How Old Is Belly Dance – Really?

The Healing Power of Belly Dance in Water – The Evolution of Belly Dance

Belly Dance Breakthrough via Dancing in the Water

Belly dance in water is a natural hydrotherapy for tension release and a great way to reduce stress and promote natural healing. Energy healing comes as we release stress and let go of back tension. We learn belly dance effortlessly as water shows us natural belly dance techniques.

Tension release has been a big goal for most of my life. I sought stress relief in many ways; many of these involved natural healing and emotional healing. I sought out various energy healing methods, and I saw my chiropractor regularly, got massage, stretched, did dance, and all the “right stuff” to ease the tension. And yes, I had lots of “release breakthroughs” – but this has been one of my core problem areas throughout my life.

Belly dancing in water helps release tension
Belly dancing in water helps release tension and makes movements more graceful and supple.

Not surprisingly, I’m always on a quest to learn how to release muscle tension.

One breakthrough happened when a business trip took me to Hawai’i. I took a few extra days to enjoy the exotic locale.

Natural hydrotherapy, or water therapy, was not something that I expected to find – but I learned how to reduce stress when the soft beach waves gave me a natural water therapy treatment!

I had already been giving belly dance lessons for years, and had taught many women how to belly dance. We all found that belly dance was one of the best stress relievers in our life! But on this trip, I learned how to reduce stress – and release muscle tension – in a very new way!

I was surprised to find that even the world-famous Waikiki beach was nearly deserted after the sun went down. I went out into the water – and found that the beach-shelf extended far out beneath the shore; it was a very gradual and gentle slope. That meant that I could walk out quite a ways before the water really came up to chest-level.

The waves were very gentle; really just a rhythmic swelling. I began to feel calmer; more tranquil and and peace with the world.

I tried “playing” with my belly dance moves in the water, resting my hands and arms very lightly on the water’s surface. It’s then that something new started happening.

Belly Dance in Water – How Surprisingly Right It Feels!

The natural buoyancy of the warm sea-salt water, coupled with the gently swelling waves, helped me relax from the long flight and the meetings. I began to let go of some body tension.

Woman in water. Photo by <a href="http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/coper">Ton Haex</a>. Used with permission.
Woman in water. Photo by Ton Haex. Used with permission.

I flexed my knees just a little bit. This helped me keep my balance. Then, I found that my back was naturally undulating in response to the gentle swells.

Since I was much more buoyant, my hips and pelvis freed up. I started doing all the pelvic techniques – hip circles, Figure 8’s, and others – in a much more natural way.

Resting my hands and arms gently on the water, I found that snake arms simply “happened.” I didn’t have to force them. The “right technique” simply emerged.

This was one of the “transformation moments” in my dance. Now, every time I’m at the beach or in a pool, I try belly dancing in water again. It feels so good to recapture the body-memory of how natural belly dance really is!

The Healing Moment

The healing moment came when I tried undulations. Or rather, I relaxed and let the gentle water swells cause the undulations to happen.

Undulations – upper, lower, and combined – are how our bodies respond to the gentle rhythm of the waves. Releasing ourselves to this healing movement in water helps us integrate, heal, and nourish body, mind, psyche, and soul.


Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus
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Do you want this kind of healing in your life? Do you want the kind of total body/mind/energy healing that comes as you release and let the water carry you?


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The Real Origins of Belly Dance – From Our Pliocene Ancestresses!

So it’s not hard to wonder why belly dance feels so right in the water – almost as though it is the most natural thing in the world. And perhaps, it feels that way because it is natural for belly dance to happen in the water; this is very possibly how our dance began!

I remembered reading Elaine Morgan’s The Descent of Woman many years ago. (Fascinating read; and I so recommend finding a copy and taking it to the beach with you!)

Elephants evolved long trunks.
Elephants evolved long trunks that helped them breathe when standing in water, and to cool themselves. Photo by Kendra Crowell.

Morgan’s thesis is that humankind went through a major evolutionary growth spurt during the heat wave of the Pliocene era, when temperatures in some parts of the world were higher. She suggests that humans (along with several other highly evolved and intelligent species, including dolphins and elephants) took to the waters during this time. Dolphins became completely water-adapted. Elephants evolved their long trunks, so they could breathe while cooling themselves.

And we humans? Basically, we “became human.” We stood upright (in the water of the beaches and lagoons). We evolved language. A number of our social – and sexual – behaviors come from this time.

My guess?

We also evolved belly dance.


Summertime Good Beach & Pool Reads

What will you read at the beach this summer? Try Elaine Morgan’s Descent of Woman, which kicked off a firestorm in the 1970’s. Her insights and logical reasoning hugely upset the apple cart of “how we humans came to be,” devised by male anthropologists promoting the “great male hunter” myth.

Morgan received widespread interest, a good deal of acclaim, and a lot of criticism, as Descent of Woman was written for general readership, and was not tied to references in the same way as would be an academic book or paper.

Her next book, the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, added rich references – but is still enormously readable!

Read either, or both, while at the beach or pool – and then use some of her fascinating anectodes and insights to launch your evening conversations. With the right crowd, you’ll get a lively discussion going!

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Belly Dance Comes Out of the Water

Naturally, we progressed beyond our early hominid stages. But we still had a fondness for going to the beach!

Belly dance was born in water - and came to fullness as we danced around fires at night!
Belly dance was born in water – and came to fullness as we danced around fires at night! Photo from Deva Coaching.

Let’s move forward to the time of our ancestresses; a time in which we had recognizable humans – but not yet societies with written language. We had fire, though.

So after a day at the beach, spending our time in the gentle waters, what would we do in the evenings?

Build a driftwood fire, and dance.

Our movements? Those that we had been doing all day long – in the water. Now, though – dancing on the beach sand around a fire – we could leap and turn much more easily.

We lost the buoyancy of water, but gained the ability to turn, leap, and spin.

Early ancestors developed percussion instruments, which spurred the percussive movements of belly dance.
Early ancestors developed percussion instruments, which spurred the percussive movements of belly dance.

We gained the ability to put “sharpness” into our techniques – to do more “percussive” work with our hips and ribs. (These were more emphatic on land, without water slowing the movement’s impact.)

Of course, we were also making our first musical instruments around that time. And these first instruments were percussive; things that we could drum or strike – even clapping our hands. So we had the impetus of percussive accompaniment to spur on our evolution of “percussive” techniques (hip drops, hip and rib accents, etc.).

And thus, belly dance evolved – a combination of movements that were born in water, and completed on land.

To bring the natural buoyancy of water into your technique, check out the video in my previous post. Let let me know via comments if this works for you!


Alay'nya - author of "Unveiling: The Inner Journey"
Alay’nya – author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Very best wishes as you make your dances more fluid and expressive by including the joy of “water play” in your practice!

Yours in dance –

Alay’nya
Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!

Founder and Artistic Director, The Alay’nya Studio
Bellydance a courtesan would envy!

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P.S. “Water therapy” helps emotional healing through belly dance – see how Alay’nya uses belly dance in water to release neck, shoulder, and back tension, minimize carpal-tunnel-like stress in the wrists, and create beautiful snake arm movements!


What Does a Leading Belly Dance Teacher Have to Say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?

From a much-respected Oriental Dancer writing under the Amazon nom de plume of SapphoandRumi, read her Amazon review of “Unveiling: The Inner Journey”: “Even though I’m familiar with much of what she says because I’m a long time belly dance instructor with similar slant; belly dance is more than a dance on a stage; but there is a great deal of new insights I find provocative. She has my ear. Her voice is intelligent and the contents [are] well written and excellently laid out. Bravo!”

 

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P.P.S. – Do you want the healing power of belly dance in water?

Try doing your belly dance when in a pool this summer – or (better yet) – get into a saltwater pool. This can be a hydrotherapy pool, or water in a sheltered lagoon or beach.

Want more? Delilah usually offers a winter belly dance workshop in Hawai’i – what better place?

Delilah's Belly Dance Retreat
Delilah’s Belly Dance Retreat

Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya. All rights reserved.

Related Posts: Water Dancing and Emotional Release Through Belly Dance


Belly Dancing in Water – The "Origins of the Dance!"

Have you ever wondered how it all started? (Belly dance, that is.)

Have you ever wondered how we – as human beings – started? Apart from Creation myth(s), and God taking a rib from Adam, and that sort of thing.

How did we go from being fairly successful pre-hominids to beings with art and culture, with complex languages, and (even) complex thoughts – on topics that range from cosmology to cosmetics to cosmic knowledge.

There had to be a “transition point,” didn’t there?

And for us women, there had to be a point at which dancing evolved.

Specifically, there had to be a point at which belly dance began to evolve, because this dance form is the oldest one that there is!

Seven years ago, I traveled on business to Hawaii. After checking in and taking a short nap, I got up, put on a swimsuit and cover-up, and walked down to Waikiki beach. It was late evening; the beach was deserted. The stars were out, the weather was warm, and starlight and hotel lights sparkled off the gentle waves.

From where the waves slowly lapped the shore, I I walked out more than fifty feet from the water’s edge, until I was chest-high in the warm water. Seaweed softly stroked my skin. I relaxed, lengthened my back, and let the waves gently rock my spine.

This, I realized, is where belly dance was born.

Several millennia ago, we women took to the beaches in the blistering Pliocene-era heat waves.

Up until that time, we (or our earliest ancestral hominids) were fruit-loving forest dwellers. When the savage Pliocene-era heat and drought decimated our favored forest dwellings, we had to live in the plains. This was too hot, and much too dangerous. Being (even then), intelligent beings, we did the only intelligent thing possible. We went to the beach! (So, for that matter, did elephants and dophins, all mammals who’ve adapted to a watery environment. The dolphins stayed and adapted further, and we and the elephants eventually went back on land.) We lost much of our “fur” in the process, and gained a great deal of intelligence. (Elaine Morgan writes about how our “beach time” helped us evolve in The Descent of Women (1972); another really good smart woman’s “beach read.”)

So there I was, in the slowly, lapping waves, under a moonlit and starry night, with seaweed stroking my back and thighs. I relaxed, and “reconnected” with my ancestresses.

And guess what? My body naturally and instinctively began to do the most fundamental movement in Oriental dance (belly dance); an “undulation.” I “undulated” up and down my spine, in rhythm with the waves and the seaweed.

I floated my arms out to my sides, and let them “rest” on the soft swells of the water. Once again, naturally and instinctively, they moved on their own, in a pattern that we now call “snake arms.” It has nothing to do with snakes, not really. When we women first “evolved” this dance movement, it was because our arms naturally responded to the movements of the waves.

You can read an excerpt from Elaine Morgan’s Descent of Woman.

We (or our early pre-human ancestors) spent a lot of time in the water. Enough time to morph us into what we are today; mammals who stand on two legs instead of four; mammals who use speech (which carries beautifully over water); and mammals who have hair on our heads (to protect our heads from the sun’s rays), but who don’t need much hair on the rest of our bodies. We also became mammals who dance.

We have evolved so that standing in water, responding naturally and instinctively to a soft, gently lapping wave, is enormously soothing to us. This kind of movement releases tension. It gets us back to our “calm state.” Movements that “flow” and “undulate” our spine – whether done in water (ideal) or on land (since that’s where we now live) – help us feel good. And movements that open up our shoulders, and stretch out our pectoral muscles, and release our neck tension (especially when done in water) feel very good indeed.

Experiment on your own (if you must), or with a girlfriend or two or three, and even consider asking a belly dance teacher to come up with a “belly dance in the pool” class for you! No matter how it goe, you’ll learn (or discover) means for reducing neck and back tension, unwinding the tight spots in your clavicles and pectoral areas, and even ways for reducing the impact of carpal tunnel syndrome.

What better way to counter this summer’s heat waves? Enjoy!

Yours in dance – Alay’nya

Copyright (c) 2011, Alay’nya. All rights reserved.

Related Posts: Water Dancing and Emotional Release Through Belly Dance