Vote here for the February Belly Dance Question Contest!

[Rosey]

Please vote in the Poll on this thread for your favorite response to the question "What is the single best piece of advice you have ever gotten about how to reach your belly dance goals? What did you do differently after hearing that advice?"

The Bhuzzer who contributed the winning answer receives a three month featured event listing - a $105 value!

Our wonderful members submitted so many excellent responses to this question!
Thank you very much!

We narrowed down the results by looking at the common themes in the responses. The common themes were hard work, self esteem, musicality, and presentation. We choose the response for each theme that we felt captured the spirit of the responses in the most direct and powerful way.

The top four responses were:
#3 from Scarlettdancer "Hard work trumps talent every time. I stopped feeling sorry for my frumpy, ungraceful, challenged self and kicked my own butt into a good dancer."

#41 from Mesmera "Most of my dance life has been a path of discovery through personal experience in the absence of reliable expertise generous enough to share it with me. There was one however, in the very beginning of my professional bellydance career as a soloist, and it came from an entertainment agent who booked counties surrounding Minneapolis where I was dancing my heart out onstage 6 nights a week. He said,
'You're a very talented and sexy dancer. If you want to make money and do well, add some padding to your costume bra.' Well, at first I was indignant, as our sacred, feminine dance is an art that transcends such values! I tried it. He was right. After that, I became more careful with the fit of my costumes with excellent results. Although I disagree with the ethics of his words, they were a perfect reality check. An archetype is an archetype, after all."

#47 from Iris ""Doing stuff on the stage all the time is easy. Try not doing anything and just be divinely present. That's what will impress the audience. "
I learned that doing nothing or very little really is the hardest thing of all but once I learned to control my urge to constantly move my dance improved so much. And people really notice it."

#55 from Harmoney76 "Don't try to be better than anyone other than yourself.
It gave me the desire to perfect every move, make it flow, or snap, or whatever it was supposed to be in my mind, to be perfect as my body was doing it.
After that 1 piece of advice, it all came together, and I practiced until I was satisfied. The result? Everyone else was amazed"

[Rosey]

And the winner of the February Belly Dance Question is . .

Harmoney76

Thanks to everyone who participated! Look in the Contest Forum for another question tomorrow.