Transitions & Trophies

Transitions and Trophies – and just who IS this Heather Wayman person?

Hey everybody, it’s Heather Wayman, Director at Belly Dance Geek. Thanks for stopping by. This episode is kind of a smattering of “what’s happening at Belly Dance Geek now”/ “Who the heck is this Heather Wayman person anyway?
You may have noticed that it’s been a little quiet around here lately. But that’s not a bad thing. There has actually been a lot of things going on behind the scenes here.
First off, after 10 years of developing and producing courses and programs under the Belly Dance Geek brand, our Founder, Nadira Jamal has recently started an extended sabbatical. But don’t worry, Belly Dance Geek will continue! It’s not going anywhere.
Nadira and I have been working together for most of the past year on this transition. She has coached me so that I could take the reins of the business. And because we both want to ensure that the Belly Dance Geek catalog of courses will continue to be available to the dance community. I’ve been busy learning the backend of the business and website updates and coding all sorts of magical stuff from Nadira’s MIT brain. I’ve got some plans for some new courses and products and I will be continuing the More Than Steps podcast and the Belly Dance Geek Clubhouse.
And it hasn’t just been the past year that Nadira and I have been working together, I’ve had the pleasure and good fortune to have worked with her since 2011. I was her test monkey for her “Be Amazing In the Moment” intensive and I’ve taken almost everything she has made since then. I’m also one of her “Video Grandbabies”. My instructional DVD “Belly Dance for the Busy, Everyday Woman” is the product of having taken Nadira’s “Make Your First Belly Dance Video” course.
So I’m not a newbie at Belly Dance Geek. I’ve been around for a good while and am really, really happy to be entrusted with keeping the Belly Dance Geek fires burning.
Nadira started her sabbatical with podcast episode #61 entitled “Rest and Recharge”. She had a special message and some helpful tips to share with everyone. You can find that episode by entering the word “recharge” in the search bar at BellyDanceGeek.com. I’ll also put a link to it at the bottom of this episode page.

Another reason that things have been a bit quiet at Belly Dance Geek and in email too, is because… I’m a perfectionist. Not in everything, but in some things. I set out to do something, and when it’s not perfect, I tweak it, massage it and just pretty much overthink it. And when that happens, nothing gets produced. So…I am reminded constantly of something that Nadira shared with me several years ago. That’s the 70% rule. I’m paraphrasing, but the gist of it is this: it’s far better to put your best 70% effort out there and just GET IT OUT THERE than it is to wait until it’s 100% perfect. Because perfect doesn’t exist. If you wait for that, you’ll produce zero. And 70% is better than zero percent.
So I’ll do my level best to remember to operate on the 70% rule so I can just “GET IT OUT THERE to share with everybody.
I’ve talked about the “transitions” part of the episode. Now it’s time to get to the “trophy” part. And it directly relates to the Improvisation Safety Net coaching program. I took this course with Nadira when it was brand new back in 2011 and it gave me the tools and the confidence to dance to live music for the very first time.

Before I took that program, I never even considered dancing to live music. Because I thought that it was for others dancers, dancers who were not me. But after taking the course, like I said, it gave me the confidence and the tools to go for it.
I danced to Raks Leyla, a song of my own choosing played by Badrawn, a middle eastern band in Ft. Worth, Texas. I did that back in early 2012. They also gave me a fabulous nay taqsim and a tabla solo. And from that moment on, I was hooked on dancing to live music forever.
Fast forward to La Danse Orientale in 2018 and Belly Dancer USA in 2019, my training with Nadira in the Improvisation Safety Net coaching program gave me the foundation to build up to winning 1st place Judge’s Choice and 1st & 2nd place People’s Choice in both competitions respectively.
What’s really kind of neat about all of this, is that the song the band chose for my set at La Danse was one I had never heard before. I still couldn’t tell you what it was. I have no idea. But because of the ISN course, I could still dance a 1st place performance to it. And then at BDUSA in 2019, the song the band chose was….wait for it…Raks Leyla. So it kind of feels like I’ve come “full circle” with live music. And it feels pretty good.
Now, I am a little bit biased, but I think the Improvisation Safety Net coaching program is the “bombalediggety”. And I am super, super excited to announce that I’ll be offering the ISN coaching program live in September, 2019.
Registration will open in August, 2019 and it will be limited to 15 students. Um, so join the waiting list to get first dibs when registration opens up. You can find that waitlist and all of the information on the Improvisation Safety Net Coaching program at BellyDanceGeek.com/isn2019
Until next time, happy dancing and thanks for listening.

Items mentioned in this episode –

Rest and Recharge – (Nadira’s sabbatical) Episode, #61 -https://bellydancegeek.com/2019/05/recharge-special-message-from-nadira
Belly Dance For the Busy, Everyday Woman by Heather Wayman – 1) direct for extra goodies – http://www.bellybyheather.com/buy-busy-woman.html 2) on Amazon – http://bit.ly/buybusywoman
Heather’s first live music improv – Kismet, 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLydDenspMg
Heather’s live music win at BDUSA 2019 https://youtu.be/-b5iJoK6nTM