Blog

Curriculum Overview for the Coming Year

Curriculum Overview for the Alay’nya Studio – Studying by the Season (Part I)

Recently, I was counseling one of my young dancers. It was like talking to myself, when I was her age. Exactly the same issues.

Around the same time, I’ve been hearing from one of my other proteges, a brilliant young woman who is more than half-ways towards getting her doctorate in a particularly challenging field. Again, the same issues that I had when I was her age.

These two young woman – both intelligent, goal-oriented, and motivated – are struggling with a set of challenges that many of us face. Each of us may recognize ourselves in the feelings that they’ve shared. Many of us, all too often, feel fatigued and overwhelmed by our workloads.

What Do Women Need? And What Do Women Want?

Overwhelmed
Overwhelmed? It can happen to any of us.

We need more than a way to extricate ourselves from too many tasks and responsibilities.

What we really want is a way to release ourselves from our own expectations.

We often feel discouraged when we recognize that we’ve created our own “prison” of demands and expectations.

Alay’nya’s Story

I certainly felt this way, almost three decades ago, when I first discovered Oriental dance.

Prior to that time, I’d been – as many of us are – largely male-identified. That means, I’d defined my self-worth in terms of my ability to succeed in exactly the same areas, and with exactly the same set of criteria and expectations, that men used to vie for their power-and-success games.

Side Note: Do you want my full story? It’s in the Introduction to Unveiling: The Inner Journey, and you can read it using Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature for Unveiling!

My Story Is Your Story Is the Story of All Women Today

In a sense, my dear sisters, we’ve set ourselves up for this.

This situation – one which confronts many women, worldwide – is a result of over two hundred years of work, by several generations of women, to gain “equal footing” with men.

We have, most fortunately, been successful.

This success, however, has come with a price.

Now that we can have equal opportunities with men – whether to get an education, hold jobs and advance in our careers, own property, run for office, or (most recently) fight along with men on the battlefield – we now expect that we should do this – and do this competitively with men, while at the same time maintaining all of our traditional “feminine” roles.

Exhaustion? Burnout? Fatigue? No wonder!

The challenge, dear sister, is not the opportunities or even the expectations.

The challenge lies within our dominant reference frame.

That means, the challenge is not so much with the work or the tasks themselves, but in how we evaluate ourselves, and how we create a mindset of what we should be doing, and how we should be focusing our minds, attention, and energy.

If we use a masculine-oriented reference frame, then we’re setting ourselves up for a no-win situation, simply because we’re not men. That means, no matter much we succeed at doing what men typically do, we’re not acknowledging that what we really need – for our personal growth and satisfaction – is something a bit different.

So what do we need? And what do we want?

The Simple Answer

For many of us, the answer is: is a body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway. In fact, we need an integration pathway specifically designed for women.

At this point you, my dear reader, might nod and say, “Sounds good. But what exactly is a body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway?”

Good question. And a particularly appropriate one if you’re seeking to reclaim what would once have been your heritage-by-rights.

Lifeline
Sometimes, we just need a lifeline. (Image from Learning To Share .)

In short, a body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway is a lifeline. It’s something that touches (and yes, integrates) all aspects of your life.

What Makes a Pathway Work for Us?

Waterfall
Waterfall stairs images by Aubrey Hord

Whatever we select as a body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway has to be something that – more than anything else – helps us connect. It has to help us connect our feelings (psyche) with our bodies. It has to help us connect our internal energy work (ch’i circulation) with our minds.

Most of all, this integration pathway has to give us a powerful reference frame for understanding our lives, for making decisions, and for evaluating our priorities. (And we keep in mind that our “priorities” can range from large to small: Should we pursue and advanced degree or not? Should we go out and play with our girlfriends or stay home, organize paperwork, and pay bills?)

An integration pathway gives us a reference frame for understanding and consciously directing our lives.

This integration pathway has to be practical. It has to give us “stuff to do” – on a nearly everyday basis – or we’ll forget and wander off. At the same time, it has to help us with the “big picture.”

That’s why, in the Alay’nya Studio, we have a “course of study” that involves all aspects of who we are. We have the physical practice, and we connect that to emotional release work. We have energy cultivation and circulation exercises, and we connect that with releasing thoughts that our mind has used to keep us “stuck” in various ways.

In order to give ourselves some structure, we have a “course of study.” Our program derives from the Kabbalah, or the Tree of Life – the oldest known guide for human spiritual growth and understanding.

What we do with our bodies connects with our emotions, our thoughts, and our energy patterns. And so on.

“See Spot Run” – A Simple Approach to Our Course of Study

An early "Dick and Jane" primer.
An early “Dick and Jane” primer. A classic sentence is “See Spot run.”

When we were children and first learning how to read, we didn’t start by picking up the Encyclopedia Britannica, or by embarking on Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Picture from an early Dick and Jane primer

Rather, our first books showed us a happy dog, with the phrase “See Spot run.”

Using a “primer book” when we were children didn’t mean that we were dummies. It just meant that we were learning something new, and we needed all the help that we could get. Pictures helped.

Right now, starting our body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway, we’re again going to use pictures. Our “picture book” comes from the Tarot. There are two portions of the Tarot; the Major Arcana (22 cards) and the Minor Arcana (40 numbered cards and 16 face cards). We’re not concerning ourselves here with fortune-telling or divination. Rather, we’re looking at the Major and Minor Arcana as a picture-guide for our study. For us, the cards function much like a Powerpoint (TM) deck.

We use the Minor Arcana as a picture-guide for our study; somewhat like a Powerpoint (TM) syllabus overview.

The Minor Arcana: Forty “Study Topics” During the Year

For our day-to-day (and weekly class) studies, we use the Minor Arcana. These cards give us a step-by-step approach to practical spiritual and psychological mastery. They also indicate energy practices, which we include in our dance training.

Side Note: The Major Arcana deal with our “big life issues.” We study these also during the course of the year. In particular, we study the first six Major Arcana, which correspond to Psychological Types, as identified by Carl Jung. (There are two other Psychological Types not included in the Major Arcana, these are the “battery reserve” archetypes. For details, read Unveiling, Chapters 7 & 11, and consult ongoing topics in the Unveiling blog.)

Tree in Four Seasons
Tree in four seasons, from The Emmaus Road

We divide our study into “quarters,” much like a college does that works on a “quarter system.”

We work with the esoteric traditional of assigning each quarter (Winter, Spring, etc.) to one of the “four elements.”

Many of us know that the 22 Major Arcana cards relate not only to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, but also to the 22 defined “pathways” in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The cards in the Minor Arcana also relate to the Tree of Life. There are ten Sephiroth (centers) in the Tree of Life, and there are four “worlds.”

The four suites in the Minor Arcana relate to the four “worlds” in the Kabbalah.

Each “element” has a set of qualities associated with it, and a particular focus of attention. Our curriculum will include intellectual study, spiritual disciplines, emotional release work, energy cultivation exercises, and (of course) dance movements and techniques and choreographies:

  • Winter: Season of Earth (pentacles, the physical body, a “feminine” season),
  • Spring:Season of Air (swords, the mind, a “masculine” season),
  • Summer: Season of Fire (rods, the spirit, a “masculine” season), and
  • Autumn: Season of Water (cups, the emotional realm, a “feminine” season).

The Most Luscious, Nurturing, Feel-Good Thing You Can Do

The Most Luscious, Nurturing, Feel-Good Thing You Can Do in Bed, On Your Own

And I’m not even talking sex. (Well maybe. Just a little bit. Later.)

What is the one thing that you can do on your own, in bed, that sends a totally relaxing and soothing feeling up your spine?

It’s the same thing that I wrote about a few days ago, leaving you with a bit of a “cliff-hanger.”

Because, as I asserted in my last post, many of you already know this!

The real surprise is, many of you already know this – and you might even be new to Oriental dance!

Believe me, I am more than surprised. I am amazed. I am totally blown away.

When I learned this “little secret” – many years ago, as I was writing Unveiling: The Inner Journey – it was news to me.

Our belly dance "Figure 8" ("Figure Eight") movement mirrors the infinity sign, and also traces a subtle internal movement at the base of our spine.
Our belly dance “Figure 8” (“Figure Eight”) movement mirrors the infinity sign. Infinity sign coded by Charles Petzold

The really important thing about what she shared?

It’s that the insight didn’t come from a member of the Oriental dance community. It came from someone who was skilled in the mind/body healing arts. (Diane now does something called HeartMath.) My students who already knew about this movement were practitioners of Reiki, yoga, deep tissue massage, and related areas.

So what is this one thing?

It’s the movement that we dancers call the “Figure 8,” done with our hips.

Our “Figure 8” (“Figure Eight”) movement in Oriental dance (belly dance) mirrors the infinity sign, and also traces a subtle internal movement at the base of our spine. The person who “clued me in” on this movement was Diane Richardson, whom I mentioned several times in Chapters 14 – 16.

I’ve looked at a number of YouTube vids purporting to teach the (vertical) Figure 8, and have only found one so far that is trustworthy – click here to see a Figure 8 tutorial. Just watching this dancer, you’ll see how the Figure 8 activates – actually massages – the sacral area. Beautiful!

(Be careful if you’re looking at various online clips; some focus on a horizontal Figure 8; that’s nice, but not what we’re discussing here. Others show a Figure 8 that starts “top to bottom”; this is sometimes called a Maya. And surprisingly, just changing the direction of how the movement is initiated makes a huge difference. For best energetic benefits, do the “classic Figure 8” – start going down-and-out, then up. And no matter what anyone tells you, try to keep your feet on the floor!)

Enough of the technical hints. The real question is: Why is this movement so important? Why is it more than just one of the many basic “belly dance techniques”?

The answer – as I shared in Unveiling: The Inner Journey – is:

She [Diane] pointed out that Oriental dance is built on a natural undulating and flowing movement that connects our entire spine, from our cranial vertebrae down to our sacrum. In addition, she helped me to sense a very subtle and naturally-embedded “figure eight” motion at the base of my spine. … All that we are doing, as we dance, is to tap into these innate, natural rhythms, and magnify them into a dance. (pp. 410-411)

So, the Figure 8 movement in Oriental dance:

  • Taps into a subtle, naturally-occuring rhythm in our sacral area,
  • Activates the physical and energetic components, and
  • Induces a sort of “energy wave” that travels up our spines towards our heads; essentially initiating a form of cranio-sacral massage.

To the best of my knowledge, doing a physically-correct Figure 8 movement is entirely safe, given that a person has no physical or neurological conditions that would make this movement difficult. (If the reader has any doubt or questions, he or she is advised to consult a medical professional first.) Also, to the best of my knowledge, while well-done Figure 8’s gently encourage both cranio-sacral release and (somehow) produce a “feel-good” effect, I don’t believe that this movement alone will cause release of kundalini energy. As a reference, in yogic teachings, the kundalini energy is stored as a “coiled serpent” at the base of our spine. When we do the Figure 8, we are gently activating life-force energy, but I don’t believe we’ll have any danger of arousing kundalini.

The Figure 8 does, at least in my experience, seem to relate to an overall group of intrinsic motions from the cranium down to the sacral area. Healing professionals are learning to sense and work with these rhythms in a healing modality called cranio-sacral therapy. I have personally experienced cranio-sacral therapy treatments, and found them safe, gentle, peaceful, and healing.

I like to do Figure 8’s in bed, because then gravity is not working on my sacral area. It is freer to move. And because this movement is gentle and relaxing, it will sometimes help me sleep easier and more restfully. And the relation to sex? Well, if we release our sacro-iliac area, and in fact mobilize our entire pelvic region (and Oriental dance movements help us with just that), then we are much more likely to have pleasure, right?

The Most Amazing Thing …

The Most Amazing Thing Is That – You Already Know This!

It happened during the second-to-last class of autumn. I was giving a “preview of coming attractions” – going over the “hot topics” for the winter quarter to come.

http://naturalplane.blogspot.coWhat is "esoteric belly dance"?
What is “esoteric”? And what is “esoteric belly dance”?

I took a deep breath, and launched into what I thought would be the most oddball, obscure, and yet most fundamental part of our next studies.

I felt pretty scared with this topic.

It’s one of those that makes “esoteric belly dance” – well – esoteric.

Mentally, I braced myself for resistance.
 

You (that is, the new group of students – and also those of you reading this) have borne up cheerfully – and even enthusiastically – as I’ve introduced a range of topics that you (students and readers collectively) often refer to as the “woo-woo stuff.”

That’s right. By many other standards, esoteric means the “woo-woo stuff.” And you’ve been cheerful and enthusiastic in not only trying this out, but in using that term.

This time, I thought, I’d lose you forever.

But as I launched into my description, my jaw dropped. I saw you nodding your heads in agreement. (This time, “you” being the students who were actually in the class that day – and perhaps even you as a reader.)

Over half of you were saying, essentially, “Oh yes, we know this already.”

What?

One of the weirdest, most unusual, most “woo-woo” parts of the curriculum, and it’s already common knowledge?

I just couldn’t believe.

But it made sense.

In the class, we had a massage therapist whose interests and background included energy work. We had a Reiki practitioner. We had a few whose interests in yoga, meditation, and related areas were almost life-long.

Most of you already understood one of the most powerful principles for pathworking, or for bringing your energy work into your physical practice.

Jedi for Women

Over the years, as our curriculum shifted from classical, mainstream Oriental dance to … well, Oriental dance plus something … I’ve tried to express who and what we were in different ways. One that made the most sense was, simply, Jedi for women.

Imagine that you are Obi-Wan Kenobi, but a young Obi-wan. You’re not yet the Jedi Master. In fact, you’re not yet even a Jedi knight. You’re a young man who hopes to one day become a Jedi knight.

Hermione Granger, from the "Harry Potter" book and movie series.
Hermione Granger, from the “Harry Potter” book and movie series.

Or imagine that you’re Hermione, and more than anything, you want to go off to a school that teaches you to use the powers that you know that you have – but simply haven’t ever been able to bring together.

Or that you’re an young woman in pre-Arthurian times, stepping into the boat that will take you through the mists to Avalon, where you hope to learn the fabled priestess arts.

You’ve Already Been There, and You Already Know This

Now, let’s take this one step deeper.

Imagine that not only you are some fictional character, setting out to learn and master some arcane arts that will require years of complete devotion and dedication – but that at one point, in one of your many lifetimes, you were such a person.

Imagine that at one time, you not only knew these things, but had mastered them.

You were, at one point, a Jedi Master. You were a grown-up, fully powerful Hermione. You were a Priestess of Avalon.

And now, in this lifetime, you’re simply trying to bring it all together.

And thus, you gravitate towards energy practices, such as yoga. Or perhaps you’ve already studied energetic healing arts, such as Reiki. Or you’ve followed a tradition of ritual, and opened up your sensitivities in that area.

Somehow or other, in your various wanderings, you’ve already picked up enough so that when the new information is presented to you, it’s not new anymore.

It’s already part of your known and familiar.

Make sense?

Of course. And for a very good reason.

An “Integration Lifetime” – Or Why It Seems So Tough and Complicated

Many of us are experiencing an integration lifetime. We’re pulling together all that we’ve learned before, and we’re making the breakthroughs that we were reaching towards earlier, but possibly didn’t make in our previous lives.

That’s why this lifetime, for so many of us, is so complex, demanding, and challenging. We’re “wrapping up” a lot of things all at once, while reviewing all that we’ve learned before, and making major breakthroughs that we almost – but didn’t quite – complete in our earlier lives.

Sound exhausting?

It’s kind of like taking organic chemistry during the summer. (Difficult under the best of circumstances.) And then, while doing that, taking a “survey course” covering a few thousand years of humanities. And then doing an extra-credit project under the direction of a Nobel Laureate researcher.

Which would explain why our lives are so full, so complex, and so challenging.

We’re not just making headway in one area, we’re doing a lot of things, all at once.

And the Answer Is …

But what is this one thing – one of the three “cornerstones” of esoteric dance – that many of you know already?

Read the details in the next blog. (Yes, I promise to be forthcoming. And I’ll put the link here as soon as I publish the next blog.)

Or, if you simply can’t wait, pick up your copy of Unveiling: The Inner Journey, and read the paragraph at the bottom of page 410. (Yes, this is smack in the middle of Chapter 29, “Pragmatic Esoterics,” or – as we now call it, the “woo-woo stuff.”)

Here’s to your health and well-being – and to your overflowing personal energy and abundance in 2013 and beyond!

Much love – Alay’nya

P.S. Do you have a desire to be a “Jedi Master” in your own life? Do you desire bringing all of who you are – energetically as well as physically, and emotionally as well as intellectually – into one art? Do you desire your own pathworking?

Join me. Click here, scroll to the lower left on the page, and join the Unveiling community for quarterly (and sometimes more frequent) communications. This is reserved for people like you – people who want to infuse their practice with the energetic aspects, and use their dance art as a pathway for healing, wholeness, integration, and mastery.

Very best wishes to you make your dances more fluid and expressive as you add “water play” to 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!

From Dr. Nicole Cutts’ Amazon review of “Unveiling: The Inner Journey”: “I love, love, love this book! It is like the g*ddess mother, mentor I never had and always needed. Finally a book that just tells it like it is for women. It is well written, intelligent and enlightening. For any woman who wants to live a life of adventure,joy and love. It is rich with so much wisdom and grounded in thorough research, which I love! I can’t say enough about it. All I can say is read it if you are looking for something new to take you to the next level of womanhood.”

 

Paper

Kindle

 

Nicole Cutts, Ph.D., with Alay'nya, at the first private signing of "Unveiling: The Inner Journey"
Nicole Cutts, Ph.D., with Alay’nya, at the first private signing of “Unveiling: The Inner Journey”

P.S. – Are you seeking to revamp and rev up your life? Do you have goals, desires, dreams that seem almost within your reach?

Nicole Cutts, Ph.D., Success Coach and Founder of Vision Quest Retreats, can help you map the strategic plan to achieve your dreams.

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

Related Posts: Water Dancing and Emotional Release Through Belly Dance

Beginner’s Class in Belly Dance Review Notes: Classes 1-4, Music Review

Alay’nya Studio Beginner’s Belly Dance Class: Review Notes for First Four Classes, Autumn Quarter, 2012, Part 1: Music Review

Although I’ve posted extensively about the esoteric belly dance component and the energy-building practices (ch’i cultivation), our Beginner’s classes in Oriental dance (belly dance) have recently focused on:

  • Music rhythms for Oriental dance,
  • Music structure analysis, including in-class work and take-home exercises to identify and analyze, and
  • Matching dance movements to the music.

Mideast Music Rhythms Used in First Four Classes

Music rhythms for Oriental dance include:

  • Beledi, an Upper-Egypt (southern Egyptian) rhythm, used in up to 80% of common “belly dance music,”
  • Sai’idi, a “reverse beledi,”and
  • Chifti telli, a Turkish rhythm.

Music Structure Analysis

Music structure analysis, including in-class work and take-home exercises to identify and analyze:

  • Musical measures: the basic “counting unit” (typically an 8-count),
  • Musical motifs: an identifiable musical phrase or set of phrases – a “building block” for that piece of music,
  • Pace and timing: overall fast, slow, or moderate?, and time (in seconds) for each motif,
  • Taxims: literally, an improvisational solo, typically with the Mideast instruments of a ney (flute-like instrument), kanoon (string instrument), or dumbek (drum), and
  • Transitions: most important in choreographing a good dance.

Matching Dance Moves to the Music

Matching dance moves to the music includes strategies and micro-choreography units for structured (motif), unstructured (taxim), and transition units:

  • Structured musical motifs: typically repeat two to four times, and the choreography for each “set” of motif repetitions should have some logical consistency; a common approach is to do a set of movements to one side, and then transition and do the same set to the other side (mirror image),
  • Unstructured phrase-based musical interludes, in taxims: at first, developing a dance interpretation to taxims seems unusual to Western ears, but as we learn to match our breathing to the musical phrases, a set of expressive movements can naturally emerge,
  • Transitions: these can take us from one motif to another, from structured (motif-based) music to unstructured and vice versa, and overall are essential to skilled dance; we’re developing numerous strategies.

By now, students should have their first CDs of music for at-home practice, various worksheets to play with for their own “music interpretation” studies, and other worksheets detailing music structure and/or choreography notes.

 

Autumn Lesson 4: Breaking Through Emotional Resistance

Autumn Lesson 4 in The Season of Cups: Moving Out of Stuck Situations

The primary focus of this ten-week series (from the Ace through the Ten of Cups) is on cultivating our internal energy and bringing it up our spines. The final stage of this series is actually the Ace of Cups, when we (supposedly) learn to “fountain” our energy around ourselves.

This is an important goal, both because being able to “fountain” our energy (actually, to do anything at all with our internal energy) is good, but also because this ability is a crucial predecessor to the really important energy exercises:

We will be doing the first two of these practices (Micro-Cosmic Orbit and Middle Pillar) over the winter, and the final one (Circulating the Body of Light) in the summer.

What we are doing now, though, is a structured energy practice that will lead us steadily to some of these more advanced exercises.

In the previous three weeks, we introduced the Season of Cups and basic exercises for this autumn quarter:

In this Autumn Week 4, we encounter emotional blocks that keep us from fully doing our energy work.

The Tarot Minor Arcana "Four of Cups" card describes the emotional process of opening up to new life experiences.
The Tarot Minor Arcana “Four of Cups” card describes the emotional process of opening up to new life experiences.

Learn more about the Tarot’s Minor Arcana Four of Cups.

The Four of Cups is a moment of stasis; we are so locked up in our present thoughts and conditions that we can’t open up to new “good energy” that is being offered to us.

 
 
 

http://bubbewisdom.com/2016/02/24/ida-and-pingala/
Three channels through which vital ch’i energy flow up the spine, the ida, pingala, and susuhmna, with their six “nadi” crossings.

When we studied the Two of Cups, we realized that we were being directed to examine the Ida/Pingala energy streams at the root of our spine. At the Three of Cups, we included the Sushumna primary energy column in our attention, and did the first “interweaving” or “crossing over” of the Ida/Pingala streams. We did this at an energy nexus point on our spines that connects directly to the second chakra in front.

(Recall our energy anatomy: there are six “nexus points” on the spine, each of which connects via nerve bundles to one of each of six nerve ganglia on our fronts. Each of these physical nerve ganglia bundles corresponds to a chakra area.)

Now, at the Four of Cups, we’re at the second crossing of the Ida/Pingala streams, which corresponds to the third nerve bundle on the spine and the third nerve ganglia grouping and chakra center on our fronts.

This third chakra occurs at our solar plexus. This is right where our upper diaphragm (the one separating our heart and our lungs from our abdominal organs) occurs.

When we are energetically and emotionally blocked or “stuck,” then our diaphragm is tight, and we have a rigid hold on the muscles in our upper abdominal area as well as our sternums. The result is that we have a tight and rigid dance.

In Unveiling: The Inner Journey, I describe how one of my master teachers, Anahid Sofian, corrected me and another leading dancer on precisely this matter.

Across the crowded floor, a series of young women swayed like seaweed in the ocean. Their eyes on the diminutive teacher, they followed Anahid Sofian in her graceful yet precise movements…

“Leah,” she called out to a dancer, “you need to release – right here.” She gestured to her own sternum. We were practicing upper body undulations, one of the most beautiful and sensual moves in Oriental dance. “And Alay’nya,” she turned, scrutinizing me, “you need to do the same.”

Both Leah and I were well beyond the beginner’s level. … Here we were, getting the same correction on one of the most basic moves. “What,” I wondered, “is going on with us?”

Suddenly it hit me; one of those “Aha!” moments. Leah and I both epitomized the “young-woman-on-her-own-in-the-world.” Having to make it on our own in essentially a man’s world, we had taken on the masculine attributes of body armor by using our muscles and ligaments! By stiffening our muscles, and holding them tightly, we created an impenetrable shield; we were “armored” against the world. What we were doing in our bodies reflected more the influence of Athena, Goddess of Intellect (as well as war; she is the ultimate Amazon), than Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. We were fully in our Amazon mode!

Releasing the muscles in our sternum took conscious attention from each of us. It did then, and it still does. The old tension patterns die hard. [from Unveiling: The Inner Journey, Chapter 14, “Locking Our Minds Out of Our Bodies,” pp. 189-190]

For many of us, as we go into the autumnal Season of Cups, our attention is not just on practicing technique. Rather, it becomes a quest to release those tensions and blockage patterns that keep the movement from flowing freely.

Here’s to your own “inner un-blocking”!

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

French-Patina-border-long-v1-jpg_crppd

P.S. Getting Your Own Copy of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Do you want to continue reading Chapter 14, from which the beginning was excerpted above? You can have your print copy of Unveiling overnight from Amazon, or a Kindle version within minutes.

 

Alay’nya, Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Paper

Kindle

 

French-Patina-border-long-v1-jpg_crppd

P.P.S. More Unveiling

A very important related section is in Chapter 9, “The Essence of Stillness.” I have a nice long extract posted on the Unveiling website. Go to the Resources page, and look for the extract about Esther. Also, you’ll have a chance to sign up for the Unveiling e-newsletter, and be given early information on:

  • Workshops: Whether my own, or those that I highly recommend (and will likely attend), be the among the first to know your options for putting your Unveiling studies into practice – topics will range from archetypal to dance to the “Fountain of Youth,”
  • Best-of-the-Best links and “insider info,“ which I custom-select, carefully edit, and share just with the Unveiling Community (free, but you must Opt-In using the Opt-In form on the website’s first page) and
  • Weekly updates – so that you won’t miss a thing!
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 to you make your dances more fluid and expressive as you add “water play” to 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!

From Dr. Nicole Cutts’ Amazon review of “Unveiling: The Inner Journey”: “I love, love, love this book! It is like the g*ddess mother, mentor I never had and always needed. Finally a book that just tells it like it is for women. It is well written, intelligent and enlightening. For any woman who wants to live a life of adventure,joy and love. It is rich with so much wisdom and grounded in thorough research, which I love! I can’t say enough about it. All I can say is read it if you are looking for something new to take you to the next level of womanhood.”

Autumn Lesson 3: Unifying Our Energies

Autumn Lesson 3 in The Season of Cups: Unifying Three Essential Types of Vital Energy

In autumn, we focus on cultivating our intrinsic vital energy, or ch’i. The suite of Cups (from the Minor Arcana) is associated with autumn, and with the metaphysical element of water. Thus, when we put our attention on Cups (water) energy, we are really seeking to develop our internal cup, or energy basin.

Stephen Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, identifies the second habit as: Begin with the end in mind.

Paper

Kindle

We previously saw a visual depiction of our goal: Being able to bring our energy up and have it “fountain” or “flow” down around us. We saw this in the classic Rider-Waite interpretation of this card.

Our desire to “fountain” our energy is a normal and natural one, especially once we gain some proficiency with energy work. I learned about this energetic practice from Medea, my first teacher in Oriental dance.

“Medea had studied yoga. Her lover was also her guru. He had, she explained, taught her to bring up her energy during love-making – and to give it to him! Then they broke up. What, she wondered, was she going to do with her energy, if she wasn’t going to give it over to a man? She finally figured it out. As she told us, ‘Instead of giving it to him, I’ve learned to bring it up, and then to “fountain” it back down and take it in again!'” [Unveiling: The Inner Journey, pp. 402-403]

In last week’s class, we got more specific. We began our energy-study in earnest, with an etude (study piece) cultivate the two vital energy streams that come up on either side of our primary energy pathway in our spine. That is, we focused on the Ida/Pingala energy channels. We saw these two energy channels symbolized by the picture for the Two of Cups.

In this Two of Cups picture set, we see a consistent theme – a man and a woman come together to share their energy.

In the central picture, we see that the man and the woman each are holding a cup, and are each extending their cup towards each other. We connect this to the first step of the Ida/Pingala energy raising. We note that the two persons seem just a bit tentative; this is their first experience of bringing their unique energies to “cross over” and join with the other. This is where Ida (left) and Pingala (right) cross over at the base of the spine, at the root chakra.

Now, “begin[ning] with the end in mind,” we take a look at the final card for the Suite of Cups. The Ten of Cups similarly shows a man and a woman, and again each holds a cup.

The big differences? Their wrists wrap around each other, and their cups are upraised. There is energy flowing into and out of their cups (the rainbow). The signs of “cups” are all about them; the union of these two energies has resulted in a happy, positive overflowing abundance – complete success!

This is our end-goal for our Ida/Pingala energy-raising exercise, and in fact, for the entire Autumn Quarter, when we focus on Cups.

Keep in mind that when we look at imagery such as this – strictly in terms of how these images represent steps and challenges (and overcoming challenges) in our personal growth and mastery – that each person or being represents an aspect of ourselves. In the pictures showing a man and a woman, they represent our masculine and feminine psychological poles, and/or our different energies – in this case, specifically the Ida/Pingala energy channels, or nadis.

In this context – of knowing our overall goal for the quarter – we look at the Three of Cups.

Images for the Three of Cups traditionally show three woman, often dancing together. The middle image here shows them bringing their cups (energies) towards each other, and intertwining their arms.

This brings to mind what we learned last week; the Ida and Pingala are on either side of the primary energy channel, the Sushumna. This week, we remind ourselves that our deeper goal is not just to bring energy up the Pingala and Ida channels, but also bring up our primary energy (up the Sushumna channel); this becomes a kundalini awakening – a very advanced step. In our classes, we focus on prerequisites – on the “beginner steps” towards this very advanced goal.

One of the most basic, and important, practices for energy cultivation is pranayama. We introduced a “baby pranayama” exercise together with energy raising in the etude that we have set to Rasa’s Gayatri Mantra. (Hereafter, for simplicity, we’ll refer to this as the Gayatri Mantra energy-raising etude, or simply the Gayatri Mantra etude.)

In this Gayatri Mantra etude, we do three things:

  • Bring energy up our spines, where we anchor (drop our body weight) and allow our hands to come up each time we “bring up our energy,”
  • Coordinate the energy-raising with specific mudras (hand gestures) and with vibrating the words that go with each mudra, and
  • Coordinate all of this with a simple (baby-level) pranayama breathing pattern.

This is only complicated until it’s not.

By the end of this quarter, we should be proficient with:

  • Bringing energy up to each of seven different chakra-levels (actually, six nadis on the spine and then our crown chakra),
  • Coordinating this with seven different mudras and their respective “intonations,” along with the ability to do some baby-level pranayama, and
  • Some awareness of our Ida/Pingala energy channels, which interweave about our spinal column.

Also, by the end of the quarter, we should be much better at:

  • “Containing” our energy in our pelvic “energy cauldron,” as opposed to spilling it out,
  • Minimizing “holes” in our “energy cauldron” (making it a “cauldron” and not a “sieve” or a “colander”), and
  • Protecting our energy boundaries (yes, “setting boundaries,”) so that we don’t unintentionally give away all this lovely energy that we’re cultivating.

The end result is that we should approach winter solstice with a strong, vibrant energy – ready to share at our discretion as we spend time connecting with friends, family, and colleagues. We should be energetically “insulated” against winter, and be strong for the next aspect of our inner journey.

Most of all, we should be feeling “juicy.” As in, downright fabulously “delish”! Here’s to a great autumn season for all of us!

Namaste! – Alay’nya

Filling Our "Energy Well" Using Oriental Dance

Filling Our “Energy Well” Using Circular, Rolling, and Snake Movements with the Chifti Telli Rhythm in Esoteric Belly Dance

Julia Cameron, in her book The Vein of Gold, talks about “filling the well.” She writes, “As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing.” (p. 21)

Paper
Vein of Gold

Paper
Walking in the World

Water: The Energy of the Season of Cups

As we move into Autumn, the Season of Cups, we shift both our dance and our life-focus. Summer was the Season of Rods, and dealt with fire energy. If we had progressed in our energy cultivation path well over the previous year, we had plenty of “energy to burn” by summer time – and that’s exactly what we did!

Now, though, with the heat of the summer waning, we are ready for something different. Our bodies – and our psyches – seek replenishment.

Energetic Anatomy

Because we are doing esoteric belly dance, or Oriental dance (belly dance) with an energy component, the idea of replenishment has very specific and practical meaning for us. We focus on drawing energy into our “energy reserve centers,” and to building and strengthening this energy.






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!

We respect your email privacy

Powered by AWeber Email Marketing Services

As a first step, we look at one aspect of our energy anatomy – the various energy channels that come up our spine.

In many of our energy exercises, we draw energy up our spine. Very often, we bring energy straight up our spinal column.

However, in this lesson, we pay attention to the fact that the energy currents up our spine are more complex.

Energy channels going up tNada, ida, pingala, & sushmna energy channels
Energy channels going up the spine: nada, ida, pingala, & sushmna

There are really three channels, or nadis (a Sanskrit term), as recognized in the yogic tradition. These are:

  • Pingala: The nadi carrying the “active” aspect or prana (this is our vital life-force, or ch’i)
  • Ida: The nadi carrying the “passive” aspect or apana
  • Sushumna: The nadi carrying the Kundalini energy

These energy channels have been recognized in our own Western medical tradition – in a very subliminal manner – for thousands of years. Specifically, the cadeceus – our emblem for the healing arts – is a stylized depiction of these energy channels.

The tantric tradition of kundalini yoga has been to awaken the energy flow through these nadis, culminating in a fully awakened and energy-vitalized state.

Relating Energetic Anatomy to Western Esoteric Tradition

In our studies, we use this time of year to “fill our well” energetically. In fact, we opened this quarter by giving attention to energy dancing with a water feeling.

Now that we’ve introduced our theme, we move from the overall feeling of water energy (the Ace of Cups) to the lesson in the Two of Cups. Margaret Wells, who has developed interpretations for the various Tarot cards, describes the Two of Cups as bringing forth “a moment of shared feeling.”

"Two of Cups," by Melvis
“Two of Cups,” by Melvis

Look closely at the imagery in this card, designed especially by Melvis, in a project organized by Margaret. See how the two cups are blending together? And they’re both receiving droplets of water.

This is what we’re doing. We’re bringing “droplets of energy” to both our prana (Pingala) and apana (Ida) origination and storage points at the base of our spine. This is the starting point for our exercise.

Practicum: Second Week of Autumn

Pingala/Ida Nadi Tracing

We will return in this week’s class to the Cabbalistic Cross exercise that we began last week, using the music Anahat (by Kairo by Night, on the Zaman CD).

We are going to use the opening phrases of this music (about a minute or so, before the “melodic line” kicks in) to trace the Pingala and Ida circulation lines up our spines. This acts as a reminder to ourselves that these two nadis play a role. Even though many of our other energy exercises will bring the energy straight up our spines, we acknowledge the different “currents” or nadis as we begin our practice.

Please note: The Cabbalistic Cross is not an “energy-building” or “energy circulation” exercise. Rather, it is the first step in aligning ourselves with certain “realms of consciousness” (Sephiroth in the Kabbalistic tradition), and is a preliminary to an “energy boundary” exercise, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. We are inserting the Pingala/Ida here – because it works – and we’ll insert it into other exercises/etudes as well. Keep in mind the distinction; energy-building or cultivation vs. energy circulation vs. protection/boundary-creation.

Other exercises for the Second Week of Autumn

  • Diaphragm stretches: We’ll begin paying more attention to each of our three diaphragms, allowing them to release, so we can bring in more air. This is an important precursor to learning undulations, both upper and lower body.
  • Circular Movements: Hip circles and rib cage circles help us to “feel out” the fullness of the energy basin that rests in our pelvic girdle.
  • Snake Arms: We’ll introduce some exercises that will help you move your arms and hands gracefully. These are necessary precursors to candle dancing, which is an optional study for Winter Solstice.

As always, we’ll do veil work – both in place, and moving across the floor.

Music/Rhythms

We will listen to and move with various chifti telli pieces, which are the focal rhythms for this quarter.

Principles

  • Lotus Flower: This is a Static Principle, and is the second one that we learn in our sequence. It is the natural corollary to the Anchoring Principle that we studied last week.
  • Expansion/Contraction: This is a Dynamic Principle that we’ll study in greater depth over time. We use the Expansion/Contraction method, combined with breathing (even a little pranayama) to fill our energy cauldron (the “basin” in our hip girdle, where we build and store intrinsic energy, or ch’i). This is a natural accompaniment to – and adds to the energetic value of – movements such as hip circles.

Using Unveiling: The Inner Journey as a Study Guide for Autumn Dance Classes

Textbook References

The following chapters in Unveiling are relevant to this week’s study:

  • Chapter 25, “Sex Secrets of Belly Dancers”: All you need to know (and more) about our various diaphragms. Also a write-up on why we do those horrible abdominal exercises during our warm-ups. (Strengthens our internal and external obliques.)
  • Chapter 22, “Looking Like a Dancer (Even If You’re Not)”: Includes a very brief description of the Anchoring Principle, which I learned from martial arts master Peter Ralston, along with a brief mention of the Lotus Flower Principle (which I simply call “reaching up” in the text).

Related Personal Pathworking Steps:

At the beginning of this post, I referenced author Julia Cameron, who talks about using images to feed our artistic souls. I build on her ideas in my recent book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey. (Look at the Personal Pathworking at the end of Chapter 3, “Bedtime Stories for Grown-Up Girls.”)

Paper

Kindle

Studying with Alay’nya

It is still possible to join us in the Alay’nya Studio in McLean, VA. Beginners meet on Sundays from 11:30 to 1PM. Learn about the Beginner’s Dance Package, and email me for an invitation to join us for a complimentary introductory class: alaynya (at) alaynya (dot) com.

Related Posts for Using Water Energy in Dance

Stretching Our Arms Upwards – How This Impacts Our Dance and Our Bodies

Stretching Our Arms Upwards – Surprising Health Benefits (Along with a Beautiful Dancer’s Pose!)

For the longest time, I’ve had this “gut feeling” that Oriental dance (belly dance) was for women the corollary to what the martial arts have traditionally been for men – a pathway for body/mind/psyche/energy integration. And just as T’ai Ch’i Chuan (“Grand Ultimate Fist”) is the premiere “internal” martial art, there is an analogue within Oriental dance.

One of the most important things about an “internal” art is that instead of superimposing the movements on ourselves, we generate them from inside. That means (despite the practice and study involved) that essentially the movements sort of “do themselves.” Minimal effort.

Of course, it takes years of practice so that we can do any moves with “minimal effort.” That, in fact, is one of the characteristics of a real master. But that’s also a subject for a different day.

Today’s subject is one that I’ve never heard addressed – in either martial arts or dance circles. (Doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t discussed this, just that I haven’t come across the discussion yet.)

The particular topic is: What happens when we raise our arms over our heads? What’s the psychological significance, or emotional meaning of this gesture? And how does it fit in with a “minimal effort” approach?

By way of comparison, when we do the opening moves in T’ai Ch’i, we drop our weight and let our arms rise up. This is natural and gentle. But our arms only raise up to about waist-level. So what goes on when we raise our arms over our heads? This is more than “minimal effort”!

Let’s look at the emotional language first. In the classic “belly dance pose,” the dancer has her arms raised over her head, wrists crossed, and palms flat against each other. This is, without question, one of most sensual poses in the dance. And it makes the dancer look gorgeous!

At an emotional-meaning level, though, what does this pose say? Is it just suggesting a little B&D? (For those who’ve been reading Fifty Shades, that might in itself prove exciting.) But really, when do we ever – in our normal lives – raise our arms over our heads?

Often, this is a moment of exultation. Think of the pose with the arms open and hands outstretched to the skies. It’s a “calling down the forces of nature” type of pose; a classic “strength” pose. It’s also a “hallelujah” pose – a moment of ecstasy.

This is a pose that is very exposed and vulnerable. Opening up our armpits and the tender flesh on the inside of our upper arms is not something we’d do if we were feeling threatened or insecure. Much as a cat or dog only rolls on its back and splays its paws (note the paw-splaying, this is more than just rolling on the back as a submissive gesture), this is only something done when the animal feels relaxed and safe, and actually rather joyful and happy.

When we dance, we connect with the Divine. This is a significant “connect with the Divine” gesture, and thus, we use it carefully and sparingly in our choreographies. This is the kind of move that we’d work towards in our dance, as a climax for a certain section of music.

How does this impact our bodies, though? This is really an important question, because when we are very “connected” during our dance – and our energy is really moving – then our audiences desire to experience what we’re experiencing; they want to map themselves onto us. So what we do in our bodies affects not only us, but our audience as well.

Many of us already know that certain leg stretches help stretch out the meridians in our legs, and are restful – this is why these “leg stretch” poses are good yoga moves to relax us before bed.

The “arms overhead” similarly stretches the meridians that go from the tips of our fingers to the core of our bodies, particularly those that go through our underarms.

From a description on the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) approach to understanding energy (ch’i) meridians:

The Small Intestine Meridian begins on the pinky, moves to the underside of the arm, up to the top of the shoulder blade, the neck, and ends on the front of the ear.

The Triple Heater Meridian begins on the ring finger, moves up the back of the arm to the side of the neck, goes around the ear and ends of the eyebrow.

Beginner’s Lesson 1: Warm-Ups, Energy Work, Techniques, & Choreography

Beginner’s Lesson 1: Introduction to Esoteric Belly Dance with the Alay’nya Studio

Warm-Ups, Energy Work (the Cabbalistic Cross), Energy Circulation (Introduction), Principles (Anchoring), Basic Techniques, Introduction to Music and Rhythm, Introduction to Choreography

This is a study guide and reference serving three groups:

  • active members of the Alay’nya Studio,
  • those who are visiting from out-of-town, or coming in for an “introductory visit,”
  • those who wish to study with us “at a distance” – you can be living in any portion of the world, from Athens, Greece to Athens, TN.

Look throughout this blogpost for homework assignments; follow the links and be prepared to use what you’ve studied with the online materials when you come to class!

Warm-Ups

We typically use the same warm-up music each time; Cuts 1 – 7 (all or in part) of Beyond the Sky, by Omar Farouk Tekbilek and Brian Keane. We’ll have the same warm-up pattern each time. You’ll get detailed handouts in class (“Warming Up with Alay’nya”) until you’ve built up a notes collection for the entire warm-up sequence.

Energy Boundaries: The Cabbalistic Cross

Our first step with energy work is to define our space. We do this by setting a boundary – circumscribing the area in which we will work. To do this, one of our mainstay “practices” is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. (Please note: All words within this ritual are to focus our attention on aspects or emanations of G*d, or to invoke the protective presence of the archangels.

In the first class, we will learn and practice a dance version of the Cabbalistic Cross, which is the first part of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP). The words that you will learn and vibrate are:

(Those of you who are steeped in the Christian tradition of reciting the Lord’s Prayer, or in the similar Jewish tradition, will note that these phrases are drawn from those prayers.)

Our music for this etude will ultimately be Anahat on Zaman by Kairo by Night.

Energy Circulation and Breath Control: Drawing Energy (Ch’i) Up Your Spine

In the Beginner’s Series, we develop a number of energy-circulation movement patterns (or etudes). Our first one helps us to bring energy up our spines. We bring it to each of seven different “energetic way-stations.” (Later on, we’ll learn how to connect these to chakras.)

Our music for this etude is the beautiful Gayatri Mantra on Saffron Blue by Rasa.

As you listen to this music (do so online), you’ll note that the word-sequence or change is repeated seven times. We’ll ultimately use all seven; each for a different energy center.

In preparation for the first class, listen to the music, and read along using the translation.

While doing this, we’ll use a series of mudras, which are hand gestures that help open our energy centers, circulate energy, and encourage certain mental/emotional states. Specifically, we’re going to use two mudras that open our two lower chakra areas. Note that the two sounds that we’ll use are LAM and VAM, with the two respective mudras.

As we do this etude, we will also incorporate a breathing pattern – a very simple aspect of pranayama. We use only a very simple three-part breathing pranayama for this etude. We will have a pause (or retention of breath) after each inhalation and exhalation. We’ll use the four phrases of the Gayatri Mantra to cue our inhalation, retention, exhalation, and pause.

First Principle: Anchoring

We take a Principles-based approach to learning the dance movements. Each Principle gives us a kinesthetic and internal-image “cue” or “trigger” that helps us to align or move our body in a certain way. There are seven basic, or Static (non-moving) Principles that we’ll seek to learn during the Beginner’s Introductory Classes. The first Principle that we’ll learn is Anchoring. This is discussed in Unveiling: The Inner Journey, in Chapter 22: “Looking Like a Dancer (Even If You’re Not).”

Techniques: Hip Drops and Hip Thrusts

When we use the first Principle of Anchoring to align our pelvis, then all our pelvic and hip techniques come about automatically. We simply “discover” that they are there, waiting to be used! Over the first several weeks of the Beginner’s Introductory Classes, we’ll learn an etude that lets us practice lots of different hip movement techniques, particularly hip thrusts and hip drops, together with transitions, step patterns, pelvic circles, and other moves. Our music for this will be The Magic in Your Eyes (Cut #1) on Hossam Ramzy’s Source of Fire.

Music Analysis

We will start our musical analysis with the opening portions of Hossam Ramzy’s Source of Fire. There will be a take-home worksheet for this.

Choreography

Dream Dancer

Time permitting, we will start two or three mini-choreographies. Specifically, we’ll focus on creating “choreographic units” – small sections that we can match onto a section of different pieces of music.

Cool-Down & Meditation

We’ll close the class with a cool-down section. We often use Beautiful Friend on Dream Dancer by Light Rain as a gentle and beautiful cool-down. This is something that we can develop later for arm and hand work, along with undulations and some turns and rhumba movements.

See you in class. Namaste – Alay’nya

"Return to the Goddess" by Suzanna del Vecchio – The "Challenge Dance" for Autumn 2012

Return to the Goddess (a Chifti Telli) by Suzanna del Vecchio – The “Challenge Dance” for Alay’nya Studio Members; Autumn, 2012

Challenge Dance for Alay’nya Studio Members: Autumn, 2012

Every quarter we select a different challenge dance: one that is sure to push us to our limits, both technically and artistically. Each challenge dance is one done by a world-class dancer, and available for all to watch via a YouTube clip or other (free) web-based source.

For the Autumn, 2012 quarter, we’re selecting Suzanna del Vecchio’s beautifully-rendered
Return to the Goddess from her DVD, Dances From the Heart. This is set to a beautiful chifti telli by Alan Bachman (Desert Wind).

The music for this dance is the Isis Chiftitelli, on Alan Bachman’s Kali Ma, and is one of the most-loved songs in the Oriental dance community.

Members of the Alay’nya Studio should begin by studying the portion of Suzanna’s dance that they can watch online, and practicing the first minute with her. (This would be up to the point where she starts circling the floor while doing a rib circle.

Be very careful about easing into your backbend. In our class, we’ll modify that aspect of choreography and defer it (for each student) until she can safely and confidently and comfortably do a backbend facing away from the audience (so that when she moves into the backbend itself, she’s looking “back” to see the audience and they can see her face.)

Alay’nya doing a backbend during Red Phoenix. Photo by Crystal Barnes. Used with permission.