Raqs Nerd: where ARE your hips? - notes form the studio

I'm back this week, and writing!

And I'm also going way off my plan - I had intended to write for you this week about my journey with learning the Arabic language, and why I feel it's such a worthwhile thing for dancers to do, even in tiny steps.

But you will just have to make do with my social media post on that, because in order to be able to write, I have to write about what's fresh in my mind, which is not always what was planned.

I've come to write this week's Raqs Nerd fresh from my morning studio time - my personal time for stretching, meditation, and a small dance practice, at the beginning of the day.

And my morning practice today (improvising to a couple of tracks from this absolute masterpiece of an album, yes I'm still on my Ahmed Adaweya kick and no I'm not sorry) brought a lot of thoughts to my mind on how the real work of becoming dancers in this form of dance, once we have learned the basic movement patterns, is about how we inhabit our bodies, and how we are aware of our own bodies.

And this is where I ask you - where are your hips?

Might seem obvious, but actually it's not a simple question...

Because the human pelvis is quite a big bony structure, actually - and exactly where we have our awareness when we move it, really impacts the quality and feeling of all our pelvic movements.

And in my experience, a great many students of bellydance, certainly here in the UK, naturally think of "my hips" as the high hip bones - the ones that might show above the waistband of a pair of Y2K low rise jeans... Perhaps worn by Shakira...!

These high hip bones (the anterior superior iliac spines / ASIS, if you're getting technical) are easy to find, for most people. They're visible, and talked about, in our culture. And they're also reassuringly far away from what we might term the sexy parts of our pelvic anatomy...

But when we have most of our awareness on these, and our brain's instructions to the body focus on moving these, it has a certain impact. Notice how high on the pelvis those bones are - and how much more pelvis there is below them.

Notice how much higher up they sit than the hip sockets, where our thigh bones must constantly move and glide to allow our dance movements - and how much higher up than the base of the pelvis, and the sitting bones, where our pelvic floor connects.

From my own perspective, one of the most important changes in my dance technique over the last decade, has been moving my awareness from those high hip bones, to somewhere much lower...

Bringing your awareness lower in the pelvis, down to the level of the hip sockets, changes everything about your hip technique - in ways that are subtle, but far-reaching and rather delicious.

But it isn't necessarily easy to find, or visualise, the actual hip sockets. They are very internal, wrapped in muscles and ligaments, and it's not easy to just prod ourselves and feel them.

Fortunately though, there are some other bones nearby which we can find and feel fairly easily. First of all, what I think of in non-technical language as the low hip bones - or in anatomical terms, the greater trochanter of the femur. This is the wide, sticky-out bit at the outside of each thigh bone, just below the hip socket. It is the bit that may feel quite uncomfortable if you lie on your side on a hard floor!

And secondly, the sitting bones (in anatomical terms, the ischial tuberosities) - the two knobbly bits right at the base of the pelvis. These are the bones that you will begin to feel quite distinctly if you sit for a while on a very hard, uncomfortable chair!

It's really interesting to try the same dance movements, focusing first on the "high hip bones", and then focusing on movement in the area between the "low hip bones" and the sitting bones.

Shifting focus like this, allows our bodies to naturally recruit the muscles around our pelvis and hip joints, and the muscles of our core and pelvic floor, in a different and more connected way (without having to consciously tense or isolate anything)

It may feel rather vulnerable, or outside of the comfort zone, at first, because we are moving from, and being aware of, regions of our pelvic anatomy that are far closer to the sexy parts ( 😱 ) than those high hip bones we tend to default to. But at the same time, as we bring awareness and intention lower in the body, we access more power and depth in our movements and expression, and more ability to channel the entire human experience from a whole and grounded place.

This connects very much with what I teach in my "Pilates for dancers" classes - as I find Pilates movements to be an incredibly helpful tool for accessing mind-body connection, in the pelvic region especially.

And it's also extremely relevant to the work I've been doing this year with sha'abi dance - AND for my upcoming class series on Egyptian ashra baladi. Because so much of the essence of these more folk/social dance aligned parts of Egyptian dance, depends upon grounded pelvic movement, coming from within.

With both baladi and sha'abi, this kind of pelvic connection is vital groundwork, without which the feeling of the dance gets lost. No amount of including specific moves, gestures, and steps will ever quite capture the spirit of these dances, if the embodiment piece of the puzzle isn't there...

If you join my "Egyptian Ashra Baladi" classes, starting in September, we will work on this together - using techniques from my work as a Pilates teacher to build a stronger mind-body connection with the whole pelvis - as well as of course digging deep into music al structure, culture and history, and inspiration from some of my favourite Egyptian dancers!

​Join us here :)

(and get 10% off any September course with the code AUTUMNEARLYBIRD if you book before the end of July 😊)

And, I would love to know - was this a new idea for you, or one you've already worked with? Did you try it for the first time after reading? And how did it change things for you?

With Love,

PS - there are now just 10 places remaining for the Raqs Roots Intensive: Ishas el-Musiqa with Nisaa and Reda Hen:thinkkesh! And our early bird offer (and interest-free payment plan option) is available until the end of August - find the full event information here​

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 🚫🤖