Dancin’ Fool

I love to dance. I have danced most of my life, all different styles, either in classes or out with friends and I have performed as a dancer many times as well. I stopped taking classes about a year before I got pregnant bec. of commuting, classes were at night, etc. I couldn’t deal. When we moved out of the mountains and back to suburbia, I wanted to sign up for classes to eventually dance and perform with a troupe. I have been doing belly dancing for several years and this is something I really love. It’s such a feminine dance, very flowy and graceful and different than any kind of dance I’ve done before. I think it’s special and something good for all women to do. In fact, it was started as a dance for women by women not what the common general consensus about this dance form is out there.

Well, I had a whole host of back problems from pregnancy and especially after so I have not danced at all in the past almost 5 years! I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without a dance class of some sort. My massage therapist even said to me the last time I went for a massage when my back went out, ” your hips don’t move when you walk.” I almost died when she said that. I said, “but I used to be a belly dancer – I’ve even performed!” and she told me to get back to it asap bec. the problem in my hip area could be helped by it. Wow, I totally was stunned over that statement. How far away from my true self I’ve drifted so much so that my hips don’t move when I walk! I do have lots of pain deep in my hip and low back so I think I’ve over – protected myself in this area.

I’ve been looking into classes and can’t find one that I either like (I’m not a beginner but haven’t danced in a while) or a time to take it. So, while out shopping lately, I decided to check out dvd’s for sale, something I actually never do but felt compelled to just take a look for some reason. I got 2 belly dancing dvd’s to try that I thought looked good and both instructors on 2 diff. dvd’s are named Melissa. How weird! My name. I thought that was a good sign. One of them lives and dances in NYC, my home town and she is also a pilates instructor, something I’ve been doing alot of to help my back get better. This was it. Now I can do it at home on my time until I get back to the level I was at to attempt dancing with others again.

I started dancing last week, and it feels so good. Like riding a bike, really. I think my body is happy to being doing it again, too.  I keep thinking about it every day and hope my son will take a nap so I can dance!  It even felt good on my hips and low back. I should have started this sooner. It feeds my soul to dance and I’m happy after a workout of dancing unlike after a pilates or yoga class or using the elliptical trainer or walking. I may feel good that I worked out but not joyful inside like I do with dancing.

It’s nice to feel like I’m back to being me. I didn’t realize how much I missed being a dancer.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

I had my first ever mammogram last week now that I’m officially old.  I knew I was ok but it was nice to see in a letter I received this week that all is normal.  Yay! I love modern technology and all the cool stuff it can see inside your body.

On the same day I found that out, I read this blurb in a newspaper.  It says,

“Booze Fuels Breast Cancer”

Startling fact: A recent study showed that breast cancer in women makes up 60% of alcohol-attributable cancers worldwide, says Jian-Wei Gu, MD of the Univ. of Mississippi Medical Center.

For the first time, the researchers demonstrated in a novel mouse model that even moderate alcohol intake can stimulate breast tumor growth and malignancy and it promotes development of blood vessels to feed the cancer.

Danish researchers also found that women who consume 22 to 27 drinks a week more than double their chances of breast cancer compared with women who have one to three drinks per week.

I think this study is very interesting.  It still seems like alot of drinks to have everyday to reach that 22 -27 drinks/wk level, IMO.  That is more than 3 drinks per day.  I guess if you would consume that much alcohol each week, you would be self-medicating or just not dealing with a bigger issue in your life which suppressing a big, emotional issue would just make you more likely to get tumors somewhere in your body, anyway.   I know, I saw this suppression (not drinking) bring on cancer in my father.

On another breast topic, I asked the woman doing the mammogram on me if she used anti-perspirant or deodorant.  She said she used deodorant most of the year but did use anti-perspirant in the summer.  I asked if there was any clinical evidence out yet regarding using an anti-perspirant that consists of rubbing aluminum into a place where lymph nodes are located right next to the breast tissue in order to suppress sweating.  She said there wasn’t any documentation found yet.  Of course not, because the big companies don’t want you to know about that and have endless amounts of money to suppress studies like that.

Think about it – your pits were meant to sweat, to release and cool down your body.  A normal bodily mechanism even though we don’t like to smell and people find it offensive to smell like b.o. and not like say, flowers or “spring rain” whatever the hell that really smells like.

I’m really glad that when I moved to CO from NYC to attend herbalist school in ‘95 I  was around a bunch of hippie chicks that never shaved and were ok with b.o. and even some of my teachers were this way, too.  I loved it.  One teacher kept telling us to never use anti-perspirant for exactly what I said above.  Made perfect sense to me and even to other older, mainstream women like my relatives stopped using the aluminum stuff and only use deodorant since I told them about this.

To avoid the b.o. smell, esp. in the summer, make sure you wash your underarms well everyday, apply a deodorant – I especially like the crystal stone (which I have dropped and made jagged edges and hurt myself over the years so I switched to the roll-on version of the crystal deodorant stone and love it) and if it’s really hot out, I apply pure cornstarch powder on top of it.  It totally works. I told this to the mammogram lady and her eyes lit up when she heard that she could use deodorant and cornstarch in the summer and no more anti-perspirant.

Tea Tree Oil deodorants work well, too but I’m not into that smell so much.  If I’m exercising in the heat, I may have to do this more than once but it’s worth it to me to not be clogging my lymph nodes and breast tissue so I can smell pretty like “Summer Rain”.

I have a really hard time with all those fake smells – it gives me a headache – and much rather use essential oils in products.  And what is up with those “feminine hygiene products” that make you smell like fake weirdness in your crotch?

Seriously, if you are a woman that has a strong, funky smell down there, go to a doctor because your body is letting you know you have a problem that needs to be taken care of, not covered up with fake smelling sprays.  I don’t know any heterosexual guy that would rather smell flowers coming out of your crotch, ladies.  There are pheromones located there.  Fake flower smell will suppress those and still your funky smell will be exposed.

If you are normal and healthy and don’t have an “off” smell and still choose to use these awful products, please don’t buy into what the product manufacturer’s advertising wants you to believe about your normal, healthy, amazing womanly body.  These products are loaded with chemicals and aren’t we assaulted with enough chemicals in our environment all around us 24/7 that we don’t need to be adding more directly onto our bodies everyday too.