Eleven Reasons You Need To Be Bellydancing Right Now

1) First of all, the costumes. Long full skirts and silky pantaloons and choli tops and bindis and falls and bracelets and tassels and coin bras and beads and jewels and headdresses and scarves and flowers and saris and belts. Nothing here is timelessly classic or clean and understated. Nothing is neutral. It’s all about being wild and gorgeous and AWESOME. If you are a person who wears, like, a lot of Banana Republic or J. Crew you may want to consider the side of you that secretly wants to wear big loud beautiful clothing. Do you like to feel like a princess but have to wear business casual for work? Tribal style costuming can be an excellent outlet for you too. Maybe you will realize that you are only truly comfortable in your dance clothes, that you were born to wear this sort of stuff. What will you do then?

2) The dance itself is challenging enough to make you use your whole brain when you do it but as you learn it the vocabulary becomes sort of ingrained in your body and you don’t have to think about it as much and can concentrate on being badass. At least that’s what some of the more experienced dancers tell me. I am not quite there yet, but I can tell you from experience that it’s really cool to use your whole brain on something that isn’t about corporate accounts or maximizing client effectability or whatever the hell. Last night I was trying to work a double Tunisian and I just couldn’t get it and I was starting to sweat and get frustrated but I just didn’t care because I was thinking from the neck down for a change. I have to admit that I didn’t quite get the whole move (the arms are really hard) but I don’t care because I felt smart even though I didn’t get it completely right.

3) And you’ll get really nice abs from dancing, too. I know you would never just show your belly to anyone who asked, but you’d be perfectly within your rights to do so.

4) If you have some body issues, you know, like everyone else then bellydance is totally the dance for you. At first you may feel shy about showing your belly in class. You may think you are not as young as you used to be and that maybe everyone else in your class will be young and supple and thin and that they will already know all the moves. And it’s true, a couple of the other women in your class will be like that. But that’s okay because most likely they will help you with a step if you are feeling lost and will be friendly and nice. People in bellydance classes tend to be. Anyway, everyone else is not going to be skinny and totally toned and 22 and perfect. People are going to have bellies and hips and wrinkles and gray hair sometimes and they’re going to be confused about how to get their bodies to move like that as well. But the best thing is that you’re going to see all sorts of bodies doing all sorts of crazy things and then one day your teacher will say “Really work those hips!” and you will look at your hips in the mirror as they are really working themselves and you’ll think, “Damn, I look pretty good!” and the more you go to class and the more you see all these different bodies looking pretty good, the more that part of you that keeps nattering in your ear about how you are totally worthless because you ate some pound cake the other day or because you’ll never be really truly thin will just have to shut up for a couple of minutes. If you keep dancing…I am convinced of this, by the way…that voice may shut up for days at a time.

5) And just as an aside, let’s say that you are a girl in a relationship with a boy. (Um, actually, I’m assuming you’re a girl reading this…boys, I don’t know about y’all bellydancing but I am willing to keep an open mind). You’ll come home from class in the evening and be all amped up and running around going “Baby, look what we did in class today! Okay, watch!” And then you’ll show him your snake arms or your traveling maya and your isolation will be amazing and y ou’ll be getting your hands just right and this boy will get a gleam in his eye and he will go, “Baby, come here so I can, uh, inspect your technique a little closer” but what he really means is “so I can GET WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE HOT” and that’s a mighty fine scenario for all involved, yes? Yes it is.

6) And if you’re a girl in a relationship with a girl maybe you can take class together and you can practice at home together and you’ll be all “Baby, what should I do about this hip twist I just can’t get right?” and she will get a little gleam in her eye and she will come over to you and say something like, “Okay, baby, what you want to do is move your hips like this” and she’ll put her hands on your hips, you know, to show you how to do it right, but what she’s really doing is trying to GET WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE HOT and that will be awesome. Especially if you can do a belly roll. Also, if you are dating another bellydancer, and I just thought of this right now, maybe you can share costumes, which will be great because it’s not like all those skirts and mirror belts are cheap or anything.

7) I don’t know anything about dating anymore and I haven’t tried this myself but maybe it’s possible that if you met someone you liked and you were casually talking to that person and you just sort of mentioned that you’d been bellydancing for a while, maybe that person would get a gleam in his or her eye, and the GETTING WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE HOT would commence. You have to make sure that this person you like, however, doesn’t have weird notions about bellydancers or anything and doesn’t think you’re wanting him or her to stick dollar bills in your bra or anything. I mean, that’s fine if that’s what you’re into, but that’s your business.

8) If you have a horrible temp job where you have to do a lot of copying you can practice your belly rolls while you’re standing at the copy machine and that may make the time pass a little faster. Just try to be discreet.

9) And now you totally have something to say at boring parties where you don’t know a lot of people and people are coming up to you all, “So what do you do?” Now instead of blatting something about how you’re a clinical social worker on a psychology research grant working with a disability population blah bliddy bloo, you can just go, “Yeah, I’m a clinical social worker but that’s just to fund my bellydance habit” and then the person will be amazed and maybe you can have a more interesting conversation from then on in because, really, who cares what you do for money, you know?

10) If you are sad because you’ve made a lot of changes in your life recently and you’re not quite sure where they’re all going and you find yourself second-guessing decisions you’ve made in the recent past and also you notice that you are completely covered in bruises because you’ve been doing a lot of heavy lifting and cheap furniture construction, then you can go to bellydance class even if you’re really tired and even though you don’t always feel like going, and you’ll feel immediately better. It is cheaper than therapy and gets your heart rate up and you get to wear jingly things and you come home exhausted but not in that sad heart-rending nothing-matters way, but in a good I-just-got-my-ass-kicked-and-liked-it way.

11) Also, after you’ve been dancing for a while you will be in your car listening to the radio and a song from the new Beastie Boys album and you will sort of rock out to it in the car and as you are rocking out you will start to think of dance moves that go with the beat and you will have the amazing idea that maybe you could go out dancing and incorporate tribal stuff into your regular dance floor routine. That will rule, assuming you ever do go out dancing. This means that you’re not just a dancer once a week for an hour and half, but 24/7, wherever you go.