As promised, here is my interview with the lovely Aylin Hansen. She was extremely patient and helpful with all my questions, because I had quite a lot of them!
L: Hi Aylin, thanks so much for speaking to me!
A: It’s fine, what can I help you with?
L: Well, I looked at your video on the NHS website about belly dancing and I realised how badly I needed your help. I’m doing a blog about belly dancing and to be honest it’s not going well…
A: Why is that?
L: I Can’t seem to get the rhythm right, I keep bashing into my coffee table trying to make snake arms, it’s very bizarre.
A: (very long pause) Really?!
L: Yes, you see I’m working from this DVD at home and so far I’m just not getting it. I need your advice and tips please!
A: Well, you can always come down to our classes to see how we get on and try it out with us. It does make a difference when your in the place, because when you’re trying to do it yourself, it’s much harder because you don’t know whether you’re doing it right or wrong. The only downside about that is that you’re left to your own judgement, whereas if you’re in a class you will get corrected.
L: Ahh, I see that’s where I’ve been going wrong…(long pause, as I reflect)
L: Anyway! How long have you been teaching belly dancing?
A: Well, I’ve been doing it for about 5 years.
L: Why did you decide to take it up?
A: I’ve always been dancing and then someone asked me if I would be interested in teaching and I said I’d give it a try and see, and I loved it so I stayed on.
L: This is my third week of doing the dancing now, should I be worried I’m not getting it quite yet?
A: Tell me what your problem is…
L: Hip movements mainly, I end up moving my whole body rather than just my hips.
A: Ok, and what seems to be going wrong?
L: (Struggling to find the technical terms) Well, you know like when you wiggle your hips, but they don’t wiggle, but the rest of your body kind of does… (going more red by the second)
A: That’s a very difficult one, and I don’t think you can achieve that within the first three weeks.
L: (ridiculously over-excited) Really?! thank goodness!
A: They are very difficult to start with, but there are tricks to make isolations easier and one of them is, for example I always start teaching hip alternates are the most basic moves, secondly give you a very good idea about posture and thirdly it’s a good start for hip shimmies. So once you’ve cracked hip alternates, you can begin work on hip shimmies. It takes a lot of practise to get to a high level of belly dancing and if you don’t want to dance like you do when you go to a club, if you want to have technique to it then it takes time.
L: That’s reassuring!!
A: Absolutely, especially because you’re telling me you have problems with hip shimmies, most people have problems with shoulder shimmies then they find it very difficult to alternate, but with the hip shimmies, if you tuck in your tummy and bend your knees, it’s very important that you bend your knees and come slightly down and you tuck in your tail to straighten your spine and that in itself locks your abdominals already and makes it easier to isolation.
L: Right I’m going to try that tonight! I do it three times a week as a rule, my shoulders are a bit off balance too, what would you suggest for that?
A: Well for shoulders I usually say… well, go and find a wall and stay about 1ft away from it. Then put your hands on it and bend your knees but don’t lean on it ok? Put your hands on the wall and then start pushing your shoulders. Push one shoulder forward and then back as if there is a stick going through your shoulders. Using the wall, so that forwards and back and so on, then try and get faster, then take your hands off the wall and try and do the same thing. Now if you can do it when your hands are on the wall, it means you can also do it when your hands are off the wall, you just need a bit of muscle control. That’s a very good way of practicing it, especially to discover those muscles that works the shoulder shimmies.
L: A lot of people take this sort of thing up at this time to lose weight, can it really make a difference?
A: I think it’s a wonderful thing, it’s got the feel good factor to it as well, so you know lose weight, have fun get lots of exercise. Yes, it’s as good as any other dancing. What you need to follow with it however is a proper diet… (my heart sinks) You won’t lose weight if you’re eating loads of everything and just doing one hour of belly dancing.
L: (Mumbling) I may need to change my diet a little bit then…
A: Well with what you’re eating you need to be determined that you are on diet and that you will stick to it and that you want to loose weight. If you eat pizzas and pastas then you’re never going to lose weight.
L: Well thank you very much for giving me your tips, I’ll put them into practise.
A: Thank you for asking!
And with that she was gone… I’ll be reporting on monday for week 5 of my belly dancing challenge. One more week of theory and I’ll be on to learning the dance. Terrifying!
Until then- Keep (belly) dancing!
Laura xxx
Aylin Hansen has been working with the NHS Choices website to provide information about the health benefits of belly dancing. For further information please visit www.nhs.uk
