursor to Serpent of the Nile, too.

take that you Lululemon wearing scum! BWAAAAHAHAHAHA. In ballet the other day the new crop of Tiny Ballerina Children were discussing their Lululemon love and one wee girl said her mother won't buy her any, so she has cheaparse leggings from the Warehouse (like I have) which are frankly JUST as good and look JUST as nice on her teensy frame as the fancy Lululemons do on her wealthier classmate.