Body & Mind: Belly-Dance Boom

Even hard-core gym rats like Priscilla Silva of Whittier, Calif., have found fitness nirvana in belly dance. A project manager for an entertainment company, Silva says she got bored by her old six-day-a-week weight-training routine at the gym. After 21/2 years of belly dance, she says, "I'm lean in different places, like my abdominals, hips and inner thighs." Best of all, "you don't even realize you're following a workout regimen because you're so caught up in the music and movement." Silva says she has no desire to set foot in a gym ever again.

But belly dance may have an even bigger appeal for women who are not die-hard workout aficionadas. It's one of the few dance or exercise disciplines in which a few extra pounds around the middle aren't a problem. The traditional belly dancer has ample hips and a voluptuous shape, and many students like the fact that the teachers, while fit, look more womanly than the typical hard-body fitness instructor. "Many fuller-figured women are afraid to go to aerobics classes because they're getting laughed at," says Sohaila, a teacher in San Diego whose real name is JoEllen Handelsman. "Even if students were considerably overweight, it wouldn't impede them from doing the same moves I do." In fact, one of her students, Debbie Freeman, weighed 300 lbs. when she started belly dancing about eight years ago. After one year, Freeman had dropped 90 lbs. What she likes is that you can belly dance anytime, anywhere--no trip to the gym required. "You can practice shimmies doing dishes," Freeman says.

Though tradition has it that certain belly-dance moves evolved from female fertility rituals, the workout version has even begun to attract some men. Tomas Villalobos, a substitute teacher from Escondido, Calif., who suffers from chronic back pain, decided to join his wife's class after noticing that belly dancers had strong, flexible backs. Now a regular, Villalobos says, "Not only has my pain decreased, but my flexibility and muscle strength have increased greatly."

Many professionals are happy to see their beloved art catch on as a vehicle for fitness, but others mourn the loss of a connection with its cultural roots. "I think the allure of belly dance is related to its sensuality and a fascination with the beauty and the music," says Nina Costanza, who teaches and performs under the name Amar in New York City. "The fitness thing," she says, is just "an offshoot." Even if that's what's packing them in.