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

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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:

Lumber area and your sacro-iliac joint,
Hip flexors, and
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?

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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I’ll Admit – I Cheated!

Cheating Our Way to Spring Body Fitness

I was down in the Diva Den (the dance studio+classroom+raw-foods kitchen) just now. After two days of being focused on the big Pathways event, and two follow-up R&R days, it was time to get back to the “spring body fitness regime.”

So I was downstairs early – perhaps 15 minutes early. I usually do my yoga/core/resistance/etc. while watching “Big Cats.” Nothing like having feline power and grace as inspiration, right?

Northern Chinese Leopard - photo courtesy Dan Wu — Northern Chinese Leopard – photo courtesy Dan Wei

This time, though, there were 15 minutes extra before the show started.

I scrolled through the options. Nothing interesting — but then there was the “Dancer Body” infomercial with something called the “Fluidity Bar.”

Now, I LOVE these fitness infomercials! From Zumba(TM) to “Insanity” to everything else, up to and including the “Fluidity.” I feel as though I can simply do what they’re doing in the infomercial, and get about the same benefit as having the DVD (and for zero cost).

This “Fluidity Bar” thing is one of my favs, though. And really, all that it is – is a portable, single-person-sized ballet barre. I mean, REALLY.

And do you know what?

Most of those “Fluidity” exercises? They can be done using the back of a chair for balance. No “ballet barre” (or “Fluidity Bar”) needed!

The back of a chair makes a good "ballet barre." — The back of a chair makes a good “ballet barre.”

So yeah, I cheated.

I got almost a complete “Fluidity” workout using the back of a thrift-store chair as my “barre.” No whipping out a credit card. (That’s one exercise I was happy to skip!)

And since I have a set of those chairs – and this really did feel effective and fun – I’m going to incorporate “barre” (“chair back”) exercises into our stretch/warm-up/technique-building routines. Starting with the Open House the Sunday after this one, Sunday, April 7th!

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

Very best wishes as you use Oriental dance (belly dance) as part of your own “spring training”!

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

How to Prepare for Your First Class in Belly Dance

Advance Preparation Makes All the Difference in Learning Oriental Dance (Belly Dance)

Darlings – I have a confession to make.

If you’re tracking this blog at all, you’ll know that we’re having our first Open House in over two years. For all practical purposes, I had closed the Alay’nya Studio while doing the final rewrites, edits, proofs, and publication of my most recent book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey. And then, a first year of guiding it through public introduction. Think of it has having a baby, where the last three months of “gestation time” that we need for a human child transferred into 2-3 years to bring Unveiling from raw draft to finished product.

Now, of course, it is not only available (in both trade paper and Kindle download form), Unveiling is actually the first required reading for people who want to study with me.

Obviously, though, this is a dance class. And I’m having to get my “dance groove” back on, just as you will when you join me. (Mark your calendar NOW for our Open House on Sunday, Sept. 9th, and contact me for directions and details.)

So I’m practicing. And in addition to the yoga, core, and conditioning basics, I’m back to practicing dance (and developing lesson plans, reworking choreographies and practice pieces, and all sorts of things necessary to launch a great season).

One of my favorite training DVDs is Kathryn Ferguson’s Mid-Eastern Dance: An Introduction to the Art of Belly Dance.

Years ago, this was my most significant instructional tape; then available only in VHS form. During a summer when my dance teachers took a break, I had just refinished my living room. This empty room beckoned as a new “dance studio.” The big challenge was: could I get myself to practice all on my own, without the structure and security of a dance class to guide me?

My next big question was: could I ever look like Kathryn?

I was entranced and inspired by her tape. What was most mesmerizing about her presentation was that after each (well-explained and well-demonstrated) technique section, she’d have a little vignette in which she used those techniques in an improvisational dance.

I wanted desperately to look like her, to dance like her. Even after finding my “master teachers” (Anahid Sofian and Elena Lentini; read about them in Unveiling), Kathryn remained an icon. And her VHS tape was always my reference standard for introductory teaching.

Now, I’m using her material again. This time, she’s (so thankfully!) released it as a two-volume DVD. You’ll have to contact her to get a copy; it’s not available through Amazon, and not even as a “store item” from her website. But contact her directly. (I may place a bulk order for the class, once everyone has registered for the first quarter.) The extra effort is worth it. This still remains, by far, one of the most fascinating, beautiful, and useful introductory DVDs to this beautiful and gracious art.

But my confession? Right now, I’m looking nowhere near the way that Kathryn does in her teaching DVD. Full circle. I’m back to being a student before I can be a teacher again.

Great exercise to help with knee strength

Dear Ones —

This Sunday’s (Oct. 19th, 2008) Parade magazine had a Special Report about Women’s Health by Claudia Wallis. She opens with:

“When I ripped a ligament in my knee on a ski-slope last winter, I had no idea that I was joining a limping sisterhood. A torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) ranks among the most common sports-related knee injuries. But women are five to sevn times as likely as men to sustain this kind of athletic damage.”

Ms. Wallis continues with an interview with Dr. Laura Tosi, director of the bone-health program at Children’s Natioanl Medical Cneter in Washington, DC. Dr. Tosi, and studies that Ms. Wallis has read, point out that “girls tend to run, jump, and turn with straighter legs and less bending at the knees and hips than boys.” This, and other factors, make us more susceptible to knee and other joint injuries.

Ms. Wallis is not alone in her experience of knee problems — I have them myself, and so do some of my students. (The older we get, the more likely we are to have this as a problem area.)

In fact, one of my favorite dance teachers, Anahid Sofian in New York City, started learning belly dance on the recommendation of her physical therapist. In doing modern dance, she had overworked her knees, and was in pain. She sought help from her doctors, who then prescribed physical therapy. Her therapist recommended belly dance as a therapeutic exercise. She tried it, became entranced by the art form, and from there went on to become one of the world’s leading choreographers and teachers in this area.

Fortunately for us, we can ALL use belly dance as a therapeutic exercise. The key ingredient that makes this work? We dance in a “bent-knee” posture. ALL of our movements involve keeping our knees just slightly bent. This means that:
1) We strengthen our thighs AND our abs (we need strong abs to make this work),
2) We lengthen our lower back, getting our pelvis to align straight with the floor — this helps a LOT to release lower back tension!, and
3) We strengthen the muscles around our knees.

Belly dance is an ancient, beautiful, and sensual women’s art form. It is very likely the oldest dance form on this planet, although other “native/folk” dances (e.g., Polynesian, African) could have started around the same time. Because belly dance is such an old art form, it is very aligned with how our bodies are naturally designed to move. (In contrast, more recent dance forms, such as ballet, are much more “artificial,” and can actually produce joint damage.)

Our bodies were naturally designed to have – and work best when – we are in a posture where our pelvis is aligned with the floor, our knees are slightly bent (this helps with pelvic alignment), and our spine and neck are “lengthened” so that the top of our heads reaches towards the sky. This is the posture that we practise and use in belly dance.

We think of this as having “soft knees” – knees are very slightly bend; not locked in place. This not only reduces pressure on the knee joint, but helps to mobilize our pelvis.

This pelvic-aligned, soft-knee, spine-lengthened posture helps us be more naturally graceful and beautiful. (Not to mention, it gives the immediate impression of losing ten pounds!) With this as a framework, we create elegant and sensual movements — all while being non-impact!

For those that would like to add a fun way to strengthen their bodies, and feel and look much better, belly dance would be a great exercise alternative!

Copyright (c) 2008, Alay’nya. All rights reserved.

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Breathing, Breakthroughs, and Belly Dance