Does Your Walk Give Away Your Age?

The "Dior Lady" by <a href="http://overgaard.dk/the-story-behind-that-picture-0070_gb.html">Thorsten Overgaard</a>; Image No 5 from "The Salzburg Collection," available from The Leica Gallerie Salzberg
The “Dior Lady” by Thorsten Overgaard; Image No 5 from “The Salzburg Collection,” available from The Leica Gallerie Salzberg

Since then, I’ve noticed that all my Master Dance Teachers have this quality of “eternal youth” to their gait; to their walk. This comes from their “dance walk.”

This isn’t as easy as it sounds.

One Master Teacher, Anahid Sofian, produced Passage Through Light and Shadow (a major dance dramatic story) a few years ago. One of the dance segments had women walking in a somber, dignified pattern; each holding a (battery-operated) votive candle.

Anahid says that she spent weeks teaching her dancers “how to walk.”

The reason that this is so difficult?

Most people just use their legs when they walk.

A Graceful Walk Makes You Look Ageless and Beautiful

A woman's walk moved  George Gordon (Lord Byron) to pen the opening lines of  his famous poem, 'She Walks in Beauty.'
A woman’s walk moved George Gordon (Lord Byron) to pen the opening lines of his famous poem, ‘She Walks in Beauty.’

She Walks in Beauty Like the Night
(“She Walks in Beauty,” by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

Dancers – especially Oriental dancers – use their abdominal muscles to generate their walk.

This isn’t overt; it’s based on very subtly incorporating a lower body undulation.

Your first step to claiming this ageless, supple walk?

Learn the basic undulation walk.

The next step?

Apply what you’ve learned not only to your dance, but to your life.

Panther-Like Grace and Power

Using your abs and releasing back tension helps you move with panther-like grace and power. Northern Chinese Leopard - photo courtesy Michael Rank on Danwei.com
Using your abs and releasing back tension helps you move with panther-like grace and power. Northern Chinese Leopard – photo courtesy Michael Rank on Danwei.com
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Can transforming your walk transform your life?

You bet it can!

A smooth, effortless, graceful walk is a power statement.

The reason?

Most people let go of their abdominal muscles; their inner core. And most people have very tight lower backs.

So if you gain control of your abdominal muscles, and use them – so subtly that it seems imperceptible – you’ll transform the way you present yourself.

If you release tension in your lower back, and get your abs to pull you forward – you’ll move with the panther-like grace, confidence, and power.

Your walk will communicate that you are totally present and aware of what’s going on, and that you are in charge of your life.

People defer to those who have confidence.

You’ll find that without changing anything else in your life, people will be eager to give you what you want.

When you have a beautiful, powerful, graceful walk, people will respond to you positively. They will feel better knowing that they’ve served you well.

What Happens If You Don’t Transform Your Walk?

May I say it bluntly?

Women who have not mastered the secret of a beautiful walk look graceless and awkward. No matter how much they spend on cosmetic surgery, or how much time they spend at the gym – if all they do is “work their muscles,” then – they look clunky and old.

As Shakespeare put it:

Youth is nimble, Age is lame …

No amount of cosmetic surgery, dieting, or exercise will give you the same supple, youthful appearance as well as a beautiful walk.

From Unveiling: The Inner Journey:

[On some talk-show makeovers or reality programming:] … stories of full-body transformations of different women… At the end, each woman was, in her own right, as gorgeous as she could possibly be – until she started to walk!
Typically, these women didn’t learn how to move in a beautiful and graceful manner. As a result, although each woman became more beautiful in a simply physical sense … there was still an element of awkwardness. [p. 305]

How To Create a Beautiful Walk

Here’s the secret:

Your walk will be luminous, sensual, and magnetically attractive when you:

  • Release tension,
  • Use your core, and
  • Generate your movement from your center.

Tension release is your most important first step. Pay attention to your:

  1. Lumber area and your sacro-iliac joint,
  2. Hip flexors, and
  3. Psoas muscles.
Alay'nya at the Tiraz Belly Dance Convention, 2013. Photo by Melissa Brooker.
Alay’nya at the Tiraz Belly Dance Convention, 2013. Photo by Melissa Brooker.

Then, engage your core muscles – particularly your internal and external obliques.

Finally, generate your walk using your abs, not just moving your legs. You will use both your tension release and your ability to work with your abdominal muscles as you do this.

This actually is the crucial mechanism underlying your undulation walk; essential to sensual belly dance.

What happens then?

Your walk becomes effortless and compelling.

What happens next?

  • Standard repertoire “walks” – such as the beautiful “touch-step” – become natural.
  • Your beautiful, sensual, and graceful walk emerges – without your “efforting” at it.
  • Without stress, without any sense of “trying” on your part, people feel compelled to watch you.

To help you transform, I’ve put together an Online Guide. It’s my carefully-selected, “best of the best” YouTube resources that will help you develop a walk that will give you turning heads – and admiring glances – wherever you go.

Whenever someone sees you walking – onto the stage, down a grocery aisle, to walking or onto the red carpet – these techniques will empower you to draw attention, and communicate a subtle message that you are “someone important.”


Join me using the form on the right.

When you do, I’ll send you an email with a link to my Online Guide, She Walks in Beauty.

You’ll get my personally-selected, “best of the best” YouTube links for creating a sensual, compelling, ageless walk:

  • Three great YouTube performances – with notes about what to look for (and when) – so you get examples of the best “walks” in action,
  • Five of the best YouTube belly dance instructional clips on the all-important undulation walk, and
  • Special Bonus: My top selected Red Carpet training YouTube links – the “best of the best”: how walk in high heels, how to sashay down the runway, how to take charge of any room and any situation – just with your walk!

Special Bonus:

Once you get access to this special Online Guide, She Walks in Beauty, look for the link to my touch-step walk as I introduce a candle dance. Compare my approach with that of Horatio Cifuentes, a master dancer from Berlin, Germany. How are we similar? How are we different?






Get “She Walks in Beauty” – Your Guide to a Graceful, Sensual, Powerful Walk!

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Alay'nya - author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unveiling-The-Inner-Journey-Alaynya/dp/0982901305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368123419&sr=8-1&keywords=unveiling+the+inner+journey">Unveiling: The Inner Journey</a>
Alay’nya – author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Very best wishes as you use Oriental dance (belly dance) to bring youthful vitality, movement, and expressiveness into your life!

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!

Check out Alay’nya’s YouTube Channel
Connect with Alay’nya on Facebook
Follow Unveiling: The Inner Journey on Facebook


P.S. Would you like to use a sensual, graceful walk to open one of your specialty dances? Learn how Alay’nya opens a candle dance with this beautiful “touch-step” belly dance walk!


P.P.S. Learning the sexiest walk in the world involves lengthening our lower back, strengthening and using our abdominal core, and generating your movement from within.

As a side benefit from doing this, you will automatically begin to strengthen your pelvic floor.

There are additional health benefits from doing this. Dr. Christiane Northrup, New York Times best-selling author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause, tells us that developing a strong pelvic floor is necessary for our overall health – including mitigating urinary incontinence.

Dr. Christiane Northrup, The Wisdom of Menopause

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Dr. Christiane Northrup on Unveiling: The Inner Journey

What Does Dr. Christiane Northrup, New York Times best-selling author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause, have to say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?

Dr. Northrup notes:
“Alay’nya brings divine sensuality to women in the ancient forum of dance. This book is delightful.” Read this and more reviews of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

 

Alay’nya, Unveiling: The Inner Journey

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

Related Posts: Creating a Youthful Presence Through Belly Dance

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
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus.
Become the Jewel!

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?


Join me
– be the first to learn about workshops where I’ll coach you through what has worked for me!






Be the first to know about upcoming events, valuable online tips and training guides, and all that will help you create yourself as the jewel in the heart of the lotus!

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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!

Check out Alay’nya’s YouTube Channel
Connect with Alay’nya on Facebook
Follow Unveiling: The Inner Journey on Facebook

 


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


Releasing Neck Tension (and Minimizing the Dreaded "Dowager’s Hump")

Looking Younger – by Releasing Neck Tension

One of my dear friends exercises regularly. I see her often getting up in the morning, putting together a blender-full of a healthy protein and fruit smoothie, and heading out to the gym before she goes to work each day. She’s resumed her “healthy lifestyle,” and she’s getting fitter and trimmer.

As we women get older, we are likely to get <a href="
As we women get older, we are likely to get osteoporosis, resulting in the dreaded ‘dowager’s hump.

Nevertheless, I keep seeing a persistent hunch-over in her shoulders and neck. It’s the emerging dreaded “dowager’s hump”!

Far too many of us are getting this “hunched over” look; partly because so many of our activities – from working at the computer to driving a car – induce this posture. They all bring our arms forward and “hunch” our necks downwards.

If You Can’t Be a Good Example, Then Be a Horrible Lesson

I see my friend, and get a pointed reminder of how I don’t want to look!

Just like her – and possibly just like you – I spend most of my days at the computer. Occasionally, I’m driving about town. These two activities take up the bulk of my time.

Seeing how I don’t want to look is a powerful reminder to include “dowager’s-hump-fighting-strategies” into my life.

But – just like you – I get absorbed in my work, sometimes for hours at a time.

What can we do?

Proactive Steps to Minimize a Dowager’s Hump

As we get older, we can’t simply rely on exercise alone to keep osteoporosis (and the dowager’s hump) at bay. We need to think about a more integrated strategy, including:

  • Diet, including dark leafy greens – possibly with vegetable juicing, together with with good calcium/magnesium supplements,
  • Targeted exercise, focusing on a complete core-strengthening regime, and
  • Specific stretches to open up our neck, upper back, and shoulder/pectoral areas.

Dr. Natalie Cordova, a Chiropractor and posture expert, gives us some ideas on what we can do to strengthen our backs and reduce the likelihood of a dowager’s hump.

Jim Evans also suggests some exercises to help deal with a dowager’s hump.

Releasing Neck and Back Tension Will Help Minimize a Dowager’s Hump

Most of us have desk jobs. Between sitting at our desks, sitting in the car (with our shoulders brought forward as we grasp the wheel), and then sitting at home in the evenings, we are all too often in a posture that tightens our neck and hunches our shoulders forward. Even in our “leisure moments,” we’re reinforcing this posture. (Feel the posture that you’re in while watching TV, doing texts and emails, and other digitally-based activities.)

One of the most notable signs of aging is our posture. Actually, it’s a combination of posture and muscular/joint stiffness. “Limberness” is a sign of youth. Being hunched over, with a tight, drawn in neck, with rounded shoulders is a sign of both stress and aging. And when we get “fixated” in this kind of posture, we start looking like a turtle – one that is very reluctantly sticking its head out of its shell! That’s the “dowager’s hump” stage.

Surprisingly, not many fitness coaches and anti-aging gurus focus on this. But a tight neck, and tight shoulders, are not only absolute give-aways about aging, they also feel awful! It’s hard to feel vigorous, lighthearted, and happy when our posture says that we’re hunching over to avoide the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”!

Perhaps even more surprisingly, the key to unlocking neck and shoulder tension (and releasing a “dowager’s hump”) starts not at our neck, but in our hips, pelvis, and lower back. As we release these areas, we begin to “mobilize” our spine. Once we do that, we can start releasing tension up and down our spines – reaching up into our neck. This is how we create a youthful, vibrant body!

I’ve just come back from a week at a client site. There were task-filled days, often be-bopping from one place to another, with the “to-do list” always on my mind. While I could do some stretch-outs, some yoga, and some walking while at my client’s, it just wasn’t ideal for my early-morning “sun salutation” yoga workout. And now, returning to home base, in the midst of unpacking and taking care of everyone’s physical (and emotional) needs, I’m noticing a tight neck. And also, a tight back, and a very tight lower back and hip area. The secret? A combination of yoga and “belly dance basics” – a series of stretching and releasing exercises that are actually best done in bed, or on a soft and yielding surface. I’ve been combining that with deliberate breathing, opening up my diaphragms. And without even getting to my neck area, I’m already getting some release.

Our yoga practice doesn’t have to be fancy, and we don’t need to do lots of advanced poses. But just getting some “downward dog” and “sun salutations” in helps tremendously to release tension in our hips, lower back, and sacral area. And all of this is necessary before any form of dance can begin.


Very best wishes as you use Oriental dance (belly dance) for personal growth and healing!

Yours in dance –


Alay'nya - author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unveiling-The-Inner-Journey-Alaynya/dp/0982901305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368123419&sr=8-1&keywords=unveiling+the+inner+journey">Unveiling: The Inner Journey</a>
Alay’nya – author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

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!

Check out Alay’nya’s YouTube Channel
Connect with Alay’nya on Facebook
Follow Unveiling: The Inner Journey on Facebook


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P.S. Want a couple of good DVDs to help strengthen your core and minimize dowager’s hump tendencies? Check out the two below!

 

DVD

DVD

 


Gerson Kuhr, aka The Fitness Pharaoh on Unveiling: The Inner Journey

What does the Fitness Pharaoh, producer of the highly-acclaimed Core Training for Belly Dancers, have to say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?

Gerson writes:
“Masterfully written. This is one of the most inspiring books that I have come across in a long, long time. It is “must reading” for any woman who wants to get in touch with her “inner diva” and realize her full potential as a dancer and human being. It’s empowering for men as well. The resources alone (mentioned throughout the book) are well worth the purchase price.”

Read this and more reviews of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

 
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Copyright (c) 2012; revised 2013, Alay’nya. All rights reserved.

Related Posts: Creating a Youthful Presence Through Belly Dance