Annivesary Teaching Party

After writing more and more blog posts, I have to say how much I've enjoyed blogging, how the blog enriched my new life. Thanks so much to my fans, my students, my commentators, and yes, my inspiration belly dancers.
Last week, the studio put on the party celebrates its annivesary of my teaching in their studio together with belly dance students. I never plan to do a show or dance, I never dress up my dance costume I just want to sit down and eat or just do nothing!
The kids brought their costume and they dance, I put up the music for our class routine and invited some students to do dance, how amazing they were on the stage. ... Everyone cross their fingers for them! In the mean time, enjoy this picture of them at the very beginning of dance, hehe……

Rhythm & Music Interpretation

I know many of you have been asking me about this.... so the special announcement today is that, take your dance to a whole new level- how to bring the music to life with your dance!

Why I'm Happy To A Beginner Class

I've been belly dancing for almost 5 years, but in truth, I'm still concentrating on my posture and technique.
We drills hard last night in class. For example, the regular hip drop – Of course I know how to do a hip drop. If the hip drop on the right leg, all of weight is on our left leg, left leg is supporting and knee should be soft, not bend and right foot is up on the toe with the knee bent, Obviously, I saw my students obvious bend with their supporting leg, and same to the simple step - step and touch, too much bend.
I have a bad habit I want to correct my hip drop. I want to drop it with my oblique not with my foot, I am driving it so hard with my right toe held up off the floor with my left leg is basically straight. I am fine with the drop but the bend still there, although it's not a huge obvious bend, but it's there! So that part I know I'm doing wrong, but the standing pose is not quite what I want it to be. Of course this is not for the beginner hip drop.
Anyway, I know it’s take time to practice and It’s hard! I am taking Hadia's Teacher Training, that is a lot of excellent information and the shimmy fest real fun. I am her newbies class starting over with everyone, so I can be a much, much better dancer

90/10 rule by Stephen Covey

I got this email from one of my friends about the 90/10 rule by Stephen Covey. According to Stephen Covey '10% of life is made up of what happens to us. 90% of life is decided by how we react. I’m one of a fan of Stephen Covey since I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First , and It’s also been a great inspiration for me in terms of my mission statement, my priorities, and even in my dancing life. Other than these great great inspiration books are The Six Questions : Acting Technique for Dancers and the book I lost it - Dynamic Belly Dance by Ramona.

HADIA HADIA HADIA

The days are getting closer to Hadia Workshop. And I cant wait. I’ve got plenty to do to keep me busy, calling and send text message one by one and follow up with them… And thank you for those belly dancers responding so promptly whether they will attend or not to attend the workshop. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart! But I felt very upset to those teacher who are trying to keep their students from studying with others, and won’t share the information and shown up the emotions. How do we account for this attitude concerning dance? Anyway, enough of that, I can say she must be a lonely person, because she build wall instead of bridge in her life.

HADIA is a world class belly dance master, big name dancer! It is time to polish your dance skills & rhythm interpretation . Successful processional dancers also continue to be students, there is true of all dance forms. An artist can never stop learning because art has no borders!! I’m going to join Hadia Level 1 Teacher Training, I think I mentioned in last year when I took her workshop in Singapore. I'm loving the chance to take the time to clean up my basic technique. She's helping me get a better handle on knowing how to do things both in a folkloric and an oriental way.

Hadia Certificate

Hadia certificate is ready! It is very lovely and is for black and white printing in grey scale. If you sign up the full workshop, provide me your name you want to print on your certificate. So Hadia will bring it over when she get here.

We're only accepting the first 20 participants that sign up, so Hurry Hurry and reserve your Workshop seat now!

Ladies Nite-Arabian Night-Ala Arabian

肚皮舞舞林群英. 魅力舞動
Last night was a good success, attracting over 300 muslim ladies to attend. It was also a sizzling night for belly dancing enthusiasts. It was an amazing crowd and all ladies treated themselves to all things Arabian. And if you were there, you would have been one of them who were there for a magical night of entertainment, ‘gelek sampai sakit pinggang, mak-mak budak, dato-dato & VIP semua seronok sakan menari gelek, Wah memang gelek maut’ keep up the good shake….. See event pictures below

To Practice or Not Practice after Workshop.

I am wondering how many of you do try to get something down after workshop? I encourage my student to take belly dance workshop, particularly at the intermediate/advance level, so that they may learn different approached and style, and when I follow up with them and asked how was class work out, they told me they learned and enjoyed it but never practice the choreography taught in the workshop. They gave me excuses that they have no time to practice!!
Hey, I think I am one of them. I go to a lot of workshops because I want to be the best dancer I can be, and because I love learning. Every workshop I took, I appreciated the instructor repeat and repeat to build on choreography, focus on building technique and skill. I don’t tend to practice or try to memorize choreography because I know I’m not going to perform it. But I will pick up the new things in those workshops and create my own dances.
There is no ‘right way’ or ‘wrong way’ to perform the choreography taught in the workshop or class. But always remember to give credit to the teacher who created them. I applaud the belly dancer from Penang (Mee Mee) quickness give credit to others when she performed the choreography taught in the workshop last year. (You would be amazed how many people do not.) Hurray Hurray for you!!

Note : Ask yourself why you do or don’t practice after workshop/class.

Drop-in Variety Class?

I was talking to one of my friend after class last night, and she mentioned to me to open a drop-in variety class i.e. aerobics, yoga, belly dance & etc since I’d been involved in aerobic activity & yoga course in the past years. Oh..no no … I told her that is not my way to offer a little bit of everything or just to shake shake shake through various drop-in classes. As I said, dance is Work, Hard Work, and not just physical, but emotional and intellectual and spiritual.
I take belly dance seriously, I love it, sometime I hate it too when I can’t make the move, I feel frustrated I have no time to drills my technique. But one thing, I fight with it and I dance with it. I challenge myself to push for the best. I concentrate everything about belly dance. Although I repeat or build on choreography from class to class, but the focus is more on building technique and skill than on memorizing a routine. If you follow my class, you will notice my class make all the difference! To learn new things that you can incorporate into your own dancing - as well as drilling technique, musical interpretation & etc & etc.
I do a lot of the same moves every time. That’s not that all bad, and when I watch my dancers dance, that's a large part I can see their own style in belly dance. Simple thing, I asked them to hold their hands out gently, I saw how different each person looks. Each person has their own unique and natural beauty. I told them to use this natural beauty to dance. Believe it or not, I have to give a big hooray to them!

Creating A New Class

My new intake class started. This year I appointed a Yoga teacher to teach yoga on Wednesday & Saturday at 7.30pm. All of you can learn the basics of belly dance isolation, strengthen some muscles involved in belly dance movement. If you just want to have a terrific yoga workout, I’m always welcome.
Warm up to start dancing, don't dance to warm up. Even doing that, I really feel my muscles later, and I know it is working. After I took my yoga course, the best and easiest method I've found is maintenaing good posture, I can see my ears, shoulder and hip were in alignment.
A new beginner belly dance session started last week – which are all part of a beginner choreography. If you like a further challenge. the intermediate’s choreography start next week - I can't wait - the song is really cute! And you are going to love the piece of this song.

Arabian Night Coming !

So here's today's not quite news with plenty of opinion. I was invited to participant bellydance on Arabian Night. Yesterday I called up the usahawati AJK and asked about the show on that night. Basically is OK I think, to join and to support the women…. I hope belly dance will grow, become more beautiful, become connection! Someday, my portal will become a huge community that all belly dance lovers come together, come closer.

The Beauty of Tears….

A little update on thing beyond belly dance....

I received a phone call yesterday that one of my student’s husband died suddenly after he fell down. And way too soon!!! Believe it was heart attack after collapsing. Some also said he stay late at night, drank too much during CNY. His wife was beside him when thing happen. The wife cry & screming madly for her husband who died in her arms … I put down the phone, I felt tears welling up in my eyes…

The funeral is in Jitra town until Wednesday. I will go tomorrow, after I pray for the ‘cap goh meh’. I already felt not comfortable to go to this funeral, I don’t know what words should I carefully use to comfort her, I certainly know………as my eyes filled with tears….

Ladies, if you go to the funeral. If you simply couldn’t hide your tears, let us shed a couple of tears for her, I'm pretty sure your tears communicate an empathy words could never have captured.

Your tears are not in vain, It encourages her to keep faith in God and to look forward to new beginnings. God bless you for this beautiful sharing.

Wonderful gathering party last night!!!

It was so comfortable and relax because we don’t wear the heavy beaded costume or surprising number of layers. As a belly dancer, I usually takes average of 1 - 2 hour to get ready for a performance and sometime for Tribal dance, it can take upwards of 2 – 3 hours to get ready, from the hair and makeup to literally layers of clothing. I don’t purposely call my students to come back to practice, as I know you guys been busy with your CNY schedule. Some of my students said they have forgot the choreographies since the brake of CNY. I actually don’t mind if you forgot , but I want you to do something, don’t stand there, get your whole body bouncing to the music, doing whatever step you like best.

I choose a piece of 5 minutes long music, get everyone to line up and dance, although don’t choreographed in advance, I did what I have in my mind, turn on something with a really steady beat (the album *Best of Talakik) get them shake and bounce to the beat, bounce to the music. I have had them jump up and down! Hahaha,,,

I was amazed when I watched Yin Soo & Shir Leen did the duet last night. Ooops…! they improvised the hip bump to ¾ shimmies, and I admired the segment through that part of snake arms, LOL! Well they've been busting their butt for nearly 9 months to learn this stuff, and still barely above beginner level, I can say they have talent but I did told them “Your Smile is your Magic”. I certainly they have put some hard work into the dance over time. I’m uploading some photos. Did you just see what I see?!?!?! OMG, just look how many spare tyres I have. By the way, it’s not me only…you guys too right?

Welcome to The Party

Today I pamper myself with a time to sit down, savour my favorite chocolate bar in the hair saloon, wash hair & blowdry and get ready for tonight gathering. My favorite color for tonight is red. That’s my whole color theme for the party. It is going to be fun. I’m just going to sit back and relax while give a watch full eye for Yin Su & Shir Leen to do the duet tonight. Tonight is also their rehersal for the performance on tomorrow.

Those of you have putting on weight after CNY, together we will shimmying to lose some weight tonight…..

Update Hadia Workshop

Hello, I am very excited about Hadia Workshop. My 1st workshop with Hadia was in Singapore last year. Cant wait to go back to her workshop. I hope all of you who love belly dancing can come to learn from Hadia. As this is very good opportunity for your wonderful learning. Hadia is not return to Asia in 2010. So it will be a very good to take up the workshop since she is here this year. And you are going to LOVE Hadia!

Belly dancing is a lifelong process. Especially for dancers who now hold an attitude toward the belly dance. My approach is simple, I always find the best teacher I can, beside learning the technique, anatomy to protect from injury myself is also important because I keep telling my family I am gonna to dance till I die…. Delve into the history of the dance are one of my favorite subject too. i.e the Middle East, folkloric costuming and dances, Arabic music including understanding the rhythms & etc......

How did you guys celebrate your CNY?

National Paddy Museum in Kedah









Macik..macik...mau ambil gambar?


















3-D pictures of the sceneries.












Limestole hill - Gurnung Keriang

Paddy growing – the whole place covered with green carpet

Gong Xi FaChai everybody!!! I’m back to office now. Really no mood to come back to office!!! Seriously speaking.. I am still feeling damn sleepy right now after the family gathering, gossip, eating and drinking since 1st day of Chinese New Year (CNY) till last night!!! Haha.. So how did you guys celebrate your CNY? I bet most of you are gathering in eating and drinking whole week long too!!!

For the last week, I had the luxury of sleeping as late and waking up as late as I want. I could take a nap in the hot afternoon as I want. Sioknya.. but today, my holiday is officially over. However I couldn’t get out of bed as I want, I ‘gulung’ up myself like a centipede kena abu and dozed off till 7.30am….haha

I went to National Paddy Museum (National Rice Museum) in Kedah on 5th day of CNY. The admission is only RM3 for adults and RM1 for children. It is really worth seeing. It’s look so real and amazing to see the art work on the huge 360-degree ceiling painting on the interior domes. These are the result of painstaking work by 60 artists from Korea. Beside the painting, there are some galleries with panoramic murals showcase some facts of rice, history of paddy cultivation, traditional tools and the lifestyle of the farmers during the old day. You are allow to take pictures everywhere if you pay for the camera fee of RM3.00. I didn't really take many photos as there were too crowded during CNY.

I know most of people only know Kedah is famous for it’s Langkawi islands and the gateway to Thailand. If you happen to be in Kedah one day, do drop by to Paddy Museum to see the 3-D pictures of the Kedah sceneries, the painting are really like real life with life size objects and humans.

After capturing some green rice fields, we headed for lunch…fuyoh…the weather was getting hot that day…

XIN NIAN KUAI LE

I wanted to wish everyone a very Hhappy Chinese New Year, wealthy, healthy and happy! I hope this year will be filled with light & love, good health, happiness, and a touch of magic! May you also be given strength and wisdom to handle all challenges that come your way!
Happy eating (and drinking) for the next 15 days! *wink*

Gong Xi Fa Chye Belly Dance Gathering

I am organising a small potluck style Chinese New Year gathering party for all belly dancers on the 5th February 2009 (Thursday) from 7:30pm onwards at Music System Dance Studio, Alor Star.

All are invited and are encouraged to bring your favarite food to share. Drinks will be provided.

There will be a few dance belly dance show from students, free dance and a special “Fashion show“ by Belly Dance Kids. Don’t forget to bring hip scarves and dance with us.

Good luck, Good Health & Prosperous Chinese New Year.!!!

Group Photos

Last night was my last sessions in Jitra studio. Then I will close down for Chinese New Year!! We took a group photo before wishing each other a happy new year. ... So I set my camera and got everyone to get into position. So, here’s the picture.

It is a wonderful feeling watching the student practice the dance and enjoying themselves.

They are age-mix of my lovely beginner since March 2008. They are really keen to learn.

Miss Photogenic Contest & Dance Talent - Part II

I didn’t watch the semi final photogenic competition last night. Here I’m going to tell you what I heard later from my student that the contestants kicked the night off by singing, performing of Thai Tradition Dance (Lai Kah Thong), Chinese Umbrella Dance and the Modern Oriental Dance from my Arabesque Troupe - Audrey. She performed the piece of choreographed dance by me and she improvised it entering with a veil to spin around a couple of times and then discard it. This was really great entrance piece.

I was told that the belly dance had been great. It was of high quality and was most enjoyable which made me regret a little my decision to miss it. Audrey told me she wont feel panic at all, she proudly danced to the end of the long piece of music in front of the large audience and the judges. How impressed I’m because she understands the meaning of bellydance.


Oh, yes! It's nice to know our belly dance was a truly WOW with a real bang! I assume this was more or less to surprise to local people here, since Alor Star is not well known in the oriental dance world.
Later I was informed that the finalist will be on 29 Feb 2009 which I sure will be even greater to watch my student perform.

Miss Photogenic Competition & Dance Talent

One of my belly dance teacher right now taking part in the Miss Photogenic contest. She has enter the category from the day of the competition. The final night will be on 13th Tuesday Night. She was told by the organiser lastnight that all contestor must show their talent competition on final stage. So she decided to bellydancing. We discuss what to dance over the phone. She told me she is a bit nevours, she don’t mind whether to win or place, she just want to beat her belly dance performance to the audience and all belly dancer out there. Bravo!!! Oh my dear…..I was touched by when I heard what she said. I told her to take a deep breath and focus on what to do on the stage. Enjoy the mood of the music, look at the judges, look at the audience in the eye and smile, smile, smile.

Okay! get ready, get set and go get prepared for the belly dance lovers.

A Mystery In Black And White

My blog is the most frequently updated section of the site. I regularly post new photographs into the blog so please come back to visit.

I am spreading my wings as an aspiring choreographer. I see a light in each one of those students that has been lovingly nurtured, and I experience a renewal of inspiration that I bring with me into my dancing where ever I go.

Khai Shin : "This is not something that many girls who dance get to take part in living in a small town. Belly Dancing is an eye-opening expedience as well as a tough life to live. However, without the long hours of training I have put in, I would have never been one of the girls picked to dance in Arabesque Troupe".

TSL : "I knew that the Arabesque Belly Dance was where I needed to be to get that feeling fulfilled. After my mom first seeing me perform she could not stop commenting on how good I danced. Even though I was new, it really made me feel really special".

Audrey : "Annie gave me my first chances to choreograph as I taught for Arabesque Belly Dance Centre. I can only be grateful to Annie and other teachers at the workshop for helping me get to where I am today. Without the opportunities, I would most likely not be where I am today; let alone the person I am today".

Belly Dance Photo Snap !!

This morning, I received our photos which were snap in studio recently. YP commented it would be nice to have all photo to preview at just one click. I decided to upload on my blog instead of having to clink each on each link to preview. Actually, I am currently working on my website photo display text, when all of the pages have images. Will keep you posted when my assistant does some updating.

A special thanks to YP for writing in with this suggestion and for the others that continue to comment.

Raks Assaya or Saidi Cane Dance

Cane dance costume I bought during Bali Lotus Dance Retreat 2007.

Everybody have just been busy since school re-open. Busy Girl gets to college, busy mom busy for back-to-school routine., Today, the first thing I heard when I step in to my studio were “Aaah, I have 80 over books need to wrap” One of busy mom told me that she have to wake up her 8-year-old! Get her to eat, get ready and get out the door with all her homework and without peanut butter all over her face. Haha… Whoa, Mom! It’s back to school time and the energy is great.

I started my saidi cane dance class with saidi beats. The cane dance is a peppy and playful women's dance using a cane. I taught my student some techniques to hold the cane and show them the gallabiya costume. We did some combinations of dance – The Echappe Coupe Coupe which I learned from Nurriya when I was in Cairo. The step is basically a hop on both feet, and a lifting of the other leg.

Guess what! They were hooked and fell in love with cane dance.

Mailed Hadia's Workshop Mar 2009

I mailed Hadia’s Workshop flyers to all the dance clubs, studios, and all the belly dancers I knew. I know it is a good idea to advertise, but it can be expensive and which I cant afford to do it. I hope everything are going smoothly.

Thank you for Adrienne Almeda from Philippine to send kind notes, leave thoughtful comments and we share some idea of belly dancing. Thank you for your friendship. Hope to see you again soon in Bali/Singapore.