Nancy Young posted a really articulate and well-considered response to Carolena's message, and I wanted to share my favorite part of it:

"By giving this gift, you have, it seems to me, officially acknowledged ATS, your baby, as a mature art form with a life of its own and sent it off with your blessing. For me—and maybe this is just me—the gift also feels like your official acknowledgment of us, the ATS community, not just as acolytes practicing your dance but as artists inspired by your vision."

See the rest of her post on Monday, September 27th, HERE.

Alright, I have never been one for the "every day of the week has its own blog theme", but I have been wanting to give a little more space for music recommendations and discussions 'round these parts, so I am going to implement a "Music Monday" theme and see how it goes. Let me know what you think, eh?

Music Monday will have a little bit of whatever it is I am listening to right now. Some will be dance music, but some will just be my listenin' and enjoyin' music!  Most everything I listen to these days is available on iTunes and/or Amazon, so you can snag it for yourself. :)

I have been listening to a lot of love-themed upbeat music lately to keep me singin' along and feeling positive. So here are some of my favorite "Feelin' The Love" tunes right now, with links to iTunes:

Song - Artist - Album

Super Duper - Joss Stone - The Soul Sessions
Whenever I Say Your Name - Sting Feat. Mary J. Blige - Sacred Love
Home -  Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Up from Below
Throw Your Arms Around Me - Neil Finn - (live bootleg, sorry, but here is another version, and here)
Three Little Birds - Bob Marley - Legend
You Give Me Something - Jamiroquai - A Funk Odessey

I wanted to make an iMix to put all the songs in one place, but apparently some of my music wasn't "approved" for use in the iMix by iTunes (even though they sell these exact songs). I will look further into this in the future, to simplify browsing the music in one place, rather than with individual links. For now, enjoy the music!

Another gem from Zen Habits, this time it's the very simple truth about increasing your fitness.


"Health and fitness are usually made to seem too complex.

If you read a lot of fitness magazines and blogs (as I often do), you’re told a confusing variety of complex advice. It makes your head spin.

You’re told that eggs, butter and meat are bad for you. Then another crowd will tell you those same things are actually good. Then you’ll hear running is good for you, and the bodybuilding and primal crowds will scoff at longer-distance running. You’ll hear that lifting weights is the best way to get into shape, and others will laugh at that. You’ll hear a million variations of the best workouts, of when to time your nutrition, of how to periodize your workouts, of how to measure fitness, of what supplements you need to take … ad naseum.

It’s enough to make you want to give up.

Fortunately, fitness doesn’t have to be that complex.

In fact, you can boil it down to two simple rules:

1. Get your body moving on a regular basis; and
2. Eat a moderate amount of real, whole foods (with occasional indulgences).

I believe if you stuck to those two rules, and stuck with them for awhile, you’d get fit. Doing one but not the other will result in an improvement in health for many people (not all), but it would be an incomplete health. Do both most days of the week and you’re on your way to health and fitness.


But what about specific macronutrient ratios (fancy way of saying the breakdown of protein, carbs and fats)? What about meal frequency and timing? What about workout frequency, splits, timing, reps, and more? You could add all these types of rules and many more, but the truth is, all the complexities are usually a way of masking some simple truths: if you want to lose fat or weight, you have to have a calorie deficit, and if you want to build muscle, you’ve got to use exercise to get stronger. The other stuff is mostly guesswork, and while these complicated programs probably work, they usually work because they promote one or more of the principles in this post, not because of their complexities.

The two rules above are all you need … however, most of us need a little more detail, so here’s a more complete set of simple fitness rules. As always, remember that 1) I’m not an expert — this is just stuff that’s worked for me; 2) this is for healthy adults — people with health problems should seek the advice of professionals.

1. Get moving. Try to do some kind of physical activity most days of the week (4 or more days if possible). If you have an aversion to exercise, don’t think of it as exercise. Just think of it as a way to get your body moving in some fun way. It can be dance, yardwork, hiking, a nature walk, a swim, basketball, rugby, cycling, even housework if you do it vigorously enough. And it doesn’t have to be the same thing each day. I recommend, just for the sake of simplicity, that you do find a regular time slot you could do your daily activity, most days of the week. I prefer mornings but others enjoy lunchtime or after work.

2. Enjoy yourself. Whatever activity you choose, it has to be fun. If you don’t like it, move on to something else. Focus on the fun part, not the hard part. Or learn, as I have, to enjoy the hard stuff! Again, make it fun, or you won’t keep it up for very long. To make sure it’s not too hard, start easy. Focus on just getting moving and enjoying the activity. Start small, and build up with baby steps.

3. Slowly add intensity. Once you’ve been doing an activity for a little while, and you’re in decent shape, it’s good to add some intensity. But slowly — if you add intensity too quickly you’ll risk injury or burnout. So let’s say you’ve been doing some walking for a couple months — you should be ready to add a little jogging or fast-paced walking, in small little intervals. If you’ve been running, try some faster-paced intervals (take it easy at first) or hill workouts. If you’ve been strength training, be sure to add weights (safely) or decrease rest time or add more reps or sets. If you’re playing a sport, really speed things up, or focus on explosive movements. Intensity is a great way to get yourself in shape and have an effective workout in only 20-30 minutes. Here’s a great way to do bodyweight exercises with intensity: do a circuit of bodyweight exercises (such as pushups, pullups, squats, burpees, Hindu pushups, lunges or others) and do as many circuits as you can in 10 or 15 minutes. Next workout, see if you can do more circuits. It’s great!

4. Minimal equipment. There are a million different exercise gadgets out there, from ab machines to elliptical trainers to a whole slew of weight machines at the gym. My rule is: keep it simple. You can do amazing things with bodyweight exercises — in fact, if you are a relative beginner, you should start with bodyweight exercises for at least 6 months before progressing to weights. You don’t need cardio machines — just go outside and walk, run, bike, do hills, climb stairs, sprint. Even if you do weights, a barbell or dumbbells are all you need — stay away from the machines that work your body at angles it’s not meant to use (although cable machines aren’t bad). Even better, get outside and do sprints, pushups, jump over things, pick up big rocks and throw them, do pullups from a tree, climb up rocks, swim, do a crabwalk or monkeywalk, take a sledgehammer or pick and slam it into the ground, flip tractor tires, and generally get a great workout with very little equipment.

5. Just a few exercises. Bodybuilding routines will have you doing 3-4 different exercises per body part. That’s too complicated for most people. Keep it simple in the weight room: squats, deadlifts, presses, chinups or pullups, rows. You can do a lot with just those lifts. Of course, you’ll want to mix it up eventually with some variations, but no need for 10 different ab exercises or things that focus on your rear deltoids or use swiss balls. If you’re doing bodyweight exercises, I love things like pushups, burpees, squats, lunges, pullups, dips, planks. Pick a few and do some circuits with little rest.

6. Eat real foods. One of the most important rules on this list, because if you don’t eat right (most of the time), it doesn’t matter how much exercise you do — you’ll get fat and unhealthy. Aim for real, whole foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. That means stay away from processed, refined, fatty, sugary foods. Veggies, fruits, lean meats, dairy, nuts, beans, whole grains, eggs, seeds. Prepare them yourself if possible — convenience foods often have added ingredients, as well as extra salt, fat, sugar and preservatives. If you follow this diet — with the plant foods making the bulk of the diet — it’s hard to go wrong.

7. Eat less. Most people eat too much, and eventually it shows up as fat. To lose that fat, we need to eat less — it’s really that simple. Of course, if you eat the real foods mentioned above, you’ll probably consume fewer calories, but even so, it’s smart to reduce how much you eat overall, at least until you reach a healthy level of body fat (and even then, you shouldn’t let it all go). One way to do that is by eating slowly and mindfully until you’re just satiated (not stuffed). Another way is to eat smaller meals and watch the portions. A third way, which I’ve been experimenting with lately, is intermittent fasting (see Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat ebook for a great explanation of the science behind fasting). However you do it, be sure to consume the real food in moderate amounts, and reduce your calorie intake if you’re looking to lose fat.

8. Give it time. This is what gets many people — they expect to see results immediately, within the first month or so, because the magazines they read make it seem so instantaneous. But real fitness rarely happens this way — it’s a process and a lifestyle change. I started out in really bad shape, really overweight, and all I did in the beginning was to quit smoking and start running. A year later, I ran a marathon and was a vegetarian — but I was still kinda fat. A year after that, I was still exercising regularly, and had made a lot of progress, but I still had a ways to go. Now, 3.5 years later, I’m in great shape — slimmer and more muscular and much healthier — but I still have a little stubborn belly fat I’m working on. I’ll get there, but I have accepted the fact that it takes time. You didn’t gain the fat overnight, and you won’t lose it that way either. Learn to enjoy the process, enjoy the activities, enjoy the healthy, real food, and you’ll get healthy and fit almost as an afterthought to this new, amazing lifestyle."

If you enjoyed this post, please visit the ORIGINAL WRITER'S PAGE and comment, or share on your Twitter, Facebook, etc. Support the writers at this wonderful site with your enthusiasm! And in case you are fearful with my direct copying of the content to my blog for your reading, ZenHabits has a strict Uncopyright Policy that is so refreshing in this day and age! Not only a great thinker and writer, but a very Buddhist spirit. So please make a point to send your good juju, real or imagined, over to those authors.

I have been engaged in many discussions about the New/Old ATS announcement, on Tribe and on Facebook and in mails with friends, and even had a chat with Carolena today. I haven't said too much about my thoughts on this publicly, as I have wanted to let them percolate a little while. I didn't want anyone to feel shut down or otherwise distracted from feeling what they felt, or add to their mental burdens as they try and figure out quite *what* they feel.  And of course, I wanted to figure out what I felt, and try to speak from my heart and mind in tandem, rather than purely from one or the other alone. Sorry it's so long, but it's been a week of deep discussion with a lot of awesome women, and a lot of meditation on what this all means to me personally.  Let me start with a leetle story...

My last troupe, inFusion Tribal, performed in collaborations at several high-profile events with another ATS-based troupe from Bend, OR, Gypsy Fire directed by Quinn Fradet (hi Quinn!). Both of our groups were not strictly ATS troupes, though we were each well versed in ATS terminology (Quinn started many years ago in FC classes in SF, and she and I  have completed not only General Skills, but two levels of Teacher Training, and teach ATS-based repertoire in our classes and in our troupes), but we each had robust languages of our own, as well as some minor variations on the ATS vocabulary we had made to suit our tastes.  Since we lived so far apart, we directors would discuss music and staging through e-mail, but we only had one rehearsal all-together, 2-3 hours in length, the day before or the day of the performance itself, to prepare a half an hour set using both our troupes separately and together.


At these rehearsals, we would hammer out what vocab was universal, which was off-limits, and in many cases would share variations or new moves with each other and decide whether or not to add these "signature" concepts to the mix. For instance, I had a duet with Lexi, one of the members of the Gypsy Fire, and we had a planning discussion during our single rehearsal as a group. She showed me a couple of her favorite moves she often likes to pull out. This included some common vocab, but also some moves that were their own creation. At this time I had the opportunity to veto any I didn't think I could follow without more practice, but in all cases they were moves which were created thoughtfully in the ATS style and structure, and thus was easy to adapt to as a follower if you were aware it might come up. And I did the same for her in return. When we got up there, we improvised completely, not knowing who was going to take the lead when or how, and we even had a little "battle" in a few places where we were switching leads back and forth every few measures as we mischievously played leader tug-o-war, and it was awesome!  It looked seamless and playful, and we had a lot of fun. The audience could sense that tribal magic, that connection and communication, but had no idea we were from two different "dialects" of tribal.

This is essentially what I see this "Old School/New Style" ATS announcement fostering.  Allowing (and encouraging!) people like Quinn and I as directors and teachers, and our troupes as well, to follow our creative bliss, while still staying true to ATS aesthetics and philosophies.  This empowers everyone to create moves and ideas which are reflections of our troupe's individual creative visions, but still be part of a larger ATS "family" with whom we can collaborate and support. We don't want to be mini-Fat Chances, but that doesn't mean we don't love the format and use it as our foundation. When creating new moves and ideas, we use an ATS "filter", to ensure that the move follows basic guidelines in presentation and execution that allows it to "flow" within the format. And it sounds like Carolena is quite savvy to Quinn's and my demographic--as creative, thoughtful, respectful ATS-based-yet-not-ATS-strict who seek to stay true to the core in our work--by developing the "Anatomy of a Step" video, breaking down the elusive components of a successful ATS presentation when creating new concepts. It's brilliant, really, and I can't wait to add it to my library to strengthen my efforts to be inspired and guided by the art form she has honed over decades.

I see this announcement as really just an acknowledgment of, and frankly a welcome validation of, what has already been happening in the tribal world. We focus so much on those tribal branches of the tree who innovate so relentlessly that they barely even do bellydance anymore, that we forget about the dancers and troupes who have respectfully maintained standards of ATS while innovating thoughtfully and enthusiastically (the Middle Child of Tribal, if you will). And, to be honest, all the while feeling somewhat relegated to "outsider" status when it comes to that which they feel so passionate about and advocate for in their classrooms and beyond: an understanding of and preserving of ATS format, aesthetics, and philosophies. Whether you aspire to be a Sister Studio or plan to forge your own path, this goal is something we agree on. Just because these dancers didn't choose to stay strict-ATS in their artistic expression doesn't mean they weren't working just as hard to preserve and protect ATS as an ideal of bellydance 'standards and practices', if you will.

Those who choose to closely follow in FatChance's footsteps will still have that joy and freedom to do so. The body of work endorsed by FatChance, through their workshops and videos, will continue to be a yard stick for technique and presentation. Sister Studios will continue to be part of that standard by which ATS will be measured. Acknowledging and empowering this not-at-all-new branch of the ATS tree isn't taking anything away from anyone. I know that it feels like that to many, but I hope that they will see that you have been surrounded by these dancers all along--you have supported them, admired them, connected with them, shared with them, inspired them and been inspired in return. They're strong and respectful dancers who are valuable contributors to the ATS community already. Carolena is now putting her arm around those dancers and saying, "Welcome to the family, we're glad you're here." And I think that is a benefit to everyone, don't you? I hope so...

Thanks to everyone who has been actively participating in the process of evolution that Carolena has challenged us with. And thanks to Carolena for continuing to push her boundaries, and by proxy our boundaries, so that we never become stagnant or complacent in our art. I think it may feel uncertain on the face of it for some time as the community finds its balance with this shift in "definition"; and I completely understand that change is difficult no matter what form it takes.  But I feel it's a very exciting time to be part of the ATS community, and I look forward to seeing what we all create together.

And for evidence of one of our collaborations:

I recently undertook the challenge of re-writing my About page (or bio page, or whatever you want to call it). It's so hard! You want to be able to talk yourself up, and you want to sound professional, but you don't want to sound cold, egotistical, or bland. You want your page to sound as vibrant and interesting as you are, without being overly flowery! You want to get lots of information across, but you don't want to get so long you lose your readers. A tall order!

I wish I had seen this link back when I was writing it:
http://www.davidairey.com/improve-your-about-page/

Not only is the article itself helpful in giving you things to think about, it has many links to examples and further reading to inspire your copywriting.

Consider this a reminder to anyone reading that updating your bio page is important every year or so, to make sure that the content and language is fresh and representative of who you are and what you currently do/have done recently. Don't hesitate to take on something as simple as changing a few lines of your current copy, all the way up to scrapping it and writing it all from the ground up. The latter is what I did, and it felt good to revisit my experiences and qualifications, and really write it again in a language and tone that is very "me" today.