Yesterday I went back to dance class for the first time in almost a year. I had been pretty excited about going throughout the day, right up until I parked the car and realized that I was entering the intermediate class. Was I ready for the challenge? Mentally? Spiritually? – yes. Desperately, even. Physically? – not so sure. Over the previous three years I had built myself up to ten studio hours a week, but being relatively inactive and recovering from a recent ankle sprain, doubt that I would be able to manage even one hour in an intermediate class seeped very quickly into my conscience.

I managed to make my way into the building, a mix of nervous energy. Down the stairs, around the corner, and forward, to the other side of the door-glass. I was in! As soon as I saw some of the familiar faces, my spiritual well filled completely up, but I still wasn’t confident in my ability to jump right in with the physical demand I knew was ahead. I shared that fear with some of the other girls, who rolled their eyes and promised I’d be fine.

Going back in the classroom after that long reprieve ended up being extremely refreshing. It was new and familiar at once. The mats and lockers were moved so I had to orient myself through that process while simultaneously figuring out how to write my check with the checkbook balanced on my hip. I also filled out a punch card, which I’d never done before. Everyone else seemed so casual as I hurried through these administrative tasks. When I looked around for a spot in the room, however, my old space was there waiting for me. Front, left. Relief and fear commingled once more as I placed myself between the mirror and the rest of the class. I tried not to look too closely in either direction.

Then Kandice started talking. To everyone. She is a teacher. She is organized, thorough, enlightening, enthusiastic, resourceful, and motivating. Everyone was quiet and attentive as she reviewed the semester’s activities, and as she spoke, each of us hoped with a first-grader’s frenzy to make eye contact with her: to weigh in with her what we hoped to see in ourselves. Because she is that kind of teacher.

Thus class begins. After announcements, we stretch gracefully and begin to count out the beats with our minds, bodies, and voices. I was relieved to recognize the routine, mentally and physically. I smiled and breathed and felt just right. And so my experience in the class revealed itself to me not as a lost student but as a returning student, and it revealed more than I had expected.

Aside from the rigorous physical conditioning for strength, endurance, and coordination, Moon Belly classes offer a uniquely fulfilling experience. It’s a hike through an internal mountain range. A hymn sung of the female soul. A circle of heat and motion that feeds on itself but requires each dancer’s individual attention such as we, the dancers, had sought in that glimpse of Kandice’s introductory eye.

My favorite thing about Kandice as an instructor is that she honors the sacredness that we seek in bringing our selves to the class(es) each week, but she also welcomes the profane motives that we cannot shed when we show up there either. Fortunately, Moon Belly studio is the most accepting and freeing environment and it truly reciprocates by design to those who chose to participate. It represents the dance and the dancer and offers every woman her own space. We are free to honor whatever aspect of ourselves brought us to the studio and fear no judgment. Some wish to perform, some hope to awaken some sensual part of themselves, some come to find out what their friend has been going on about, and some simply come because, really, who wants to go to a step class when there’s belly dance in our midst?

Kandice continued to facilitate the training, directing us in the drills. When possible, I would close my eyes, find my way through the music, the flow of the class, so as to distract myself from the struggle I was having with my body to perform the way I wanted. When necessary, I would drop the drill and loosen my tense stance for a quick two or three or four steps of infectious boogaloo, then it’s right back into formation.

I was amazed to find myself keeping up, for the most part, with the rest of the class. My legs hadn’t gone out from under me as I’d feared after the warm-up had left me shaking uncontrollably. In reality, I became enraptured by the rhythm and the consciousness of my body’s reawakening. These two things created an ethereal sensuality that continued to build during that one hour.

Since I was a kid, I’ve always invested my energy in some kind of physical training. Gymnastics, aerobics, yoga, step, salsa, swing, etc. I even tried to teach a few of those. Once, in a yoga exercise manual, I came across an explanation that movement of any kind is both dependent upon and limited by the gravitational pull of objects in our universe. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Without gravity, we are completely unstable, but as gravity increases, our mobility becomes more limited. As that idea grew, I came to understand movement, dance especially, as a flaunting of the human spirit conducted between the positive and negative charge of the earth and moon and all other celestial bodies. While we get pulled in a myriad of directions, the consummate hold of these various forces is ultimately and ironically what determines our mobility. Dancers both celebrate and challenge the claim that the universe naturally has on our bodies, often beautifully. Through dance we recognize as both liberating and pre-defined the individual freedom available within these universal parameters and their cyclical rhythms. The beauty of movement, it can be said, is thus prescribed by the edge and arc of the moon’s loving sword.

But Moon Belly doesn’t take on such a concept of terms, necessarily. I just think about things way too much sometimes. At the ground level, Moon Belly Dance Studio is a functional facility for body conditioning. Within that there is an awakening of spirit that happens to be uniquely female. Dance comes individually or as part of another layer in the Moon Belly experience, depending on the individual dancer’s premise. Because the focus of most of the primary classes is conditioning and internalization of the muscular control of movement, it is hard to explain to people that most of the time spent in class is not dedicated at all to dance. Sometimes I have been critical of that myself. Such as, we’re in a dance class, so why aren’t we busting some moves here? You see, I love to dance. I want to let my freak flag fly when I am drawn in by a heavy rhythm. But when in the studio, there is a discipline of form, a consciousness of rhythm, and an internal awareness that supersedes my personal desires to break completely free. BUT, when I do dance on my own now, my whole body dutifully, often graciously, assumes the task and is guided by the discipline my body has come instinctively to process. Dance, therefore, can be seen as the reward rather than the method of Moon Belly. And because of those methods, I am able to be more creative with my own movement. I see this as a sign of success in any course of instruction, which brings me again to say, Kandice is that kind of teacher.

Namaste. I can’t wait to go back.

Written by Jeni Polacek