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I had a guidance class with some of my workout students last Sunday, as usual, we have over 30 registered but less than 20 turned up, sigh.....may be l should not give free classes anymore because people might think it is not valueble so they just don't care?

Anyway, l believe those who turned up are people who really care and appreciate my effort, thank you for coming and l appreciate the same way too.

And to my surprise, how poor is people's knowledge towards exercising even some have been doing for years......

As an instructor, sometimes l am frustrating while teaching when l see the students are doing wrong way, as l said, many students do not open their ears in class, even l have shouted : breath! No hunch back! Straighten your arms! Show your strength! Relax your knees!......Many just ignore me la......even l approach and adjust them, they still show me the wrong way!

I guess, the knowledge is playing a big role, if you have the knowledge, you know how important is the right way of doing exercise in order to enjoy the benefits, or, it is a waste of time and money.....that's why, we always see many have been exercising for donkey years, but there is not result showing......they still hunch their back, they are still fat, the tummy is still big.......why?

I have a 'one to one personal fitness programme' for my members as well, this is to help finding out the major problem, sharing of solution in both food and fat burning method, and design a special program for the member. But the response of this programme is very poor even l am doing promotion, people are not willing to pay even it is just a price for one buffet, sigh....yet free classes also they do not want to attend, sigh....so, what can l do?

Hope those attending this guidance class have gained something, and l wish them happy exercising, fit and healthy forever!

If you have doubts in your workout programme, please check out more details of our personal fitness programme, only once, you will enjoy the benefit for life long, isn't this worth it?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, l need your votes.....

But l hope you are voting with your heart, if you do not think l am good enough, please do not vote for me, l am very ok on that.

This is the first time l am participating in an international show's audition,l am doing this because l have chances to learn more from the bellydance expert if l get the place. They request for strong dancers as well as fast learners, l think l am qualified, that's why l want to give myself a chance to try, also, l love the description they have stated : We are excited to have you as part of this great experience. We appreciate your enthusiasm & positive attitude. We want to keep this a safe & positive environment, so please understand that any negative talk, gossip or other unprofessional behavior will not be tolerated and will result in elimination from the contest and show.

This is the way, dance is dance, that simple, no negative talk, no gossip or other unprofessional behavior, l agree this concept with my both hands and legs up!

Please watch my video at http://www.bellydanceevolution.com/site/videos/video/158/Bellydance-Evolution-%2B-Ana-Fil-Houb-by-Lim-Conny--HD-wmv,

Please click on the stars below my video for the votes, you can vote many times by clicking the star one time a day, and your comment is much appreciated. I have to say, l have won this competition no matter l manage to get a place or not, my lovely students, Zero's members and my friends are very supportive, l am so touched with all the comments they have given, l do not know l own so much love until this audition,l am very blessed and appreciate every single vote, comment and love that being sent to me, thank you to all ! Trust me, l will make you proud of your votes!

I went to Alor Star to be a judge for a bellydance competiton, to my surprise, there were quite many participants, usually the response for bellydance competition is poor, but there were more than 10 contestants in few categories, this is considered a good response compare to other competition that l know. And there were many kids and teenagers this time.

From what l have noticed, the standard of bellydancing in Northern Region has improved, many were good even they are only kids and teenagers, l have seen passion in their dance too.

I am one of the three judges but the only one from Northern Region, this is actually difficult for me, my student Ice is participating and some of her students are in the competition too, but l cannot really recognise her students as l have only taught them one workshop before. There were many familiar faces, but if you ask me their name, l am not able to name one, ha ha my poor memory.......

To be very honest, l always tell myself to be a fair judge, l have experienced many unfair issues in my life thus l hate this, if you are my friend you know l am those who do not like to rely on relationship, l think l am a right person as a judge, when l judge, l do not see whether l know this person at all, l will only judge from what she has shown at that moment. But it is really difficult for judges in this competition because they do not restrict age, so what happened? A mature woman to compete wih kids, this happened in two categories......kids are good in dance but it is difficult to compare with adults.......so to judge for the dance or for the passion? Really headache....

But as what l said, most of the teenagers are good, they just lack of life experience, but for the technique and performance wise, l would say it was really entertaining to watch.

I am just one of the three judges, l am not able to control the result, but the whole result was close to mine, l think we three judges have same thoughts la, but we did not have chances to discuss the result either.

I hope those who have won the title will continue their passion in this dance, hope they understand this is just a small competition, they are not able to 'conquer' anything in this field with this little title. And to those who did not gain anything in the compettion, please remember you have gained an experience, this will surely propel you to a higher level.

Congratulations to all!

If you are our workout member, please mark on your calendar on 22nd this month, Sunday 2-4pm, l will be with you for a FREE guidance class.

I wanted to do this from long time ago, especially when l see our members doing wrong exercise in class. From what l have noticed, there are many people who do not listen to instructions, they are too busy following the movements with eyes, yet their ears do not open entirely to listen to instrcutors' words, that's why, sometimes, we instructors have to go down from the stage to approach the students, we do not want to see anybody get injury in class....

It is very important to follow the instruction as you have to work on your body, instead of simply moving only. And, I think people do not have knowledge of using their strength as well, they just move, it is in fact difficult to see result by moving without strength.

So, this is what the guidance class for, it is going to be a physical class with theory, l will advise the participants on the proper way of moving our body as well as utilizing our strength for the result.

Please register yourself at our counter, only for 20 pax, and l hope you could commit if you have registered, we have experienced many times people just registered to reserve the place but did not turn up yet did not inform, this is very selfish, if you are not able to make it, please do not occupy the place, if you have registered, please make sure you turn up, thank you.

P/S: This guidance class is only for Zero's workout class members.

If you read my blog, you know l have complained of some terrible people's behavior here, l do not wish to do that, l hope l have never experienced this, and l do not judge myself as a perfect person who could comment others at all, in fact, l do not own any element of perfectionism, l know l am not good enough hence l always remind myself of what should do and what should not, to me, living as a human, we should act like a human, the difference of human and animals is we human have wisdom, we have the ability to analyse, we do not piss everywhere and we wear clothes, right?

Sad to say, l really believe the dooms day is coming when l see the unreasonable and unbelievable human behavior, l think human are getting mad under the stress of developement, and l noticed, many people have symptom of depression, panic disorder and nervous breakdown but they are not aware on this, l believe many have no idea of what is depression at all, they do not know they have to see doctor. Many years ago, l have a friend commit suicided under depression, we did not have enough knowledge to help him that time, we did not know he has to take medicine besides family and friends' concerning....we felt so guilty when he passed away, and we have learnt a huge lesson......

Everytime when l see the unreasonable behavior, the first question in my mind is: What type of family is she from? I strongly believe it is related. I always tell my staffs, when you want to act rude to others, think of your parents first, what will others look at your parents under your behavior?

Look, l am from single family and my mom were busy working all the times during my childhood, l have nobody to learn from, but l learn in the school, l learn from books, l learn from my religion, most of all, l learn from my previous experience, l know l have made many mistakes in younger time too, those mistakes have helped me to grow, and l am trying of not to make my mom shame, l know l still have more to learn, but at least, l am aware, l know l have to learn and adjust myself, l am aware....

Awareness is such important, those people do not have idea of how ugly is their behavior because they do not aware. If you notice the increment of commit suicide cases recently, you know what l am talking about. So honestly, when l see the unreasonable behavior, l am angry yet l pity these people, they are sick, a normal person will not act this way, they are sick and they do not know they are sick, this is very dangerous! Look around,l believe these people are surrounding you, they might be your family member, colleague, neighbour or friend......or, yourself!

Our treadmills are under maintainance service today due to the machine were over used and the company who provides us the service is short of man power lately, we have to wait for them to come over to 'save' the machines, hence, we have put up the notice today stated that the treadmills are temporary shut down, we believe we could settle the problem during this week, and yet, the other problem arised!

A lady gym member was angry on that and she asked for 'reimbursement' because she cannot use treadmills these few days, we told her to use other equipments but she refused, at the end she threated us to make a complain to Consumer Rights, l told her, only our treadmills are shut down temporary but other equipments are ok, if we shut down the whole gym without refunding to you then you have the rights to report us, but we only close one of our equipments, and it is temporary, not permanently. She insisited to her own point of view, l was very angry with this unreasonable behavior so l called the boss of the service company right in front of her, l wanted the boss to explain directly to her of the reasons, she refused to listen...

What is this? You don't believe she is a young good looking lady!

I even showed her the quotation of the treadmills service and the huge price of the treadmills that the company has quotaed us, as worst to worst we have to trade in the machine, we are not just sitting down there without doing anything, we are trying our best to solve the problem, and the main problem is not from us but from the service company. I told her with the limited money she paid for gym charges is not even enough to cover a very small part of expenses, l am doing this because l love exercise and l hope people who love exercise are reasonable.

Ok, l think this is the first time l do not 'give face' to our members, as l really could not accept this unreasonable behavior!

Please be reasonable, TOLONG TOLONG! I am really tired to face this so called 'Penang way of  behavior'!

This is the first time l learnt from an Argentina Belly dancer, Argentina belly dancer is famous due to one of the belly dance superstars Saida, she is a miracle in belly dancing, no one can take eyes off from her when she dances....

I am so glad that l attended Angeles workshop and l realised why is Saida so outstanding, besides her strong personal attitude, the Argentina style is playing a big role too. If you read my last blog, l have just commented of dancing like a dancer, and l want to say, Argentina belly dancers are beautiful because they demand themselves to dance like a dancer! This, can be seen easily in Angeles's workshop.

I felt myself very comfortable in the choreography even it is fast and tough, l really enjoyed the style. And this has helped me to reconfirm my concept of 'dancing like a dancer', l think, l have improved a lot on how to adjust my dance background comfortably in belly dancing, after this workshop. I really want to thank Angeles and Brancy who hosted the workshop, it is not easy for Brancy as a first time host, bravo to Brancy!

Angeles does not speak English well, how l regret l am not able to pick up my Spanish yet. When l said goodbye to her after the workshop, she apologized on not able to speak a fluent English, but this is not a problem at all in the workshop, as dancing is all about body language. I really hope l could speak Spanish soon so that l can communicate with them, l will do it one day!

We also had fun time in the hafla, Angeles did two fantastic performance as well as other performers, l really enjoyed this trip, hope will meet my belly dance buddies again soon.....

I told one of my belly dance advance class which l am teaching a fusion routine, l hope they appreciate other dance form as well, as to be very honest, comparing to other dances, belly dance does not look like a dance sometimes......

Why am l saying this? First of all, belly dance is easy to practise, but very difficult to be perfect, look, easy to practise is a trouble, many could just grab a costume to perform on stage once they have reached the 'practise' level, the thing is, they are doing belly dancing, but they are not 'dancing', there are many who can shimmy and belly roll called themselves 'professional dancer', but they know nothing about dancing, they just shake and roll their belly then thought this is the whole package of dancing, this is too commonly happen in the realm of belly dancing.

When we talk about dancing, it is not only for technique [but of course this is a base and a 'must'], but the flow, the spirit, the extension, the power, the expression [ok but some people are too much using expression to dance instead of body too....], the connection, the story.....it is a 'blend' of all these elements, it is an art to study.......

But of course, if you are learning belly dancing for fun only, you do not have to care too much instead you should pay more attention on the relaxation and enjoy the moves as much as you can, But if you are a dancer who performs........

That's why in 'So you think you can dance', the contestants are asked to perform different types of dancing, a real dancer should have no restriction on her body to different style of moves, also you can see very clearly at this point, only those born talented dancers are able to pass the examination, l believe this is because if a person has the talent in dance, dancing to him is just dancing, the spirit of dance is same in every culture, so it is no more an issue in different type of movements.

A good belly dancer should dance like a dancer, not only like a bellydancer.

I used to ask my kids students to write words in the air with their butts as part of warming up in our Kids'Creative Class, yesterday, l brought my puppy little Bravo to the class, ha ha, you can imagine, the whole class was crazy with her, the kids were so excited and they really paid attention in class as they wanted Bravo to see how good they can dance, so we had wonderful time yesterday.I took the opportunity to ask the kids to write the word : LOVE, as l hope they know how to love animals too. After they finished writing, l asked them : Do you love me? Surprisingly, they answered loud at once : YES! I did ask the same question before but the kids were very hesitating while giving the answer, they told me l am not their family, they were not sure whether they should love me....sigh....what type of education is this huh?

This is the myth of many people, through my experience.

There were few times some gym members came to me to seek for the advices of fat burning, they thought, when they get fatter, they are supposed to lift more weights to get rid of the fat.

Do you know this is totally wrong?

The fat can only be burned when you are doing cardio exercise, to explain this in simple way, cardio exercise is an activity you do with a lot of oxygen needed [ hence you have to breath fast], and your heart beat will go up to almost double of your normal heart rate [ the rate depends individually]. Weight lifting is not a cardio workout, as we will breath slow and deeply for the energy needed, it is mainly for the purpose of toning, not burning, no matter how heavy you are lifting, it does not work on fat burning. Unless, you are combining cardio exercise with weight lifting, like the Aerotone class we are having.

So, when you have put on weight, you must lose the weight by doing more cardio exercises in priority, those exercises such as workout classes, quick walk, jogging, cycling and dancing, are good cardio exercise that work effectively on fat burning.

To be very frank, it is not a necessity to enroll to any workout classes, if, you are able to discipline yourself to put on the sport shoes and jog for at least three times a week. But one thing, jogging is not a whole body exercise, it helps in losing weight, but does not mean you have the shape. This is the reason why l am teaching workout class, as this is the most simple, effective and complete way for people to reach the target of fat burning, stretching, toning and shaping at the same time, yet do not have to worry whether you are doing the exercise correctly, the professional instructors are able to lead and guide you, you just have to follow, that simple. Most of all, it is so much fun to workout in a group isn't? But for myself, l enjoy both workout classes and jogging alone, my only problem is 'no time for jogging la'.......see, you cannot jog anytime, it has to be in day time, under a shinny day.......