I love Belly Dance because it is feminine, sexy and lively. I am writing this special post to refresh my memory about my belly dance journey and how much I love it so it will remind me not to easily give up dancing in the future. 🙂

 

Why belly dance?

It all started when I was working in Malaysia many years ago. At that time, there was a colleague in my wider finance team but we have never spoken to each other. Anyway, she looks like just an ordinary gal that I cannot find anything special about her, little did I know she will have an impact on my life…

One day, my company had an event and she performed a solo belly dance on the stage. She looks so different than she was in the office – so incredibly beautiful and sexy!

I was mesmerised in her dance and expression. Till now, I remember her confidence when she was performing and wish I can do the same. I was moved and decided to join belly dance classes. It felt so beautiful.

Another thing that I like about belly dance is that it doesn’t require a partner. I tried Salsa dance before but my terrible movement will often destroy the classes of other students. Sorry, but I have no talent for dancing!

Other than that, belly dance also makes me feel good. Sometimes you have to ‘trial and error’ to find out what you really like. 🙂

 

A journey of belly dance

Therefore, I started learning belly dance in Malaysia in 2012. After a few months, I quit the class because I left Malaysia and came to New Zealand.

Since then I was living in a suburb of Wellington for about 4 years and was not able to find a belly dance class nearby my area, so I gave up and just practice at home by watching videos online. By the way, I am proud to learn shimmy and reverse camel by myself. 🙂

From Feb to Apr 2017 I followed Ben to Hong Kong and had my second belly dance class in there. I joined the class for only 3 months because I left Hong Kong after that.

Then, I came back to Wellington and moved to the city centre, and joined the belly dance class for the third time. This class is called the Belly Dance with Mirian Caberlon. I joined this class since June 2017 and am still doing so at the moment.

Mirian’s class is quite different from my previous classes. I like that my belly dance teacher, Mirian, is very positive and cheerful. She also likes to dress up for the classes. I can feel that she is very passionate about belly dance. In her class, I learn not only the dancing movements but also learn to feel good about dancing.

 

End-of-Year Show

Another amazing thing about Mirian’s class is that there is an End-of-year show! It allows us to show our hard work to our family and friends. 🙂

I was so excited because one of my dreams is to perform a dance. My dream finally came true when I had my first performance at my dance school on 9 December 2017. It was a 6-minute Pharaonic Dance. The show also has other dances. All of us participated in the last dance – Helwa ya Baladi.

I love the costume very much. My belly dance teacher said the Pharaonic Dance is made for me because my hairstyle is very ‘pharaonic’. 😂

Before I learnt the Pharaonic dance, other students had already practised this for 2 terms (about 4-6 months). Since I joined them quite late, I practised 1-2 hours a day at home so I can catch up with them.

 

Pharaonic Dance – my first performance

There are about 90+ audiences in this event. I can imagine my teacher put in a lot of effort in making this event happen. I am very appreciative of this because the show means a lot to me.

I was very nervous at the beginning of the performance and made a few mistakes. Luckily, in the end, it turned out quite good. I enjoyed both the outcome and also the process of practising because it gives me a ‘target’ to achieve. It was a great experience. Ben attended the show – he purposely came very early to get a good seat to watch my performance. 🙂

 
Finally, this is a video of me doing the final bow (did not attach in this post as it too big) – looks like my partner and I are not quite coherent 😂 but we had fun… this is the only video that I have on the show!

 

A Belly Dance Dream

I am still a beginner although I have started to learn belly dance many years ago because I stopped in between. I hope I can be more good at this and gain more confidence. This post will remind me how much I love belly dance and encourage me to keep learning. 🙂