Director Renee Adair says:

“The DVD, Dance of the Womb is an inspiring, informative and gentle journey into belly dancing for birth and beyond which can be enjoyed by pregnant women, Midwives, Doulas and Childbirth educators alike.

This DVD will, I’m sure, give women the freedom and confidence to trust their bodies to let go and allow themselves to discover their own rhythm in their labour and birth.”

A MUST HAVE DVD FOR ALL PREGNANT WOMEN

‘Dance of the Womb’ book

‘Dance of the Womb’ is A WORLD FIRST.  This 280 colour page book specifically details the enormous benefits of using the movements of belly dance as a birth dance. It instructs a woman on how to make use of this ancient wisdom to ease and empower your passage to motherhood.

‘Dance of the Womb’ is more than just a detailed instruction manual for exercise in pregnancy, it is also a beautifully crafted story of Maha’s life interwoven with the details of each belly dance movement. The dance movements and their spiritual, emotional and physical application in turn serve to illustrate Maha’s experiences on her journey from maiden to mother. Maha describes the art of the belly dance as a bridge between East and West and encourages women to apply their innate feminine intelligence into the act of giving birth. She positively encourages women to follow this thread colourfully woven through her own powerful stories. ‘Dance of the Womb’ is a practical manual as well as a deeply personal and inspiring tale.

Get in now and order your copy before Christmas. Visit:  http://www.soulbirth.com/bellydance_for_birth_book_and_dvd.113.html

Following Maha’s article on Belly dancing, I have had so many emails from readers, asking how they can get more info about belly dancing.

The good news is…as from NEXT WEEK I will have Maha’s book and DVD available from my website as I have ordered some in. If you would like to reserve your copy before they all sell out, just drop me an email and add your name to the list. I will let you know when they arrive.  They should be here by next week.

Maha will also be coming to Perth next August/September next year to run a ‘Bellydanceforbirth’ training session, for anyone wishing to learn this skill to pass on to others. She will also be doing these sessions in many other locations.  Stay tuned and I’ll bring her schedule to you next week if possible.

Maha Al Musa is a mother of three gorgeous children – two sons and a daughter, writer, human rights activist, dancer, doula and lover of all things connected to the divine ‘feminine’. She is of Palestinian / Moslem and Lebanese / Christian background and was born in Kuwait and migrated to Australia in the early 60′s.

In 1996, whilst pregnant with her first son Kailash, she reconnected to her cultural roots through the “bellydance”.

When her son was six months old Maha began facilitating Bellydancebirth® classes in Byron Bay, Australia after being introduced to the dance by a local midwife, Annie. The classes were extremely popular with pregnant women and Maha developed a keen rapport with many of her students and midwives. She began working as a doula (birth assistant) with local home birth midwives and encouraged women to embrace their pregnancy journey with strength, empowerment and courage. She realized many modern women were estranged from not only their physical but also their emotional and spiritual body in this most powerful feminine cycle.

Through her classes, Maha presents Bellydancebirth® as a means for women to explore these most primal movements, drawing on her cultural heritage for its wisdom, healing and ancient knowledge. She weaves together the ‘old world’ with the ‘new world’ through the belly dance creating a joyful and uplifting experience for all mothers to be.

After the birth of her second son Tariq, at home in the water, she realised her dream in writing her book “Dance of the Womb”. Then to give birth a third time round at the ripe young age of 46 to her beautiful daughter Aminah (how lucky I was to have a girl!!) gave Maha an opportunity to make her long awaited DVD – to share with all women the positive power of her native dance in pregnancy and birth – all an incredible gift.

It further solidified her understanding of Bellydancebirth® in an even more powerful and holsitic way – she was able to refine many of her ideas around dancing in pregnancy and gained even more experience of it’s use in labour. Maha really felt that her third labour was enhanced by the belly dance in a way that was different from her first two births.

“I really felt that the belly dance gave me a very strong focus for my breath in my labour with Aminah……rather than just ease and dissipate the intense sensation of each contraction, the circling and spiraling movements helped to ground me deeply into my pelvis as I breathed through each wave……..I was able to let go, surrender and remain free of fear and thought … I really used the belly dance movements as a beautiful meditative guide through first stage…..it was really incredible to experience these new ways of utilizing the dance in my labour. I am so grateful as a facilitator of Bellydancebirth® to have been given this wonderful opportunity to test out my work again!!”

Maha’s book and DVD are two fold in their message, both as a valuable manual for women and an expression of the essence of Middle Eastern women’s instinctual creative “feminine” expressed in an authentic and profoundly positive manner. Maha has always felt that most images, both visual and written about Arab women are usually one dimensional stereotypes that she, nor many of her sisters do not resonate with.

She hopes her book and DVD will shine a light on the positive aspects of Arab women’s culture and take belly dance the dance of birth to a deeper realm for all women worldwide to have access to….

Maha’s DVD and book will soon be available to order through the Soulbirth website.  If interested in pre-ordering, please email me at: faye@soulbirth.com as I am in the process of ordering some in. I had a beautiful conversation with Maha this week and we are planning to bring her over to Perth in Aug/Sept 2010 to run a training program for us here in the West. I can’t wait, as I have always been a huge advocate of bellydancing throughout pregnancy and birth.

To visit Maha’s website, follow this link:
http://www.bellydanceforbirth.com/