Kyria's journal

My dance mom went in for breastcancer surgery last week. She send a message on Monday that she was at home, recovering and considering everything she was doing okay. They removed one breast and two lymphnodes. Yesterday she let us know that the lymph nodes weren’t ‘clean’ and that she has to consult the specialist on what’s next. Probably chemo and more scans. She tries to stay positive but has a hard time.

She is a rather private person and has only told a couple of her closest dance friends. But she is widely known in our dance community by all of my dance friends. The dance friends who try to pick dates to meet up, and the ones I usually talk about what’s up and how we’re doing. I don’t want to tell them about L because I respect her choice to keep her illness and treatment private. People mean well but she doesn’t want flowers, cards, visits or phone calls. But it is hard to not tell my closest dance friends that I can’t meet them because I want to visit her.

I hope the treatment she’s getting will help her overcome her cancer and there won’t be anything to talk about in a year or so. In the meantime, it sucks and I am so scared of losing her. She was my dance mentor for over six years, we went on tours together, shared so much of the ups and downs in our lives. She’s 53 and way too young to have her story end here. 

I deccided to stop teaching on Monday nights at the cultural center in the next semester. After ten years of teachign on Monday nights, I look forward to having the night off. It is a relief to make that decision.

It's also really hard to not tell people. Or to keep teaching my current students witha  smile on my face. WE had a great class last night and I hope that I inspire some of them to continue dancing.

I have many, many other plans that involve (bellY) dance that I want to do int he next couple of years. The mere thought of being able to take a ballet class again! Or not having to preare a class on Sunday night. I'm going to ask Gerie if she wants to teach for the cultural center and I'll offer the center my services for projects and such. 

 Saturday was our Sense of Bellydance photoshoot. It's remarkable how much a SoB meeting resembles the activity of herding cats. AS usual, things happened last minute, irritation was felt and everything came out okay in the end. So let me start....

We arranged for everyone to be tehre at twelve ó clock. I finished my costume that morning and even had some hours to spare for drinking tea and playing with Eliza. Those peaceful hours were interrupted by a frantci Facebook Meesenger discussion about G.'s 6 year old daughter who wanted to be in the shoot.

I am already annoyed that we're abusing Facebook messengare for group discussion. Hate the tool, hate the interface, hate it that I have to scroll through 20+ pages to find the information I was looking for. But, soit, such is life. G. posted pictures of her 6 year old daughter, mentioned that she wanted to join and if we mind. Ofcourse R replyd that she's sort of part of the group and yes, ofcourse she's welcome!

*facepalm*. We had a group meeting three weeks ago to discuss the shoot. G didn't mention her daughter during that meeting. We could have addressed it in a timely manner. but no! Last minute decision making! I added that I didn't think it was a good idea to have her there because A we we're going o be there for 5 hours and her attention span is not that long (not sure if my attention span could make it, for that matter). and B we prepared this as a group shoot and I looked forward to doing it with them. Having her daughter around would certainly changed the focus of the shoot.

Her husband ended up bringing her daughter around 16.30, she quickly changed and we took a group picture. Crisis averted, everyone happy. I will get back to this in a later post though. Back to the shoot!

I got there around 12.15 and walked into a double garage with an upstairs place to sit and change. It's nice! We had a meeting to discuss what we wanted (I sort of managed that part, by showing them prints of poses we liked and discussing options). Leoniek started on setting the lights and doing a bit of product photography of our doumbeks and zills while we got ready. Gluing of eyelashes ensued. I did the eye make-up of four group members, we all got dressed and started with the group pictures at 14.00.

That was a lot of fun! We started with small groups that could be edited into a bigger group picture. We joked around and have fun, it was a nice way to start the shoot and get used to being photographed. we procedded in building a pyramid shape composition. No real pyramids were hurt during this part, and we used cushions and stepping stools to get a bit of height difference. I think it'll work well and create an image that shows all of us, without being the standard 'sit in a row' look.

It was 15.00 by then and we proceeded with the individual shoot. Each of us got 5-8 minutes in front of the camera. I hope it results in a nice image to use for my website, but we'll see. I think that amount of time is probably not enough to get a really nice solo picture, but who knows. The photographer was awesome, Leoniek takes pictures for our praty in Zeist for the past couple of years so she knew what she got erself into.

I was rather happy with how my evening gown with gold ornaments came out, though I sensed that R was a bit sad for being frumpy and short and not looking as glam as she would have liked (she adjusted an existing Egyptisn style bra and belt with long lushious fringe that looked totally gorgeous on her). We all wore a different shade of purple and different styles of dresses but as an overall look it worked great. 

Wearing cntrol underwear to smooth out bumps also helped to create a smoother line. I am still suprised with how big I look but that's just the way it is right now. Around 16.00 we got really, really tired. We coached each other during the solo shoots, and talked and danced a bit to stay warm. For me, the shoot should have been over at 16.00 but we had to wait for G.'s husband and daughter who came in around 16.30. Because they had to go to the Sinterklaas intocht and other activities as well that day.

*doubleface palm*

Not only did she throw in her daughter and complicate our day, she also made her husband, son and daughter's day super complicated! All I could think of was:ýou could have said no'. No honey, you can't be in this photoshoot. Maybe next time. Maybe we do a seperate shoot. But no, you can't come today'

Seriously. I try to refrain from opinions on parenting but in this case twelve people had to deal with the consequences and it sucked for us. I'm glad that we have a nice picture with her as well, but I'm not sure if it was worth the anxiety and frustration.

Around 17.00 we wrapped thing up , got undressed, wiped our make-up off and went home. I am glad that after three years I finally did a photoshoot and have some new images to use for my promotion. It is different to do a group shoot compared to a solo shoot, that's for sure! We;ll see the results in a couple of weeks.

 The list of the content is in and I am really excited!

My main problem? I have to stop teaching for two years in order to actually follow the courses, read the material and watch the videos. My problem as a dancer isn't in finding resources, or the price of the resources. I bought a bundle of seven classes on powhow in August and so far I've done three of them.

I am going to buy the bundle (it contains a full set fof lash cards for class and practice! I love flash cards!). I am going to sign up and download as much nmaterial as I possibly can.  But I have no clue when I have the time t do a 9 week course on building a practice habit, or doing the 4-5 hours cof online classes with Sadie (Sadie doesn't do it for me in digital classes. It's a personal thing. I prefer Jillina and Aziza),

I have a huge dvd colection that's gathering dust. Why would I want to add a digital collection as well? I can deduct the cost because I'm a business owner and this means that I rather see my money go to this project instead of the tax department.  But still, how am I ever going to find the time?

*update*
I signed up! Every contributor has a PDF file with instructions on how to download or subscribe. After enrollment, it takes about one and a half hour to go through the zipfile and sign up for everything. The downside is that some courses force you to start right away. The uypside is that said courses are all digital, and material is still available indefinetly in many cases. I really like the Powhow class about the Illiopsoas. I received got about 16 hours of video and online classes to schedule in the next couple of months. This includes choreography classes with Sadie, 3/4 shimmies, shimmies on the down, Persian dance (This looks yummy, I can't wait). The Fez documentary is in the package (it's also available in other places) and I have a couple of e-books/printable PDFs to work my way through. In all, it's a good deal for what I've paid.

My mailbox will be overrun by belly dance mail for a while, as I had to whitelist email to get to the goodies. The confusing thing is that everyone chose their own favorite platform, so the material is all over the place. I've downloaded content from Vimeo, through google drive, on gumroad and via Powhow. I got most of it downloaded on my computer so it's concentrated in one spot, but going through all the different websites and check-outs is a bit of a hassle.

We woke up with the sound of big machines, announcing the start building the side annex. I realized we will move out of our house this weekend and I'll be living with my mother in law for the next four weeks.

Cue stress.

I have a new job on March 1th when have just moved back to our house.

More stress!!

After we move back we'll be using the studio as living room so they can finish up the real living room. We expect to move back into the house at the end of March, and we need to do a lot of stuff like flooring, curtains, etc. to make it a a home.

On top of that.... I have a nice prototype of the Belly Dance practice Dice, I got all the quotes together and turns out starting up is going to cost me 3000. It took me some time to process this. I still want to go ahead with the project and I need at least 1500 euro to cover half of the start up cost. But... kickstarter takes roughly 12%, taxes are 21% and shipping cost also go into your goal, thus making it entirely possible that I need to kickstart it at 3000 and that sounds unattainable. The preview link for the kickstarter is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523803984/545966091?token=c6a44dc9

In the next four weeks I want to finish the prototypes, hand-outs and booklet so I can take decent, high res pictures plus create a project video. I wanted to go life at the end of February.

Should I let it go? Should I stick to it? I love to hear your thoughts on this one, as I am starting to feel overwhelemed with home, work and family.

Ugh.

That's just how I feel, but I am dragging myself through the day with the thought that things will get better. We've been cleaning out the garage and shed in the last couple of weeks, because next Monday is D-Day. Demolition day, that is. Builders will show up on our doorstep at an inconvenient hour (before 7 am) and start demolishing the garage. They have one week to take it all down, dig out the concrete foundation and (I presume) while they're at it dig some more to prepare for the new concrete foundation. Don't worry, I'll take before and after pics and post stuff on facebook, because building projects are fascinating to follow. They are not as much fun when you're stuck in the middle but I'm trying to be positive. It's going to be gorgeous! And they'll be done with the studio before Christmas break, so we'll actually have a break. After Christmas they'll start on the living room, due to be finished in April/May.

Fun fact: E and I met three and a half year ago. We took two vacations (two weeks to France/Italy, and a weekend to Antwerp. The last one was our honeymoon). We have successfully finished two remodeling projects on time and within budget and this will be the last big one for a while. During our relationship, we've spent 12 weeks on remodeling and two and a half on going on holiday. We are crazy. The upside is that I am decluttering as stress management plus I haven't fitted into a size S for over three years so I might as well let it go. after letting go, I will allow myself to go out and buy some new clothes that make me feel pretty. Huzzah!

My belly dance classes are okay, with the difference that I feel my intermediate classes are doing better compared to my beginners. I am running inside and being scatterbrained during my beginners class, which is Not Helpful. Eliza is having her first molars coming through and s a result she is in a lot of pain. She is an absolute delight the rest of the time, making up for it in playing, talking and reacting. I can ask her where a specific toy is and she will look at it and retrieve it for me. It's amazing how much conceptual thinking is going on inside that tiny head of hers. Sleeping is currently not going to well and as a result we are not as sparkly and happy as we could be with five hours of undisturbed sleep.

I've been on a roll with preparing for the new season. My class program is roughly halfway, and I need to add some extra background information. I am sure that classes will be awesome this semester!

This time I started using Canva (On Canva.com) for creating digital promo material. It's fast, it's free, and it can be done on the go. What else are daily commutes for? I recommend working with canva, but on the go the app is easier. The options on the website are more divers though. It took me about twenty minuts to create something I liked and save it to my computer. So far I got this:




This weekend I am teaching my first workshop 'Bellydance during pregnancy' to non-bellydancers. I am rather excited about it, as I plan on teaching these workshops and maybe short class sessions in our home studio next year. This is a nice way to try if it works and how to tweak it. I made a powerpoint presentation to structure the information, and I'm printing a couple of flyers out in case they like the workshop and want to tell other people about it. This is the BD for pregnancy flyer:



Have you used Canva or another online editor before? What do you recommend? I still use photoshop but a lot less. Most of the time, a good picture tells most of the story. I am leaning more towards using pictures with a lot of smiling faces on it to draw people in. The 'pretty dancer' pictures are useful for many things, but I have to get the local students and soon to be moms to sign up and I guess they like seeing images of women they can relate to.

I finally went to a workshop by prof dr dr Hassan Khallil, who is 79 but happened to be in the Reda Troupe in 1956 and has been coasting on his reputation ever since.

I thought that I should expose myself to his pressence at least once, considering that I've been bellydancing for sixteen years now and have managed to avoid him all these years. Plus I am eager to get out there and network a bit, meet new people and dance.

I travelled to Vught (small town near Den Bosch) and took Hannan Sultan's workshop called skillful and slinky hips. Got aome good ideas about what exercises to use to level the hipwork and avoid injury. I hated how she let us drill in a different tempo compared to the music she put on. I cannot ignore a beat and dance in a different tempo. It's also a bit moot considering the teacher picking the music for class. Would be easier to pick something the right tempo instead of making the students go off beat. She is one hard working woman, I respect that.

The second workshop was the long awaited prof dr dr etc. Yes, he uses his titles all the time. I suspect once he bought them, he wanted to use them to get his money's worth. Mr khallil arrived late, and all the ladies stared to applaud when he entered. Little did I know that applauding was mandatory and expected at almost every instant he opened his mouth. He is very charismatic and positive, joking around, hugging women (he's an old dog, he is) and smiling. Can't help but like the guy.

We started 30 min late and Hassan explained that we were doing bellydance theater. An hommage to Cleopatra and het tragic story. He proceeded by showing us the most dramatic overacting ever. It included pining, sighing, yearning, reaching with the arms and putting on an obstipated face.

I was okay with it, saying to myself 'it's only three hours'. But when he told us to lie on the floor and wiggle like a snake, I reached my limit. That was right after he saw me yawn, walked up to me and said:'you should sleep at night'. I replied:'my baby won't let me', making him laugh out loud. 'Baby girl' I added, and he buggerrd off.

After a badly edited zar song attached to Mohammed Abdel Wahab, we pounced the floor with our fist, crawled on fours, picked up a small sized snake and theatrically dropping it in our shirt, the workshop was over. An hour early.

Let me get this straight: 25 people paid 75 euro to attend this three hour workshop. That is 1875 euro. Let's say 1/3 is going to the hostess, that leaves us with 1200 ish. He arrived 30 min late and we finished 1 hour early. For one and a half hour of prancing around, he made 1200ish euro. Tell me again that the bellydance market sucks and people are not willing to pay for workshops.

To be fair, One and a half hour of this was more than enough for me. Once, but never again. I did get to experience prof dr dr first hand and polished my snake writhing skills. Ozma, it reminded me of our floorwork workshop with Princess Banu in Istanbul. Good to know the crazy is equally distributed among teachers globally

It's been a while but I got back on the bellydance workshop horse. With two days of Sadie's Raqs Flow, travelling to Breda (a city to the East, about an hour away by car and two hours by train).

Regardless of the workshops, I am patting my back for having the guts and making an effort in going. Eliza is still waking up a couple of times each night and I am still breastfeeding. being tired and pumping milk on lunchbreaks, then walking to the employees kitchen and store the mill in their utterly gross fridge adds an extra dimension to the whole experience.

But let's talk about the workshops! Sadie was relaxed and happy to explain why she developed her program. I did not ask her many of the questions that went through my head, like why create a certification program when there are so many out there, what do you think of other certification programs, what are the requierements to stay certified, and why isn't this information online if you've been teaching Raqs Flow for three years now. Somewhere along the way I turned into the critical thinker party pooper and it's not good to be that person when the rest of the people in the room are gushing over how much they adore Sadie.

I like Sadie. She is a technically strong dancer and this program showed how she is starting to develop more as an emotional and expressive dancer, which is good. I wouldn't call her my mentor though.

The program itself has a solid foundation in bellydance techniques: hip up/down, hip forward/back, and hiprolls which is a different way to say camel and reversed camel. All of this combined with five basic arm positions and working with weighted/unweighted leg. That kept us busy for 3/4 of the time. The pther quarter was filled with her husband coming over and playing and explaining the beledi, saaidi and maqsum rhythm. Coincidently I covered that in class last Monday so I was on top of my game.

Then Sadie talked us through the written questions on the exam, which were from the top of my head:
What would you call our danceform and why, what are some common terms to refer to our dance?

In what century did the Romani travel from India towards the Middle East?

Are Flamenco and bellydance connected, and if so, how?

What are the names of bellydancers in Turkey, male and female?

Write down one of the rhythms we talked about, in name and with dums and teks

How did the word bellydance evolve?

We finished with a short and rather cute choreography to a classic version of Habeena. It incorporated all the material of the past two days, which was nice. I really liked how she took her time to explain background details.

I also had a flashback to Suhaila's level 1 program with all the drills. We drilled a lot with Sadie as well in pretty much the same way. Part of what I didn't like was the emphasis on some ballet technique (she had us do tendu's without a barre and chainee turns across the floor) while she admitted to not being qualified to teach ballet. For the people who never had ballet, this is possibly harmful and most certainly out of context. Let me add that after taking classes for six years I still suck at ballet. But if I wanted to learn ballet I rather go to ballet class.

The second thing I didn't like was the amount of general strengthening and pilates exercises. I have to minds about this: I do these exercises in my regular exercise program and I believe core strengthening is essential for improving technique and training the muscles. But once more: of I wanted to plank, I could do so on my own.

It's good that she put it in the program. I didn't stay for certification because I had a bus to catch and I wanted to be home before 20.30 so I could have dinner with E and my mum, and see Eliza. Certification was between 18.15-19.15 and was moved to that time last minute. Had I known this before, I might have reconsidered and stay for the certification. That would have meant being home after 22.00 and I don't think I could have stayed awake for so long. Honestly, I was totally knackered for the next three days. Not being able to have a full nights rest is killing for recouperation. Plus my student recital was this Sunday, no rest for the wicked but it sure was a lot of fun!

Today is my first me-time day in a month. The dog and Eliza are at day care and I am home alone. It is kind of sad that most of my day consists of errands that I want to get done, it's so much faster to do stuff when I don't have to watch Eliza or the dog. On the other hand, I did squeeze in some dance 😄

Eight hours of me time are filled with:

1,5 hours for pumping breastmilk
1 hour for laundry
1 hour of gardening (planting, potting and rearranging)
0,5 hour sitting in the sun having lunch
0,5 hour grocerie shopping
1,5 hours costuming and fixing the buttons on my spring coat
1 hour loitering around on facebook and writing a blog
1 hour of bellydance veil practice

Man, I love me-time. Can't help myself but it feels too quiet around the house and I feel a bit lost without our happy little girl and up to no good dog.