Raqs Nerd: skills to get "into the zone"

From the outside looking in, at a first glance, Raqs Sharqi / bellydance can sometimes look as if it's all about movement.

About flexibility and muscle control, posture and alignment, balance and coordination - about mastering increasingly more "advanced" moves...

But those of us who've been here a while, been immersed in this dance for a while, come to know the truth: the physical part is important, but it's also the tip of the iceberg.

And a lot of the really juicy potential for our artistic development as dancers is the inner work.

Not so much the visible work of connecting to the body and refining our movements (which is, of course, a lifelong project for every dancer), but the work of focusing and tuning the mind... Of developing our ability to be more fully present, to be open to experience, to be connected to our senses, our emotions, and the people around us.

This is the foundation that allows us to develop magnetic stage presence; to be warm and present with our guests; to respond to our music authentically and with real emotion

But HOW can we develop this invisible foundation?

And I won't pretend to have all the answers, but there are some ideas I have found extremely helpful, which I'd like to share with you today

At the bottom of all this inner dance development, we have something that could be described as mindfulness. Though I know that term is quite overused.

And I have personally found that cultivating a simple meditation practice is invaluable in strengthening this inner skill...

Now, I am sure that some of you reading this already meditate, probably in a far more serious and organised way than I do!

But I'm also sure that there are many of you who find the idea difficult or offputting, or are thinking "ugh no I can't meditate, I hate meditating".

Especially for some neurodivergent people (especially especially for some of the ADHDers among us), typical ideas of meditation can be really stressful. The idea that you have to keep your mind empty, or have to stay focused on one thing - and that if you can't, you are bad at it and doing it wrong, can easily turn it into an exercise in beating yourself up and feeling like a failure.

A few years ago I took some acting lessons with an acting coach who was open about his ADHD - and he strongly recommended both that I develop a meditation practice, and that I read a book called "Unlearning Meditation" by Jason Siff (a former Buddhist monk).

Having read the book, I'm not actually sure I'd necessarily recommend reading the entire thing, unless you have already studied meditation in quite a lot of depth and have hit a sticking point with it - it was a lot more information than I probably needed, for where I am at personally.

But I did find the basic premise of it very helpful: that there is no wrong way to meditate, and you can't fail at it - and that the practice itself is inherently valuable.

So here's what I do for myself...

I have a very minimal meditation practice, so that it's easy for me to stick to, and to actually fit in most days. Typically about five minutes, in the morning. I sit and count twenty slow breaths, and that's kind of it. That's the practice. And then afterwards, I dance for five minutes!

I don't have any rules or "should"s for those twenty breaths.

But I do choose to think of it as a sort of gift that I want to give to myself. That I want to give myself the gift of being more present in my body and more fully experiencing here and now, for a little while.

I aim to fully experience the sensation of breathing, of just existing in a human body. Not in order to "do it right", but because I value that experience.

I imagine that my consciousness, day to day, is usually spread out in a big cloud around me throughout time and space, with little bits of it spread in the past and the future and in all kinds of places. During my meditation practice, I choose to just gently shepherd that cloud of consciousness inwards, to concentrate it a little closer to here and now, like thousands of individual bees coming together into a swarm.

My mind often wanders. In fact it never doesn't. It's OK. If my swarm of bees spreads out a little, or a few of them wander off, that's no big deal - I just aim to practice the skill of noticing where they've gone, and guiding them back in.

It isn't necessarily always easy, or necessarily always relaxing, and that's also OK. That's how practicing a skill can be sometimes.

And it won't necessarily feel stable - sometimes maintaining that more focused, here-and-now kind of consciousness can feel like a feat of balance; like walking a tightrope.

Except that unlike walking a tightrope, there is no danger when you fall - apart from that which comes from our own tendency to beat ourselves up for "doing it wrong". We can land softly, think "oops!", and get back on for another go.

I consider this a part of my dance practice - and an important one

Because the underlying skill it trains - the skill of learning to condense your big spread-out cloud of consciousness back into the place you're in, the moment you're experiencing - is the foundation for us to be able to do things like...

Be present and aware in our movement practice, so that we can adjust and explore and refine, and notice new creative possibilities

Experience our music fully, as we hear it, and respond naturally in real time, rather than dancing to the remembered version in our heads

Be truly engaged with and emotionally present for our audiences, rather than being mentally somewhere else (worrying, thinking about technique or choreography, counting beats...) during the performance

There are other ways to train this skill too - like deliberately combining it with dance improvisation practice, with walking in nature, with taking part in mindful movement practices like yoga, Pilates, martial arts...

But I do feel that a meditation practice is still helpful to have, even (maybe especially!) for those of us whose brains sometimes feel like they are made up of a whole lot of bees.

I hope you've enjoyed this week's email and found it helpful, since this has been a slightly more personal one!

Next week, I will be writing about something rather different - the many ways that learning the Arabic language (even just a tiny bit!) can be super valuable for dancers...

And if you're enjoying my writing in Raqs Nerd and know someone else who'd love it too - please do share this link with them!

With Love,

PS - All of my September dance classes are now open for booking! Including my ONLINE course on Egyptian Ashra Baladi technique, cultural context, and musicality... and, in-person classes in Manchester UK, from beginner to intermediate level.

​Find out more here, and get 10% off any course with the code AUTUMNEARLYBIRD if you book before the end of July 😊

PPS - every part of this newsletter is written by me, a flesh and blood human being, using my own thoughts, feelings, opinions, and writing style - now and always. This is a generative AI free zone 🚫🤖