Reading back over previous posts, I notice a theme. Control of the body. I won't get started on the encyclopedia we could all write about issues related to control of the body. I won't even narrow it down to issues related to control of my body--none of those issues are happy.

I only want to write about my control of my body, which I hope will exist someday.

I only want to write about my current non-ability to dance, and the obstacles to developing ability. The obstacles are about control.

We see from watching successful bellydancers that they beautifully control the motion of their bodies. To analyze the different ways is to separate them and then not do them justice. But let's try.

Isolations. Conspicuous and awe-inspiring. Defining of the form because recognizable. Really, really hard to do. When I took up bellydance as a young adult (old teen?) in the seventies (must've been old teen if it was that long ago) I was unusally good at isolations. Now I can barely move my parts at all, even in normal ways. What can I say, it was a tough decade. It's been a tough marriage, in terms of my health. There've been, as we say, up and downs.  :-) I'm working on a few isolations. It's a game of millimeters.

Undulations. How beautiful is a belly roll? I could do it once. I can sort of do it. You know how I learned? Deep focus, deep deep focus and hours of meticulous attention. I no longer have focus or attention. More about that later.

Shimmies, flutters, and vibrations. Wow. Maybe someday. I have never been able to do this, but I have come to believe I can master anything if I ask God to help me, dedicate the time and focus, and disregard all the perfectly valid reasons why I'll never be able to do it.

Stamina. Can we talk about how hard it is to assume a bellydancing stance? It used to be easy. Here's what really happened in a 24-hour Nautilus in San Francisco in about 1988. There I was, with my knees slightly bent and my weight on toes but my heels were still on the floor, and my butt was tucked under and my chest was lifted and my back was straight and my arms were relaxed and I had some small weights in my hands because I was about to do some curls. Easy, right? I was an actor then; posture was easy. "How do you do that?" said the jaw-dropped buff guy who was lifting heavy, heavy, heavy items repeatedly. "Do what?" I hadn't done anything yet. "Stand that way?" "What way?" So began one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me in that weird place, and I've never forgotten it. The guy could not stand there with no weights, with his knees slightly bent. True, my center of gravity was low and his was high. His center of gravity was REALLY heavy because he was a built-up weightlifter. I was a strapping hearty girl, but I had nothing like the weight he had to lift, just by standing upright. To me, standing in the bellydance resting position, not even deeply, was something I could do all day and base a number of movements upon. He was shuddering like a winter Dodge within seconds. He could do it AT ALL. Recovering my ability to stand that way is goal one. I can do it for a short time. I'm more top-heavy now. I have the middle aged characteristics of large, fleshy breasts and heavy, fleshy arms and shoulders and I even have, I have no idea how it got that way, a heavy, fleshy back. I'm as disproportionate in that way as a male weight lifter, but I do not have muscles. This is inert, not active flesh pressing my body down into the ground like a quilt made of stitched-together medicine balls. I have a pinched nerve on the bottom of one foot that is gradually resolving. WebMD says this happens when women wear high heels WHICH I DON"T!!! so unfair! And I carefully manage a pinched nerve in my back that gives me hip pain, and it may or may not have healed. And I got a pinched nerve in my neck from studying too much in the same day, and I have two knees in recovery from various excesses. All this to say, my legitimate, medically-justifiable and generally way fun attempts to be fit-and-healthy since my son was born at age 45 (C-section, but that was EASY compared to the joint issues) has generally caused me increasing levels of damage that take increasingly long periods of time to come back from, without actually building muscle or losing fat. Stamina. I have mental stamina. I have to use it to stand up for more than ten minutes without re-injuring myself. Stamina.

Endurance. This is related to stamina. I feel that stamina gives me the ability to go from standing correctly to moving correctly, and endurance gives me the ability to move for a long time. In order to dance at all I have to move, not just train to hold a pose. But one step at a time. If I can regain the ability to stay in the resting position without collapsing with exhaustion, pinching a nerve, or pulling a muscle, then I can regain the ability to do rest while moving my eyes, head, or arms in a controlled and graceful fashion. In a separate but related story, I can regain the ability to do the Egyptian travelling step.

Combinations. This brings me to combinations. Can I walk and chew gum at the same time? Not currently. But if I get really good at both I might be able to do them both at once.

Routines. I took a dance class once. I could never remember more than four beats of moves--and I'm really smart people! But I'm smart sitting down, with a book or a laptop. I'm a textbook case of book smart. I'm not body smart. I can't switch a move from one side to the other without forgetting it. I can't follow the teacher's example. I can't follow a yoga DVD without keeping my eyes trained on the paused screen, which means I can't do poses that require a different head position or a movement. In short, I was terrible at dance class. I once danced well at a club, when no one was watching, by slipping out onto the curb where it was cooler and no one was paying attention to me. I had at one time been known for sneaking into the lobby at church so I could dance to the worship music. What made me "successful"--if by success you mean I could express the music gracefully-- was that I wasn't trying to do what I was "supposed" to do.

I have had varied success throughout life controlling my body in these ways, but I have lost the abilities through age, immobility, and the injuries that resulted from attempting to combat age and immobility through prescribed channels. I would like to reassert control over my body in these particular ways. The bar is very high. What fun is a realistic goal? I never work on those, because they bore me. I have achieved unrealistic goals in the past, becasue they aren't boring. The realistic goal is the one you'll work on.

Related to control of the body is control of the mind. I started meditating. It's not going well. More about that later.