My Dance Classes Are A Hit!

So I’ve been asked to teach another class at Gaia’s.  Actully, I should be accurate.  I’ve been asked to teach another three, maybe four classes, but we’re starting with one more and playing the others based on interest.  We’re putting out feelers for a class at 1pm on Saturday afternoons.  If there’s enough interest, then I’ll be teaching dance on Saturday afternoons!  There has also been the suggestion of a class for teens, a class for children, and a class during the school day for moms who want to go to class without their kids.  Of course kids are always welcome in my class, but some parents would feel more comfortable being able to come to class without them.  I’m so glad the class is really starting to take off!  Of course, for day time classes, that might get interesting for Caelan.  We’ll have to plan it so it doesn’t cross with his work schedule, or arrange for him to bring his lunch with him, but if the money’s worth it, he can suffer.  I was so excited I actually threw my healthy eating right out the window last night and got McDonald’s!  I’m such a bad girl.  Even so, I needed to eat and Mcs was better than nothing at all.

So my classes are going pretty well.  I managed to make everyone suitibly sweat.  Everyone seems so happy after the class.  I keep hearing comments that it’s so much different than the other insructor’s class.  She teaches a very different style and I guess she isn’t nearly so serious about dance as I am.  I’ve heard her classes are a little on the fluffy side, not that I can complain.  Honestly, I’d rather only have fluffy classes than no classes at all.  Anyhow, this has lead me to wonder what this will do for my career as a dancer.  Yeah, I may only be teaching a class out of a small little place right now, but I’m apparently the only serious tribal instructor in the area.  Not only that, but I’m the only tribal instructor in the area!  Gaia’s has a serious monopoly over my time, but my reputation is also spreading.  I’ve heard a good deal of "I told my friend about this class and she’s excited."  Unfortuantely, I’m also hearing a lot of commentary that Wednesday just isn’t a good day for people.  However, if I’m going to be teaching on Saturdays as well, that’ll help a good deal!  Not only will it help my reputation and the spread of my classes, but it will certainly help with the financial side of it as well.  If I could get some people to go to both classes, even better.  If I can get some people to go to the class that wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, then great!  I want to be known in my local area.  I mean, it’ll be sad when I leave and all, but I want to be able to build community here, both for myself and the people who live here.  I want to give women a chance to learn and be empowered.  Honestly, I’m thrilled with the idea of being able to teach dance.  Perhaps some of these women would even be interested in hiring me for events, though I’m not going to hold my breath.  Even so, the more I’m known in the community, the more of a career I’ll have.  And if I can teach classes at Gaia’s, then I can also apply to teach classes at the local college as well.  I don’t want to compete with Vikki, but I also need to be building a career of my own.  It’s one thing to be getting out there and performing, but it’s another entirely to be able to show the world just what you can do by teaching other people what you do.  I’m really excited about all of this.

What I really enjoy about teaching classes is it gives me a chance to practice on my own.  I can work on the basics and build a firm and strong foundation.  I can start to use this class as a way to make sure I practice as much as I should be practicing.  I can use it to be sure that at least a couple times a week I’m doing something dance related.  Between Wyldefyre and Gaia’s, I should be in pretty good shape, better than I’ve ever been, perhaps, by the end of the year.  I’m barely doing more than the core moves, but even those will be pretty refined by the end of it all.  I’m really excited.  I just can’t wait to see what comes of all of this.  I should really start putting out the money for a few more DVDs in all of this so that I can work on teaching some new moves and combos.  The more interesting and challenging I make it, the more interest I’ll have.  I’m excited about all the new ways in which I can expand from here.  I can start teaching ATS once I’ve got a firm enough foundation.  I can teach tribal fusion.  I can go on from there and teach industrial belly dance if I really want to.  The more I expand with my knowledge and skills, the more I can teach my students and the more valuable resource I’ll be.  And in some of these cases, these women will always remember that thin, green haired girl that taught their first belly dance class, and proclaimed about the shimmy, "If you can’t hear your butt cheeks clapping, you’re not doing it right!"  In time they won’t be going, "Oh God!"  whenever I say, "Okay, let’s shimmy!"  They’ll be jumping up with confidence when it’s time to lead their own move or to lead the class in an improv.  They’ll remember me because I made a difference, taught them something they never would have done otherwise.  While I’m becoming a memorable person in their minds, I’m also making myself work on stuff I really need to work on.  What can I say, I’m having fun with this.

In other news, I have no idea who thinks cooking your own home-cooked meals is cheaper than buying ready made-stuff and just doing half the work!  Seriously!  Caelan and I went to the grocery store yesterday, shopping list in hand.  We didn’t buy much, about the makings for five dinners and some lunch stuff.  We got a couple of splurges, some chocolate milk being the big one.  We bought some cooking staples that we just didn’t have and really needed, brown sugar, white sugar, flour, olive oil.  Given how many recipes require just a little flower or a little sugar or whatever, I figure they’re good to keep in the house.  If we’ve got that stuff on hand then I don’t need to buy more when I’m cooking.  It’s already there should I need it.  Anyhow, we ended up spending $124 on groceries!  Okay, there was an Arizona green tea in there for Corde, chocolate milk, Monster for Caelan.  Even so, that all didn’t add up to more than $10-15!  That’s a lot of money for five meals!  Maybe if we didn’t need to buy sugar, flower, and all of that it would be different, but still!  It looks like $200 in food stamps isn’t going to get us as far as we thought when it comes to home-cooked meals!  I think cheating with ready-made stuff that you just have to heat up or mix together or whatever just might be cheaper.  However, cheaper it may be, but I doubt it’s healthier.  We’re doing this because it’s healthier.  And in reality, we’re going to have to see how long these meals really last.  I have problems with going by serving size

s.  Unless you’re cooking up a full meal, like a main dish and side dishes, it’s hard to tell how far a meal will go.  Right about now, I’m not doing side dishes.  It’s just too much work.  In reality, no one eats side dishes around here anyways.  They always end up making it onto the table as a full meal.  Anyhow, as a result, I have no idea how far this food will go.  Even so, I’ve got to figure it out and see what we can do.  Maybe that money will go a lot further than it seems like it will.

Anyhow, I should get going.  Caelan’s home for lunch.  I’m not sure what’s going on with Wyldefyre tonight.  I guess it’s stuff I need to figure out, huh?

1) My class is a roaring success!  It’s even more successful than I thought it would be!

2) Wendigo seems to have finally stopped shedding out his coat.  There’s a bit of scraps of fur that are still coming out here and there, but for the most part he looks like he’s shedded out.  He must feel so much better.  He looks so much better!

3) Caelan’s first week of Arabic classes are almost through.  He seems to be doing pretty well with it.  I think this is going to work well for him.

4) I’m finally starting to make my own home-cooked meals…and hopefully this trend will keep through the next deployment.  If I can do that, I’ll be good!

5) I took a yoga class yesterday.  I’ll admit, it wasn’t the kind of yoga I was really into doing, but it inspired me to get back into yoga.  I think, if I can ever get my butt out of bed early enough, I’m going to start doing yoga in the mornings before the kids get out of bed.  Now Caelan just needs to get me up when he goes for PT in the morning!

6) If things keep up like this with classes, I’ll be able to make enough extra money every month to get us back on our feet!  I’ll be able to do all the courses I want to do through Dianic University.  I’ll be able to get more music.  I’ll be able to buy or make myself some new costumes.  I’ll be able to apply what I make to new fire tools!  It may be a slow growth, but slow is better than nothing, right?

7) I’ve started knitting my socks again.  I was just going to give up on those ones and try the other color, but I felt inspired.  It’s kind of theraputic.

8) I love the ability to homeschool my kids.  Because we’re homeschooling, I don’t have to conform to a school schedule.  Better still, we’re still doing school work in the middle of the summer!

9) Wendigo is finally starting to put on some weight again.  It’s amazing how just a little bit of feeding makes such a difference in how healthy looking he is.  Right now he’s sitting and looking at his food bowl, his full food bowl, not interested in eating because he just had two eggs, two pieces of turkey, and a bite of cheese.  However, he knows it’s there, so when he’s hungry, he’ll go get it.

10) Though I know my moods with Caelan have been bouncing all over the place, it seems like a little bit of progress is finally being made.  He’s not making a great improvement, but he was better today.  I still don’t know if I see him in my future, but as long as he’s willing to keep making the effort, I’ll keep hanging around.

Well, I’m off to try and make a little progress on making the kitchen look livable…in other words, I’m putting my dance stuff upstairs!  Then I’m going to start making meatloaf for the first time in my life…  Wish me luck!

~*~Rave~*~