Post-Teaching Thoughts

Here's how the dance that taught me to improvise also taught me how to teach.

Two weeks ago, my friend, Mark Bissel of Seraphim Dance, asked me to sub for his class for one Saturday. I retired from teaching FCBD-style ATS nearly a decade ago after struggling to build a regular student base and eventually becoming disillusioned.

Mark is an accomplished dancer and a familiar face in the Southern California belly dance community, having performed throughout the region and organized the Renaissance Faire Middle East stage for years. So I wasn't surprised to see his classes thriving.

The class that I needed to sub was week three of Level 1. I'd attended the first two sessions and noticed regulars (five to six people). So, I'd expect the same regulars to come to the class I was subbing, and we could review the previous moves and add more fast steps and slow moves to vocabulary (we were supposed to learn Forward Back Shimmy with half and quarter turns, and Propeller, Corkscrew, and Reverse turns).

Lo and behold, only three people showed up. The first two were practically complete beginners in FatChanceBellyDance ATS, one of them actually stayed after the earlier Zumba class. The third one who came a bit late was a more experienced dancer who's been taking Mark's class regularly. 

I knew I wouldn't be able to review the previous steps and moves from the previous two classes. I'd overload the newcomers with information, and they wouldn't be able to actually just enjoy a dance class. 

I panicked. 

I'd done a run-through of the lesson plan the night before. I'd rehearsed it and felt good about it. 

But then I remembered: ATS is all about improv. Why shouldn't that include being flexible when it comes to teaching and rolling with the punches? 

I pulled from my experience teaching non-ATS bellydance classes at gyms, and I told myself I could do this. 

In the first 10 minutes, we focused on posture and slow moves that I consider essential: Taxeem, Floreo, and Arm Undulation. 

Posture (and dance angle) is important because this is the foundation of belly dance, and most importantly ATS. Having the correct ATS posture minimizes the risk of injury and reveals the secret of maximizing the range of movement (the softer your knees, the bigger your Taxeem and Bodywave). 

After the students were able to get the hang of Taxeem and Arm Undulation, we moved on to Bodywave. Bodywave is probably one of the best moves to introduce beginners to bellydance, while not alienating the more experienced dancers because it's always a good time to revisit the mechanics of Bodywave. Plus, it's the gateway to Rhythmic Undulation.

Now we have Taxeem, Floreo, Arm Undulation, Bodywave, and Rhythmic Undulation. 

And it's time to move on to shimmies.

Shimmies are a great way to get the body moving, and it's also one of the hardest fast steps to master. ATS shimmies are what Raqs Sharqi dancers call "three-quarter shimmies." We started slow and then built up the speed. Now we have the Basic Shimmy. 

Time to add the steps that would turn the Basic Shimmy into the Forward Back Shimmy.

After the Forward Back Shimmy drills (we even did the half turn and quarter turn variations), we still had fifteen minutes. And we decided to cool down with the Corkscrew Turn and Propeller Turn. 

And for the last drill, we were able to put everything together. 

Here's the Tl;dr takeaway: 

1. It's week three (or week four or whatever). None of your regulars shows up. Instead, you have drop-in beginners. Be flexible and tap into your ATS improv roots.
2. Teach them the essentials: posture, dance angle, Taxeem, Arm Undulation, Floreo, Bodywave, as well as easier fast steps that could be used as a transition (in this case, we used the Rhythmic Undulation and Basic Shimmy).
3. Depending on how receptive the students are, try to teach that week's lesson plan (we were supposed to learn Forward Back Shimmy, Corkscrew Turn, Propeller Turn, and Reverse Turn) without alienating drop-in beginners. Shimmies are excellent because we can build Rhythmic Undulation Shimmies and Forward Back Shimmies on top of the Basic Shimmies. It's always a crowd-pleaser because it gets the body moving and is challenging. 
4. Dancing a full song of follow-along ATS is completely feasible after the students know the week's lesson plan. Mix it with the transition fast steps they just learned (in this case Rhythmic Undulation and Basic Shimmy) to get out of the fast steps in the lesson plan (Forward Back Shimmy plus its variations). 

All in all, I was relieved that Mark's regulars didn't come. If they had been present, I'd be even more torn about alienating the two drop-in beginners and making their experience with me not so pleasant.

Did not seeing Mark's regulars retraumatize me and made me question my worth as a teacher? Of course! For a moment, I was back to sitting in my own empty class, week after week, month after month. But I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt: Maybe something came up and they weren't able to come. After all, LA is vast and it was a Saturday. 

At the end of the class, I told them Mark would come back in the next session and that I was only subbing. My two drop-ins both said they wished I would teach because they enjoyed the class. 

It was an amazing thing: being complimented after a long dry spell.

But I don't think I want to come out of full retirement from teaching just yet.

Join Mark's classes on Saturdays at 12 noon (10642, Lower Azusa Rd, Temple City, CA 91780; the Google Street View was taken in 2017, it's the one that says "Qin Mobile Device Repair").

Mark also teaches on Tuesday evenings at the LA Bellydance Academy in North Hollywood.

Twelve Years

It has been twelve years since I last posted to this blog. A lot of things have happened: Tribal Fest dissolution, Covid-19, and FatChanceBellyDance no longer having a physical presence in its birthplace of San Francisco.

I had a blog post draft in 2017 entitled "Four-Year Itch," where I wanted to write about how I wanted to take a soft retirement from ATS. I was disillusioned by the ATS dance scene in Los Angeles. My inability to find students was a large contribution, as well as a disastrous sword performance. 

Los Angeles is a city of hustlers, and I don't hustle enough or have the knack to hustle. 

Still, it hurt me when a studio asked someone else to teach ATS, even if I had teacher certification and they didn't. Even if I lived five minutes away from the studio and that person didn't. Even if the studio owner knew me. 

Still, I took the classes because I enjoyed dancing ATS. 

Fast forward to 2026, and I'm a student again. I want to say I don't think I'll ever be a good enough teacher, or at least have enough students. And I've made peace with the idea of always being the bridesmaid and never a bride. 

American Tribal Style bellydance is still big in parts of the US and parts of the world. It's never going to be as big as other forms of dance, including its big siblings, raqs sharqi and tribal fusion, and I've made peace with it too. 

Being a student has its own advantages. You wouldn't need to contend with the anxiety of rejection or having to cover studio fees because nobody showed up to class. This acceptance came with age as well. 

If you're looking for American Tribal Style classes in San Francisco, my good friend Yuka Sakata still teaches pure FatChanceBellyDance ATS every Saturday and every other Tuesday. Go to her website here. 

If you're looking for American Stribal Style classes in Los Angeles, Mark Bissell teaches FCBD ATS in East LA. 

sarasvati jewelry & adornments and new ats® belly dance classes in los angeles

It never occurred to me that I’d be making jewelry AND selling it. I always make my own necklaces and wear them myself, but I think it’s time for me to start selling them.

So it’s with great honor that I give you Sarasvati Jewelry & Adornments.

I’m also teaching American Tribal Style® belly dance level 1 classes on Saturdays at 2-3 pm (starting August 16) and Thursdays at 6-7 pm (starting August 21) at Live Arts Los Angeles.

Please refer to this flier for more information, or click here to download the PDF flier.

street fairs

One thing that I like about dancing in the US is that we get to do street fairs. In Indonesia (well, I don't know about Bali), bellydancers are typically not that well-regarded. And people who go to street fairs here are generally laid back. Blue Diamonds Belly Dance, student troupe of FatChanceBellyDance® has been doing lots of street fair gigs lately, and I danced in two of them in my 'hood (Rockridge and Berkeley).

Here are some tips.

Sometimes you'll be dancing on asphalt. So wear appropriate footwear. I was tempted to wear my Asics running shoes, but the soles are too grabby, and since I don't wear skirts, my footwear shows (especially when I'm spinning), so in my opinion, sneakers kind of ruin the aesthetics.  I used to have a pair of gold gladiator sandals, but they were so cheap and not made for dancing that they broke apart after six performances. Then I bought another pair of gladiator sandals, but they made my ankles bleed. And one time, one of them came off mid-performance, and it was really stupid.

Then I found these awesome knee-high boots on eBay. These are vegan boots by Breckelles. At first I thought they were so slippery, and I don't like the way they clack clack clack when I'm walking, but turns out, the soles are not grabby, and they're perfect for dancing on pavements and asphalts.

Then there's also the issue of dancing in sunlight. Our performance time for both fairs was at 1 PM. So yeah: the sun is relatively right above you, which is kind of good since you don't have to turn and spin and bam! the sun is right in front and blinding. But that also means that you'll get tired more easily (what with the headwraps / turban / head gear, and squinting is really exhausting), so don't wear too much jewelry like I did at Berkeley Sunday Streets. Seriously, I almost could not keep my elbows up in the final song of the first set (we danced to two sets). I got home and out of curiosity, I weighed my bracelets that I wore to the Berkeley gig, and I realized I was wearing 2.7 pounds of jewelry on my arms. Yikes. But it's a good work-out for your shoulders, back, and delts. 

Now about squinting, and this is probably just the shape of my eyes, I really don't like the way my eyes sort of disappear in action shots. So you may want to consider eye make-up that makes your eyes look big even as you squint (is that even possible?). And no, I'm not talking about this: 

Finally, cover-ups. With a shining sun and a typical Bay Area breeze, I'd recommend wearing assuit / tulle-bi-telli. The cool metal keeps your body temperature low. But if it's too cold, then use something else. 

Oh, ignore her. That's just Kate Moss.

lilith's bali debut

Years ago, when I first met Lilith, I had big dreams.

And so, here it is. Sorry for the quality of the video, though. Haha.

In case you're wondering, the first song is by contemporary Balinese musician, Ayu Laksmi. The title of the song is Maha Asa (Big Dream). I've been using it for ATS® Puja.

just like a woman

It is a well-known fact that movies that at least try to portray belly dance in a fair way are not that many. In fact, I can only name one that I know of. Then there's Just Like a Woman (SPOILER AHEAD). 

This movie came out in 2013, directed by Rachid Bouchareb. It's about two acquaintances, Marilyn (Sienna Miller) and Mona (Golsfhiteh Farahani) who are forced by circumstances to get on a road trip from Chicago to Santa Fe in Marilyn's car. Marilyn goes to Santa Fe to audition for a belly dance company (as recommended by her belly dance instructor, Peter). She's hesitant at first, but then she's fired from her job and comes home to catch her deadbeat husband cheating on her with a pizza delivery girl.

Mona, on the other hand, is an immigrant, and a wife of a very loving husband (Mourad, played by the ruggedly handsome Roschdy Zem) and an overbearing mother-in-law (Chafia Boudraa) who demands to have a grandchild and accuses Mona of being infertile. One night, Mona spills her mother-in-law's pills and yet serves them to her anyway. The mother-in-law dies in the morning, and Mona, overcome with guilt, runs away. She has no idea where to go, but kismet brings her bus exactly where Marilyn is parking her car. The two meet, and Marilyn decides to take Mona with her.

Marilyn (foreground) and Mona (background) dancing at their first gig. 

Peter (Marilyn's instructor) gives several recommendations for restaurants Marilyn can dance at. Her first gig actually needs two women (how lucky!). Mona, being a Middle-Easterner, is (supposedly) a natural belly dancer, so Marilyn asks Mona to accompany her dancing at restaurants (one of them looks like a really seedy bar).

Mona belly dancing to flirt with her husband in their convenience store as Marilyn watches in the back.

The first song they danced to is Hisham Abbas' Nari Narayn and they seem to be just wiggling around. They get paid and the tip money is good, and they think everything is fine and dandy until the Arab patron comes to their rooms (apparently they stay at his place) and demands to sleep with Mona. Marilyn answers for Mona and says she's not interested, then the patron asks to sleep with Marilyn, who, of course, refuses. The patron gets angry and Marilyn decides that Mona and she has to leave. One thing, though, the patron says his clients do not like blonde dancing girls, so from then on, Marilyn wears a wig (this wig later becomes important because near the end of the movie when Marilyn gets physically abused by two rednecks and unable to audition, Mona takes her place and disguises as Mona, wears her wig, and is accepted into the dance company).

Marilyn dancing at a bar for their second gig. 

In the mean time, Marilyn's deadbeat husband wants her back (I don't think he knows that she doesn't have a job anymore) and Mona's loving husband wants her back too (with two police officers who start off sounding important and adding tension to the movie but somehow just fade in the background).

In the middle of their journey, Marilyn learns that Mona is on the wanted list and she confronts Mona. Mona tells her what happened and Marilyn abandons her at a gas station in the middle of nowhere America, and Mona, not knowing where she is (she's not American, she's never been outside of Chicago, the only path she knows is to get from her house to the store that her husband runs) just stays put in desperation. Marilyn then changes her mind and comes back to get Mona.

I don't know where to start. Some of the costumes just look cheap (but then again, Marilyn is trying to be a professional dancer, so that explains the cheap-looking costumes). Then the very typical music choices... But let's begin.

Mona auditioning as Marilyn.

There's no sense of progress in the story. The music and the dancing skills don't progress. Mona shows Samia Gamal to Marilyn, but I don't think that inspires Marilyn. At one point, Mona tells Marilyn to use another song (thank God) and to dance with abandon (YES!) but nothing comes of it. I was hoping that Mona shows Marilyn a thing or two about dancing, about music, about being in touch with the dance itself (so many Middle-Easterners pride themselves for being able to dance to Middle-Eastern songs because those are their songs and so they can be really in touch with their dance because everything flows naturally while non-Middle-Easterners struggle to achieve this kind of flow, this kind of tarab that is discussed in Whatever Lola Wants). Mona doesn't even smile when she auditions and yet she gets the part.

There's no tension when there should be lots of tensions. You have an immigrant (and not just an immigrant, but from the Middle-East, forpetessake, in the USA!), you have the stereotypical Arab people who always blame and degrade women, you have a loving husband desperately searching for his missing wife (who later says she doesn't want him back because she thinks he's failed to stand up for her), you have two cops (one of them is perhaps a racist bastard) whose roles just disappear.

Angles and editing. You know, I have no idea why this movie is rated R. You can hardly even see the dance. The story itself begins way too slow.

The ending. Which is so anticlimactic.

The dance. The dance itself is just meh, most likely because we don't really see what's happening. Then there's also no progression. Actually it gets worse (from an Arab restaurant to a seedy bar? Or is the movie trying to show what the belly dance scene in the USA is really like? Which, if it's true, then it's another missed opportunity).

There are good moments in Just Like a Woman, though. When Mona is left in that gas station and she takes off her coat and stands there while still in a belly dance costume, now that's desperation. The wide shots really inform the audience that she is in the middle of nowhere. Then there's tender moment between Mona and her husband as she flirts with him in the store. Then Samia Gamal. Then Natacha Atlas' Adam's Lullaby (although really, Natacha Atlas? It's been used). The male belly dance instructor (yes!). The fact that there are women of all shapes and sizes and some are even tattooed in his class (YEAH!). Although, both the male belly dance instructor and the other-sized women don't really have a role in this movie.

Well, I'll just leave you with this image. Here's Mona's husband doing something I don't know what, unfortunately not from Just Like a Woman (ya think?). 

hot and bothered

Let me say this up front: I am a very sexual person. The only fetishes I'm not interested in are scat and permanent scarring. Oh, and leather, since I'm vegan. And I cannot stand the smell.

For decades, belly dancers have been trying to fight the stigma of belly dance being a sexy dance, and by that I mean dance of seduction, this is especially true in a muslim-dominated country like Indonesia. Three years ago, my troupe mates from the velvetRAQS were set to perform a belly dance show for an outdoor festival in the Monas area. Then the Jakarta governor at that time, that asshole jerk corrupt Fauzi Bowo (who went to the same all-male Catholic high school that I did which made me think he was different but turned out he wasn't) came and specifically ordered the belly dance show be removed or else he would not want to attend the event (he was the guest of honor). My troupe got paid in full anyway, but still.

I don't do Salsa, but from what I know, Salsa nights are more common than belly dance nights, and people here are very enthusiastic about the dance. I've seen how touchy-feely Salsa is and the ladies usually wear really short skirts (with great respect to Salsa dancers, I love what you're doing, but I don't understand how Salsa can get more respect than belly dance. Maybe it's the name?). This also goes to Tango.

One of my teachers at FatChanceBellyDance®, Ms. Sandi Ball, also does Polynesian dance. One time, she posted a photo of her teacher and his troupe dancing on stage. And all I could see were his body. I mean, I've seen videos of male Hula performers and I have to stay, they got me hot and bothered, awkay? Here, have a looksee.

Seriously, if you're a straight woman or a gay man, how can you not? Unless of course they're not your type. But bloody hell. Picture taken from this page.

Here's the thing: I am guilty of making lewd comments about those hunks, and for that, I am sorry. Okay, so maybe "lewd" is not the correct word to describe what I wrote (it was more along the lines of exclamations like "yummy" or "hot" and I kept the nasty thoughts to my own nasty self), but it is not the dancer's fault if the audience member's member gives him a standing ovation (I can't believe I just wrote that).

Last year, when I performed in Bali, I had an audience member (an Arab male) asking me for a photo. I obliged. Then for the second photo, he asked me to sit on his lap. I declined. I told him that he could look but he couldn't touch. He backed off.

I danced Oriental and from time to time I dance Tribal Fusion, and I know that there are songs that require our faces to be flirty and playful, and they are translated by the audience as seductive (and our costumes are also less covered than ATS®). It is up to us as dancers to let the audience know that they can look (and take photos) and talk to us, but nothing more than that. I had a long discussion with my male American friend  about that incident with Beyonce, and I said that she was an entertainer and although she wore a body-hugging suit and danced the way she did, it didn't mean that the guy could touch her in any way at all.

Male belly dancers have been present throughout the ages. We hear names like the late John Compton to Tito Seif to Mohamed Shahin, then there are Zadiel and Eliran Amar. Here's one of Eliran's very popular videos.

It is his right to wear those skimpy panels. It is his right to show off his yummy bod. However, to be honest, it could've been covered just a teensy bit more. I was hoping to be flashed. When that didn't happen, I was both relieved and disappointed. Relieved because no wardrobe malfunction occurred. Disappointed because, well, I'm a perv. This is where costume choice comes into the equation. In the video, his facial expression is far from seductive, but yours truly here still fans himself whenever he sees this clip.

My point is, there are things we can do to control how we want the audience (and the world) to perceive what belly dance is, and those things include pre and post performance attitude, costume choice, and make-up, and to some extent our facial expression (which is essentially related to the song we dance to). Yet it is alright (and expected) to be angry whenever an audience member "cracks" a slut "joke" and becomes touchy-feely.

There's a huge difference between thinking lewd thoughts and actually doing them. There's also a huge difference between doing those lewd things with consent and doing them without consent.

Fact of the matter is, there are still people who don't know the difference. I guess I'm a polite perv, or I have good self-restraint.

There are belly dancers who try their best to fight this slutty dance label and at the same time there are those who get bashed on this hilarious Tumblr. These people have helped perpetuate said label. Perhaps unknown to them. Hopefully unknown to them. (Addendum: okay, so perhaps that Tumblr isn't hilarious and the writer gets defensive from time to time, and thinks s/he knows what belly dance is or not, but who am I to say what is or isn't belly dance?).

Back to Salsa and Tango. Maybe they get more recognition (and by recognition I mean serious dance movies like Take the Lead and Scent of a Woman, the former has this really seductive dance scene). See how the female dancer has that "look but don't touch" attitude and that air of aloofness? That's what I mean.

I don't know. I'm blabbering all over the place. I guess I'm just jealous of the recognition that other dance forms have received and enjoyed in the mainstream media while belly dance is still stuck in being hoochie-koochie and cheap. I mean, come on. Even Twerking gets more respect.