Writer Sarah Stefanson shares her personal experience with Bellyfit and how it helped her get on better terms with her body.
I have never been what one might call an active person. I grew up on a farm, so you can't blame the cushy life of a city kid. I played basketball and volleyball in high school...until I decided that my coach was a tyrant and it wasn't fun anymore. Over the years physical activity has not been one of my priorities. In fact, I spend most of my days completely sedentary in front of my computer writing and editing.
I've always been able to come up with an excuse to avoid exercising, but two months ago, the results of my inactive lifestyle were becoming hard to ignore. I had no energy although I slept 10 hours a night, I had frequent debilitating migraines, and, although my vegetarian diet is fairly healthy, I was noticing that my pants were becoming uncomfortably tight. Something had to be done.
An obsession with the television reality show So You Think You Can Dance was the impetus for my decision to pursue some kind of dance-related fitness class. Despite my brief career as a professional musician, I have a remarkable lack of rhythm and had little hope of ever moving as smoothly as the dancers on SYTYCD considering my balance issues and general lack of grace. Still I wanted to try something that would get my feet moving, provide some much needed cardio exercise, and hopefully be fun along the way. I Googled my way through all the dance classes in my modestly sized city until I came across an ad for a Bellyfit class. "High energy aerobics fused with belly dance, African dance, Bollywood and Bhangra. Pilates infused core and yoga infused stretch. Ancient wisdom meets modern fitness in one transformational hour," said the ad. "That sounds like something I can do," I thought.
A couple weeks later I gathered my running shoes (they were the same ones I used for high school basketball, which tells you how often I've had occasion to use them since then), my yoga mat, and a bottle of water and headed to the Irish dance school where the class took place. I was feeling nervous and insecure, knowing that I had zero dance skills and worried that the class environment would be intimidating.
I was greeted by the instructor, Kristina Bykowy. The appearance of her untamed red curls, ever-smiling round face, and her real, curvy body put me at ease a little right off the bat.
The first thing out of my mouth was, "I don't dance."
Her response was, "That's okay, because this isn't really a dance class. There are some dance steps, but it is more like an aerobics class that's influenced by dance."
The class began with a brief description of Bellyfit. Kristina explained that the class would start with a centering meditation, followed by a brief warm-up. Next, we'd go into two sets of cardio called Cardio A and Cardio B, respectively. After that, we would combine the two cardio sets together. Following the cardio would be a Pilates-like core session and a Yoga-inspired stretch. The class would finish with a closing meditation.
I had gone through my hippie phase in my teens and 20s and no longer put much stock in meditation and the mystical applications of Yoga and the like, but Kristina didn't appear to be overly New Age-y and I figured she'd go light on the 'aum'.
My suspicion was confirmed when Kristina instructed us to take a moment to "come out of our heads," forget whatever we'd been running around doing all day, and centre ourselves in our bodies. This was a hippie-speak level I could handle. Plus, I really did need to come out of my head and centre myself in my body. In fact, that was kind of the whole point of getting my ass moving and away from the computer. I could handle this. Some deep breathing, relaxing my muscles, and aligning my spine all seemed like perfectly reasonable things to do.
The warm-up started with a thrusting movement that my hips simply refused to do properly. "Western women aren't used to moving their hips this way," Kristina explained. I continued valiantly on despite my white girl hips (it was a little less intimidating once Kristina told us, "It's supposed to jiggle.") until she added the arm movement to accompany whatever was going on below my waist. Move my feet and my arms at the same time and on the beat? This was a tall order.
"We're working with levels here." Kristina reassured, "If you can't get the arms and legs moving together this time, just stick with the legs and try the arms later."
On to the cardio steps with names like Grapevine, Goddess Pulse, Hip Thrust, Belly Dance Shimmy, and Kick Back. Some of those sound fun, but nearly all of them were hard work for my out of shape body. Somehow I got through Cardio A. My face was beet red, my bangs soaked in sweat, and my legs were heavy.
"Okay," Kristina beamed, "That was Cardio A. Now on to Cardio B. Then there's just 24 more letters..." She had already told us that there were only three cardio sets, but her joke still made my heart catch in my throat for a second. I hungrily gulped some water and returned for Cardio B consisting of the V Step, African Knees, African Shimmy, and Bhangra Bounce.
Another water break and on to the combined A and B cardio set. I was not used to working this hard, but despite my exhaustion and lack of coordination, I was beginning to have fun. I put in more effort on the steps I enjoyed and aloofly brushed back my bangs when I couldn't get my arms to cooperate with my legs.
Moving into the cool down, I found myself looking forward to the Pilates and Yoga sections of the workout, since I had done both of these exercises before and wouldn't be learning totally from scratch as I had to with the cardio and dance. Most of the core and stretch exercises were familiar to me and some of the postures were identical to ones I'd practiced in the past, so these sets made up for some of the confidence I'd lost while flailing around trying to remember where to put my feet during the cardio.
By the time we did our closing meditation, which was again just a simple breathing and calming break with not too much granola-talk, I felt tired, but relaxed and like I had accomplished something.
I continued going to Bellyfit classes and found that I enjoyed myself every week, even on the slow days when I was the only student present. I got to know my instructor a little better and felt more comfortable. I learned the steps and was able to transition between them without a major orienting pause each time. I brokered an unspoken truce with my body, which had been horribly neglected of late. I encouraged my sister and girlfriends to come with me to class. I researched the history of Bellyfit and wrote an article about it and how it came to be.
I'm not becoming a Bellyfit disciple or anything, preaching the good word of all things Bellyfit, but it's something I enjoy doing that doesn't make me dread exercise as if it was a root canal. I'll never be a gym bunny or a marathon runner, but I might be able to keep myself moving with something as varied and fun as Bellyfit.