The Belly Dance and Yoga Connection
I started my
Yoga practice not long after beginning to Belly Dance. I was drawn to it and
stayed with it as I enjoyed the benefits of the complementary practices. The
promises of relaxation, strength, flexibility and spirituality intrigued me and
fit right into my Belly Dancing lifestyle. I am not alone! Many Belly Dancers
also practice Yoga and those who do Yoga are often intrigued by Belly
Dance. We will explore what the draw is
and why.
Sterling
Painton, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was already a yoga instructor with her
own studio when she started Belly Dance classes with Kari Merlina. Painton’s
business partner was interested in adding “something different” to the class
schedule and Merlina’s Belly Dance class fit the bill. Since Sterling had loved
dancing since she was a little girl, she was excited to be able to start formal
classes. She did not think it possible to start dance training in her 30’s, so she
happily embarked on this new journey!
On a purely
physical level, Yoga conditions the body and allows Belly Dancers to execute
movements with fluidity and strength and access muscles with body awareness. Painton
reports that she now has an incredible lengthening through her torso in her
Yoga postures due to the strengthening and opening that Belly Dance provides.
Painton found when she was learning Belly Dance that the isolations were
remotely understandable because she had years of practicing isolations on the
body in Yoga (such as lifting the quadriceps off the knees or lifting the rib
cage while grounding the feet). She also noticed she could also yoga to
counter stretch an area she just worked in Belly Dance. Additionally, she notes
that Yoga will help protect the body from injuries and if you do get injured
the recovery time is faster if you are a practicing yogi. I personally
start my classes with a Yoga warm up for this reason. Painton points out that
both Yoga and Belly Dance require a great deal of discipline.
Both Belly
Dance and Yoga can release trauma, both physical and emotional. At my Yoga for the Special Child ™ (
www.specialyoga.com) training, Sonia
Sumar pointed out that after Yoga class, some students felt negative emotions
without knowing why because no thoughts were attached to them. This was the body releasing trapped
emotions. I am sure to point this out
especially when working on ribcage pops and body waves because the heart space
tends to hold so much emotion and it is worked so continuously in these
movements. Letting go of those feelings
that no longer serve you allows you to move forward physically and emotionally.
Mentally,
Yoga allows the Belly Dancer to let go of the mental clutter that prevents us
from “getting it” [a movement, combination, emotional expression, timing, etc.]. Instead of constantly wondering how you are
doing or judging or criticizing yourself, Yoga allows for “letting go and
letting it flow”.
“Most of us who practice Yoga have
slipped into flow on the mat- probably many times. We know those wonderful moments when postures
feel effortless. The body seems to move
on its own without force or strain. We
“know” the posture in an entirely new way and come out of these experiences
somehow changed. At ease. Knowing ourselves more fully. “ (Cope, Yoga
Journal October 2007)
Belly
Dancers may recognize flow when you feel at one with the music and everything
else slips away; you may notice your audience, but they are quiet
witnesses. Or, the audience and your
dance partner(s) are part of your flow experience- everyone feeling the music
completely and communicating with total ease.
Stephen Cope,
working with Kripalu (
www.kripalu.org), conducted
yoga studies with musicians and athletes.
Cope himself noticed that the more consistent he was in his yoga
practice, the more skillful he was on the piano. This integration of mind, body and spirit
seems to be the biggest factor in creating not only fully satisfying
experiences, but also improvement in performance.
The studies indicate that a yoga
practice including three hatha yoga (the physical practice) classes a week
(gentle to moderate classes with a strongly meditative flavor and an emphasis
on breathwork), a simple 30 minute mindfulness meditation practice each day and
participating in certain aspects of a yogic lifestyle, including conscious
eating, can help a performer “flow” by creating relaxed concentration. The changes in the musicians who did yoga
were quite dramatic. One group had
significantly less performance anxiety than the control group. The second group confirmed that finding and
also uncovered in the yoga group’s capacity to enter into flow states- and
especially autotelic experience.
An autotelic
experience is one in which the experience of performance is perceived as
intrinsically rewarding and fulfilling, apart from any external rewards. The performer lets go of all
self-consciousness about the performance-and any grasping for outcome or
extrinsic reward. She feels compelled by
the sheer joy of the activity itself.
Studies show that the more often performers have this kind of experience,
the more motivated they become to push the boundaries of their mastery. (Cope, Yoga Journal October 2007)
Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The
Psychology of Optimal Experience, tells us that “Training attention to come
back over and over again to a complex task allows awareness to become
increasingly absorbed in the task at hand.”
Yoga does this both in Asanas (physical poses), breath work and
meditation (returning to attending to breath, thoughts, sensations, etc.).
Belly
Dancers are experienced with bringing attention back to a task over and over
when they drill. For example after 50
hip ups you may wonder what you are having for lunch, but you have 50 more to
go, so you bring your attention back to the task at hand. Practicing a choreography also requires
attending mentally. Improv Choreography
asks that you stay totally present and not only attend to what you are doing,
but also what your partner is doing. It is a very Zen process in that respect.
Spiritually,
Yoga centers the Belly Dancer. By
revisiting Yoga’s non-competitive principals, one can acknowledge the bigger
picture instead of any perceived slights or longings of the heart induced by
the ins and outs of the community. Online
communities such as “Too Much Drama to Dance” on Tribe.net show us examples of
the struggles many Belly Dancers experience.
Through practicing yoga, Cope tells us that
“the performer, like the yogi, has a
transient but profound experience of feeling more at ease with life, of
trusting the ineffable ‘inner self’, and of living free from self-concept in a
kind of river of energy and intelligence.
This is perhaps the spiritual experience par excellence. Yoga transforms performance in powerful ways,
reframing most conventional notions of the very meaning and purpose of
performance itself.”
Belly
Dancers report stress and negative energy burning away after class or a great
performance. It also often provides a
supportive social atmosphere which may be difficult to find with today's busy
schedules.
Both practices
balance the Chakras, starting with posture that aligns the spine. Chakras are energy centers in the body. Heat, light, electricity and nerve impulses
are all energy, and the Chakras correspond to nerve ganglia in the body. By intentionally moving the body parts
associated with each Chakra, you release blocks, and energize and balance the
energy centers. By working the chakras
through two practices, one can experience greater balance and health. Something to note is that while Belly Dance
uses the whole body, there is a particular focus on the belly that one does not
find in other movement systems. We not
only intentionally move the belly on its own, it is constantly engaged during
posture and parts are accessed more during ribcage and hip movements, as well
as body waves or undulations. The solar plexus,
or naval chakra, (manipura, the third chakra) is associated with personal
power, confidence and the element fire.
With a stronger, more activated third chakra, one exudes more confidence
than someone with a less energized naval chakra. Perhaps this is the pull yogis feel, being
already awakened to the energy and drawn to a dance that will further energize
their inner fire. There is an innate need for humans to create and to express
themselves creatively. The second Chakra
(or first, depending on the reference), located in the pelvis, is our
creativity center. With a strong
emphasis on hip and pelvic movements, Belly Dance activates our creativity, a
need often over-looked in Western society.
While also energized in Yoga, Yoginis may seek out Belly Dance as a way
to further strengthen this Chakra. On
the other hand, if you are experiencing a creative block in Belly Dance, then
Yogic meditation, especially creating and meditating on yantras (geometric designs conceived of as containers for spiritual
energy [Tomlinson, Yoga Journal, August 2008]) can remove creative blocks.
Other
movements and processes in the Belly Dance experience also balance and organize
the Chakra system. Floor work and foot
work organize the first Chakra; ribcage and arm movements balance the fourth
Chakra. Head slides, circles, swings and tosses, as well as zahgareeting and
shouts of encouragement or excitement energize the fifth Chakra; visualizing [a
new choreography or costume, a movement, etc.] and eye movements and moving
meditations activate the sixth Chakra; and connecting with the Divine and/or
your fellow dancers (including, but not limited to the Zen feeling created
during Improvisational Choreography) and moving meditation invigorate the
seventh Chakra. To see my friends,
family and me Belly Dancing through the Chakras, go to the video gallery at (
http://www.tribalbellydance.net/videogallery.htm
) and click on “Pregnancy Honoring Performance”.
Another
reason people may be attracted to both Belly Dance and Yoga is the release from
typical Western thinking. Both Belly
Dance and Yoga originated in ancient times and on different continents/subcontinent. These practices both offer a tolerance and
acceptance of for the self not readily evident in our mainstream society. Yoga teaches us to slow down, relax and
process at a gentle, conscious pace.
Belly Dance shows us body acceptance outside of what bombards us in the
mainstream media.
Rodney Yee,
a nationally known Yoga instructor and author of Moving Towards Balance: 8 Weeks of Yoga with Rodney Yee, says that
Yoga puts everything into place. It
allows us to enjoy and experience Belly Dance more fully. Belly Dance is artistically expressed
wellness that offers strong confidence and Yoga offers a deep, balancing practice,
especially for the times when we must look within.
