Today’s guest post for Just Move Mondays is from Jennifer, who is, apparently, Fat and Not Afraid!
Enjoy!
Hi there! I’m Jennifer from over at www.fatandnotafraid.viviti.com. I’ve been meaning to write a guest-post for the fabulous Zaftig Chicks for a couple of months now but alas, teacher’s college has been getting in the way. Today, however, I needed a personal day so I took it. This isn’t something I do too often, so I really made the most of it. I did NOTHING. Lol Well, nothing but write for ZC but that’s something, so it doesn’t count. You can learn more about me, if you want to, in the About Me section of my website. Onwards with the post!
About a year and a half ago I discovered bellydancing. This was about 4 months after I discovered the Fatosphere through a close friend. I had been having a very difficult time with my body and was at a time when my health wasn’t very good, especially emotionally. Through a different friend, who had been the doula* for my son’s birth, I learned that she was going to be starting up bellydance classes and she thought it might help me to go. Katie, doula and dancer, is a very voluptuous woman but I didn’t doubt for a second that she could dance; she was so full of life and energy the minute you met her you knew she was extraordinary. After some debate I decided to go, and a couple of friends signed up with me. (Yes, I’m lucky to have lots of good friends! I was also lucky that my mom paid for the classes or I wouldn’t have been able to afford it.)
The first night I remember clearly; the studio walls were a light crème colour and there was fun drum music coming from an Ipod setup on a window sill. There were no mirrors, just curtained windows along one wall and two at the front that looked out over the street below. It was warm, being early May, but not so much we couldn’t be comfortable. There were a lot of different bodies as well, everything from very slim to very large and everything in between, including myself. I remember being so angry at myself, at my body, and not sure if I could do it, but as soon as Katie started us in a warmup, it fell away. We stretched and started dancing; hip lifts and shimmies to start but it was a good start. I forgot, for a time, that I was angry and betrayed, I forgot that I was clumsy and couldn’t dance, I didn’t care that there were women around me who were thinner or fatter or anything. We all just concentrated on moving our muscles and dancing and that was enough.
Katie made a point of telling us about the history of the dance, how it started as a dance for women by women and that your body’s size doesn’t matter; in fact, some moves look better if you have fat to emphasize what your muscles are doing. Our instructor had a body like that and she laughed about it and we laughed with her. She was happy with her body, at peace. Through the next 6 weeks I allowed myself to try that, to try to dance, to try to be graceful and sensual and powerful and all of these things I felt I lacked, or had been taken from me, because of my body. We reached a truce and by the end of the classes most of us felt confident enough to dance in a summer festival with Katie. We had been working on a simple routine and I’m happy to say that I was there and did my best, while my husband and son watched from the sidelines. It was a new beginning for us and I’m grateful to this day to have had the opportunity to try.
Danicin' Jennifer!
The fabulous Katie, my son and hubby
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