Ok, so usually there’d be some sort of Beauty Blog post here, and I feel bad about not writing one since I also didn’t do one before I left last week, but there’s no way I can wait until Monday to write about this. Next week will be crazy too, so Beauty Blogging for Belly Dancers will resume on Friday, March 28th.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about 8 Elements! As you might have guessed from the title, this is going to be a long post, so you might want to grab yourself a drink and a snack. We’re going to be here for a bit. If you don’t have time, here’s the short version: OMG SQUEEE it was AMAZING and I am SO GLAD that I did it and I CAN’T WAIT to return someday for Level 2: Cultivation!
Now let’s get down to the long version, for those of you who want the nitty-gritty details. By the way, this post will only be about the 8 Elements intensive itself. If you want to know my thoughts about the city of Portland, those will be coming on Monday.
I signed up for 8 Elements because I was at a point in my dance career where I needed a challenge. Without a teacher/troupe director challenging me, without a professional troupe to strive to someday join, I was kind of floating around with small, short-term goals of putting together a decent solo for the next hafla. I found that I was not just stagnating, but actually losing skill and losing confidence in myself as a dancer. I had a few friends on-line who were going through the 8 Elements process and it seemed like especially as they got to levels II and III that there was a lot of work to be done, a lot of goals to reach for. Plus I still have the idea that I would like to teach someday, and some places like you to have some sort of certification that says you know what the heck you’re doing, so it seemed like something good to have for the future.
As the intensive got closer, I started to worry. Mainly I was worried about my yoga skills, because while I take some yoga classes, I’m not super into yoga and here’s a secret: I do not like down dog. I was also worried I might have to know the Sanskrit names of all the poses, because they were in the book we were assigned as a reference. Plus I was worried about the test at the end, because as a homeschool student I never really learned much about note-taking, studying, and test-taking. Lastly, I was worried about spending most of my time alone, because I was traveling alone and wasn’t close friends with anyone else attending.
All of these worries proved to be for naught, and everything was awesome.
Initiation really is all about well, initiating you into the program’s specific approach to belly dance training and presentation. The yoga and pilates elements are introduced to teach you how to train and maintain the muscles and joints used in belly dance, and the expectation is to have a functional knowledge of how to have a safe yoga practice, not to be spiritually enlightened and 100% into yoga. More importantly, the focus is on honoring YOUR body and your limitations from day-to-day, so Rachel provided variations, or options for what to do if you were just not at all able to tackle something on a given day.
And this seems like a good time to bring up the pace of the intensive. With 7 hours of class time plus a couple of evening events, I was worried about being constantly exhausted. But the point of Initiation isn’t to drill yourself to death, the point is to learn. The day was divided into an early and late session, with an hour-long lunch break in between (and because there’s lots within walking distance of the Nia studio, an hour was plenty of time to go someplace, eat, and come back). Each session starts with a seated circle and a discussion period, where we’d find out about logistics of the course itself (when and where things were, what was required for testing, etc), and then have some educational chatter about our homework and concepts that would be covered that day. There was plenty of time for Q&A, too.
Once we were actually up and moving, exercises progressed at a building pace. Start out nice and slow so you can catch mistake in time to correct them, and learn how it feels in your body, then steadily ramp up until you’re going so fast you can barely keep up. Each day, we’d go back and briefly review what we did the day before, and maybe build on it by adding a layer, or maybe just drill it. The goal was to know things well enough that we can take them home and keep practicing, so we can be proficient in them by the time we go to Cultivation, for those of us who are choosing to continue training.
Because of this, while I got a little tired and sore, I didn’t feel entirely exhausted and wrung-out, so I was able to go home each night and do my homework, then get up the next day and do it all over again.
Speaking of homework, the amount assigned was pretty reasonable, so it was possible to do my assigned homework and then read back over anything we’d gone over during the day that I felt uncertain of.
On Monday night, we had an extra couple hours in the evening for Costume Cafe, where Rachel talked about the evolution of tribal fusion costuming and belly dance, and how to come up with inspiration for your own costumes, and a tiny bit about construction. She brought some of her costumes for us to look at and talked about how she sourced some of the materials and such. It was really educational and inspiring!
Wednesday was testing, and they really did their best to put everyone at ease for it. We were given a practice exam on Tuesday so we could get an idea of what sort of questions to expect, and use it to brush up on our knowledge. Wednesday’s session ended with a restorative yoga practice (this was the only day we had a yoga cool-down, which surprised me, I expected like a TON of yoga) that ended with a calming guided meditation. Once we moved into the testing room, Rachel, Sol (her partner in life and business) and Brittany (their assistant for 8 Elements, together with Sol she handles the non-dance-class logistics of the event to keep it running smoothly) came in and gave us a pep-talk and explained how the testing would work. They had a really upbeat and friendly attitude. Throughout the week the test was referred to as a “Jamboree” to try to make it less scary, which amused me.
The test – or jamboree, if you prefer – was not too difficult. There were a couple of questions I felt unsure on, where I knew I had learned it in class and studied it but the concepts just didn’t stick in my mind, but for the most part I felt confident about my knowledge and opinions and ability to express them. I will say, we were told there would be a mix of multiple choice and written questions, but they ended up being all written.
I’ll find out in a week if I passed. I’m pretty sure that I will, but if I didn’t, I can make arrangements to re-test.
After the test we had some time to refuel (hello, Voodoo Donuts located on the way to the bus stop!) and then it was time for the HAFLA! This was a hafla in the traditional sense, a come-as-you-are dance party, rather than a structured performance opportunity. Some came in costume and some in street clothes and some in our workshop clothes, and everybody got a chance to have their moment in the center of the circle on the dance floor before it turned into a free-for-all. While the classes had been held at Nia Studio downtown, the hafla was in Datura itself (where I snapped the photo at the top of this post), so we all had the chance to see the studio and shop the merch (which we descended on like a swarm of locusts, if locusts liked hoodies and kuchi). There were drinks and snacks, and spots away from the dance floor where you could snatch a few minutes of conversation with your new friends before you went home.
Speaking of friends, remember the part where I thought I’d be alone? Yeah, that didn’t happen! The first day there I connected with Sabien, who had friended me on Facebook sometime before the event. We hit it off and ate lunch together every day, had a study date before Sunday’s session, and did some shopping and dinners together. She was also chatting with me on FB while I wrote this post. I’m not sure I’ve ever formed such a close friendship so quickly! We also did a few exercises in class where the idea was to pair up with someone you didn’t know, and I made some friends that way, too. Plus it turned out that there were at least 5 of us there who love the music of Nick Cave (it was funny, two of us were talking and other people would hear the conversation and chime in). I feel like I have a brand new community of friends, a subset of my greater dance community, joined together by the 5 days we spent learning and dancing with each other.
A couple other points I wanted to mention but didn’t manage to fit in to the natural flow of things:
-There were SNACKS every day! A bowl of fresh fruit, and a bowl of almonds, and a bowl of raisins (which for one beautiful day, magically transformed into a bowl of chocolate chips), all right there on a table in the studio, so that if you felt like you were having a blood sugar crash, you could grab a bite while still watching the class and not miss anything.
-Rachel spent a lot of time talking about things she’d learned along the way as a dancer, including new things she’d learned and changed her mind about even within the past year. It’s always really refreshing to see that people who have “made it” are still willing to learn, and admit that they were wrong or misinformed in the past. Plus it’s inspiring to know that there is always more to learn and know about belly dance.
-The music was REALLY good, a mix of “authentic” music from “over there” (I learned I really like Moroccan music!), world fusion-y music and electronica, so there was something for everyone.
-Oh hey I forgot to talk about ZILS! I feel a lot better about my finger cymbal skills after spending 5 straight days learning and drilling rhythms and doing exercises and playing zils over different foot-arm-isolation patterns. I already knew I liked Rachel’s approach to zil training from her How to Be a Zil-Ionaire class on Datura Online, but it was an even better experience in person, since she was there to answer questions and offer corrections.
-Rachel, Sol and Brittany are all just wonderful people, they were great at answering questions, and ran a really well put-together, organized, smooth event that was a joy to be a part of.
So to recap, this was pretty much the best 5 days of my life and I am really struggling to return to daily life! Being immersed in dance and surrounded by dancers is an amazing experience, and something I wish I could do all the time.