"I've always been fascinated with body language and movement and expression."

I went to my first belly dancing class with my friend, who was pregnant at the time. I learned that I had really hard time separating the right side of my body from the left side. We were all goofy and laughing at ourselves and embarrassed and like, "I can't do this. Tee hee. Tee hee." The more I started exploring dance, I naturally was finding direction. I didn't really think of it as a career; it was just what I wanted to do. It ended up taking a lot of my time, so I dropped my plans of becoming a pharmacist and opened a dance studio.

"I've always been pretty physical, but belly dancing started bringing me into myself as a feminine creature."

I was more one of the guys, probably because I grew up with brothers. I think that's why belly dance, for me, is so good because it gives me that physical high, but it also connects you with music and your own sense of self and your feminine sensuality. You're like, "Oh, okay. I like jewelry. I like being a goddess."

"I can definitely say that belly dance has done more to sculpt my body."

You work very close to the spine, and all the torso muscles are engaged and all your obliques and upper and lower abs and stuff. It really sculpts the shape of your body and accentuates the whole feminine shape that you would think of for women. The hips become very accentuated, and the waistline. A belly dancer prides herself on being able to isolate all her body parts, to independently move her chest or move her hips or move her belly or move her head or whatever. There are all these amazing isolations happening, and they involve huge amounts of physicality.

"It's liberating because you're allowed to get everything out there."

I've had every style of woman come in to take classes from all different backgrounds and career choices. When I first started getting into the dance, you would see all these different women and different physical types performing and doing the dance and be amazed at how beautiful the dance form looks on every body shape. It makes you appreciate every body type, and it makes you feel comfortable about your own body type. Especially for women in our society, where we have that Barbie doll concept of what looks good, realizing that you're beautiful no matter what your size and shape is freeing.

As Americans, we expect to attain something right away, and we get frustrated if we can't have it right then. Some people come into their first class, and they're like, "Oh, God, I'm so klutzy, and I couldn't do anything. You make it so easy." And it's like, "Well, I've been doing it for 12 years, and I was klutzy when I first started too." Even if they don't get it the first time, they still have a good time and realize, "It feels good to move my body like this." Our society is so upright, and they're like, "Keep those hips under control, and don't let that stuff shake." Here, it's like, "Oh, no, please, get that stuff moving."

"It's like learning a foreign language."

If you initially come in and get totally caught up in the technical aspects of which muscle is moving, your brain won't let you have it because it's not the way you move in your daily life. Although the movements are very natural to the feminine body, we're taking those natural movements and articulating them and accentuating them and drawing more attention to them. In our daily lives we keep all that stuff in check, so it's not your normal muscle and brain pattern. It's kind of like learning a foreign language. First you might learn how to pronounce the words. Then you're able to maybe begin to form sentences. And then you can speak in paragraphs. And then you don't sound like Tarzan when you speak.

"If I had never done belly dance, I'd be restless."

The physical part of me is what gives me calm, and I really have to express myself that way or I feel off balance. It makes me feel good. If I feel mentally bad on any day or physically bad throughout a day, I can go and do a class and come out, and my whole outlook has changed. I'm in a much better mood. It's the thing that keeps me sane.