I love my bellydance teacher Nanna's pearls of wisdom. Tuesdays are the nights I harvest my pearls. Tonight she talked about creating a routine in bite-sized chunks, staying calm and working with simple ideas. She also said (I'm paraphrasing) "find the places in your body that are calm and stay with them."
Some other Nanna pearls, talking about moving your hands into position consciously: "How you got there is part of why you're there." Another one, talking about visualizing planes of horizontal movement: "If you hold these things in your mind, they will happen in your hands." And another: "Look for opportunities to open your chest." She was talking about keeping an open posture in your upper body. Talking about holding different volumes of movement in mind: "move in your full dimension." So much about dance is also about projecting yourself into physical space with control and precision, and Nanna's advice comes back to me in stressful work situations all the time.
Read another professional dancer's rave review of Nanna as a dancer and teacher. This link has a link to Amira, where Nanna performs. Read a short article Nanna wrote about taking her troupe Tabu to an international dance festival in Beijing. This link also has a nice picture Nanna uses for promotion. Sign up for her Wednesday beginning (levels 1 & 2) bellydance classes at the Berkeley YW. Upstairs there at my links list of "Some Obsessions" also has a link to a nice photo of Nanna with her troupe in action.
