Last night, I couldn't resist the scarves anymore. I bought an orange one hung with three rows of tiny silver coins. As I wrapped it around my yoga pants, I couldn't help but notice how forgiving a hip scarf is. Suddenly my saddlebags looked like come-hither hips. And I made noise when I walked. Jingling. It reminded me of the hemp anklet with bells I used to wear in college. Ching. Ching. Ching.
When you're wearing coins around your hips, the desire to make them ching is strong. The best method of ching is hip throwing. My error? Throwing the hip so far that you almost knock yourself over. I imagine this is an occupational hazard for young belly dancers the world over. I can almost see them knocking themselves over, needing hip slings, perhaps those little carts you drive in Walmart, their coin scarves chinging merrily as they drive over speed bumps in the parking lot.
We were in for a surprise. In addition to belly dancing, we learned some African dancing. African dancing has very similar moves to belly dancing, but where belly dancing is dainty and controlled, African dancing is free-flowing and large. When you do a hip circle in belly dancing, you move only your hips. In African dancing, the whole body is involved. Also, the palms face forward and the legs are spread wider. It's amazing how different a step looks with the change in palms and stance. The exact same step goes from cute and sexy to wild and exuberant. And while I desperately want to be good at belly dancing, I am actually better at African dancing. Thanks to all the squats I've been doing, I can get really low when doing my elephant arms, and I'm a very good hopper. It's the isolation in belly dancing that gives me the most trouble.
Somewhere in the midst of my arm flailing, I thought to myself I could do this African dancing thing every day. It's tremendously freeing. Just flinging your arms all over, pretending to pick fruit or shake off water or be an elephant or a chicken -- it lends itself to the same joy in movement I felt when I was much, much younger. When running across the yard was fun. When wiggling was fun. I think I have my new solution for Had a Bad Day.
Ching.
