Unfortunately, with the promise of scantily clad days on the shore come the much- dreaded trips to the weighing scale and the frightful glances at the mirror when trying on my bikini. Every year at around this time I begin looking for those lose-weight quick schemes that’ll work in time for Bora. I think I’ve tried and tested more than I can count with my fingers and toes. Thank God I like sports and exercise or it would have been like creating a new circle in Dante’s literary Inferno. I’ve tried wall-climbing, aero-sport, street dance, cardio run … you name it, I’ve tried it!
This year I decided to move away from aerobics and hit the dance studio. I love to dance and over the years I’ve tried my hand at just about every dance class offered. I’m pretty well-versed in jazz, hip hop, ballet, flamenco, tango, waltz, and salsa so when I heard about belly dancing, the new class getting rave reviews everywhere, I decided to give it a shot.
Belly dancing is a fun, low impact sculpting class taught by Lala Ilao-Dinglasan at Baila Universal Dance and Fitness Studio in Alabang and at Fitness Escape in Greenhills. Being a southern gal myself I signed up at Baila and took my first belly dancing class a few weeks ago.
Belly dancing is really nothing new," Lala cheerfully explains. "It traces its roots back to ancient times from the Mediterranean and Arabian cultures. It’s often mistaken for being purely Egyptian in origin and while there are obvious Egyptian influences to it, it has quite a multi-cultural history. So, it’s been around for a while, it’s just new in the weight-loss circuit and dance sport arena."
Belly dancing is not just a seductive art of dance. Many women of ancient times believed it had practical properties as well. In fact, mothers used to teach their daughters the art of belly-dancing for easy birth giving. This helped them control the muscles in the abdomen and pelvic region and allowed them to relieve their pain during labor contractions.
"I think it’s only natural that belly dancing has been gaining popularity as a new form of dance that can help you lose weight," Lala relates. "The basic movements of the dance hit many women’s problem regions and help them tone those stubborn areas like the upper and lower abs, the butt, shoulders, arms, and legs."
A basic belly-dancing class begins with teaching students all the beginner movements that consist of swiveling the hips, rolling the tummy, and shaking the butt. A lot of people have the misconception that the class is only for the young and slim, but Lala says that belly-dancing is for all women regardless of age or body type. She’s even the living embodiment of this being several months pregnant and still teaching classes. "Any woman can take this class. It’s low impact enough for the older women or pregnant women, like myself, but still challenging enough for younger women looking for a good workout," she claims.
Another popular misconception is that belly dancing is all about wearing revealing clothing and long balloon-y skirts. "Actually, any gym clothes or comfortable clothing that allows you to move properly is good for belly dancing," Lala says. "It also helps if you wear a scarf or skirt on top of your clothes with little bells or coins that make sounds. The sounds help you and your teacher know if your movements are correct."
During the class Lala lent me a sparkly silver belt with coins and bells that fit snugly on my waist and made various sounds depending on my movements. Then I went through a series of different basic moves like hip-dropping, bicycle circles, Egyptian arms, body isolations, and hip shimmying (which is really difficult to do at a continuous fast past. You feel yourself using abdominal muscles that you didn’t know you had!) After going through the movements first slow and then up to tempo Lala combines all the moves you learned into a basic choreographed dance that everyone learns by the end of the lesson.
It’s fun and you can feel your muscles toning by using them in the various dance movements. From sashaying up and down and moving your arms and legs you expand and contract quite often during the lesson. More than that, you can’t help but feel sexy doing all the seductive dance movements.
"Belly-dancing allows women to feel sexy through dance," Lala says. "The moves really are centered around a rather seductive feel with lots of hip movements and belly rolling. Now whether or not the women go and take these steps to show their men is really up to them," the happy guru laughs. "It’s a good way to get to know the more sensuous side of you and acquaint yourself with it."
Lala shares that she stumbled upon belly dancing quite by accident but couldn’t be happier that she learned it. A natural dancer acclaimed in hip hop and cheerdancing, she went to the United States to hone her craft and came across a belly-dancing class taught by twin gurus Mina and Vina and decided to take the course. She fell in love with it instantly and thought of taking it back to Manila. She starts off now with the simple and basic beginners class but intends to introduce a faster paced class which she calls cardio belly-dancing later on in the year.
How do I feel about my chosen weight-loss program for the summer? I love it! Belly dancing is fun, pretty easy to learn, and hits all my weight problem areas. In addition, Lala is a wonderful teacher. She’s funny, nice, and patient and always knows how to motivate her students. Not to mention, I can’t help but feel the historic aspect of it all when we put together the costumes, movements, and music. Also, learning something new always gives you motivation to strive hard to become good at it. "I think dance is a great way to lose weight and stay in shape," Lala agrees. "Learning a new dance gives you a lot of motivation. Especially if you like it and are having fun, the weight loss just becomes an added sweet bonus."
And hey, bottom line, I think that anything that naturally makes women feel sexy is a plus in my book. After all, they say that the biggest part of actually being sexy is first feeling sexy in your own skin. And that is a feeling you can’t buy in any shop or get doing a thousand crunches in the gym!