More crazy

[Sophia Maria]

We have dancers who are not connecting to Arabic music and aesthetics and not willing to try to learn. If you don't like Arabic stuff, and never intend to, why choose belly dancing? I'm not trying to be a bitch, I'm sincerely baffled by this thought process.

Exactly. This is exactly my thought process; I really don't intend to insult anyone's dancing choices, far from it, actually. But I think it's just illogical. To me it would be like saying you are a hip hop dancer and at the same time not listening to rap or at least popular hip hop music. Or a salsa dancer that can't stand salsa. At least these dance forms avoid some ambiguity by being directly named for the music that the dancer is interpreting. That why I kinda like using the term "Middle Eastern" dance, because I dance to Middle Eastern music.

This is not meant to be a complaint against Tribal or Tribal Fusion, although this was one of the reasons why I couldn't really get into those styles. This is more a complaint against "bellydance" being used as a catch-all bin for everything you want it to be (most ancient dance in the world, sacred priestesses, goddesses, women power, my personal spiritual journey etc etc), and treating it like it's not a dance with specific structure and guidelines. This dance is like any other art form: we have specific structure, rules, music, behavior, culture, etc to obey. Once you've got these down and sort of, paid your dues to the art (I guess you could say), THEN you can do what you want with it. I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around why BD, more than many other dances I've seen, is misused and misinterpreted in so many ways. Why do people lay claim to it so much?

 

[Zumarrad]

Why do people lay claim to it so much?

Orientalism.

 

[Shanazel]

People want the mystique without the sweat and effort to learn the real thing.

 

[Zumarrad]

Well to be fair, there can be a lot of sweat and effort involved in learning the "not-real" thing. Whether you like TF or not, it is undeniably difficult and the dancers who pursue it go for the most physically challenging route.

 

[Aniseteph]

I've been going to TF classes since the summer and they score remarkably high on Sweat and Effort.

Despite nearly 10 years Egyptian style experience I pretty much suck. Everything I do that feels natural looks wrong for TF. The only advantage I have over a complete noob is that my body has got the idea of isolation. Even the counting seems to be different. I can do a pretty fast Egyptian walk, but there's something about the counting of it in TF class that puts a spanner in the works. I think it's something to do with down beats.

These classes have pretty much nothing that ticks my This Is Belly Dance box. All there is in common is a few moves; the vocabulary and a lot of technique seem different. I much prefer non-ME music in this context because when we do use something traditionally ME it highlights the fact that the essence of it, the way of responding to the music, is so completely different. It's interesting, but I find a little problematic on some levels.

 

[Shanazel]

Oh, I absolutely agree, Zumarrad; that TF, etc. take no effort was not
what I meant at all. What I mean is the non-ME
dancers who want to cal themselves ME dancers have
not gone to the effort to discover why what they do is
in a different category
all together. Sorry. I didn't make myself clear at all.

 

[Aniseteph]

... the non-ME dancers who want to call themselves ME dancers have not gone to the effort to discover why what they do is in a different category all together.

This, absolutely. It's another reason why TF using ME or faux ME music and costuming can grate for me. Even if it isn't actively described as belly dance (as in Something from Over There), in a way and in some contexts it is sending that message. To the general public, to students who don't know any different... . I don't think the TF community would appreciate my going out there and presenting myself as a TF dancer, and they would be right.

 

[Zumarrad]

Yeah, there are definitely TF dancers who will stick on a bedleh and call themselves "oriental" but they don't do oriental. At all. And I think it's rude too.

The trouble for me is that anything AT ALL that is presented as bellydance - and you don't even have to put on ME music or use the term bellydance, you just have to be a chick in a belly-baring outfit dancing in a way that is wiggly, especially to "exotic" sounding stuff - will be interpreted as bellydance by a lot of the GP. So no matter how hard the TF artist tries to separate herself from it, she will be sucked back in, as it were.

 

[MizzNaaa]

I have one of the Dolphina books and that looks like part of the intro bit.

Don't judge me, I collect bellydance books!

judging, judging you hard :lol:

No seriously, at these kind of comments, I just shrug and roll my eyes. Granted, I only see them online since I live in Egypt...you won't see anyone here saying BD is ancient and not tied to any culture. Say that to an Egyptian lady/dude and you're guaranteed to get what you deserve in a not so pleasant way...just saying.

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

Lots of good questions here, but one that stands out to me is the very basic, "Why are people drawn to something like Tribal Fusion if you don't like ME music," or a variation of that sort.

I've been studying this for a long time, and discussing it with dancers from outside the USA. There is a fundamental truth about humanity that many of us forget: people in different nations think differently. My teacher is Norwegian, and we often joke around about how differently Norwegians and Americans think. As in, we come to the table with an entirely different METHOD of thinking. It's fascinating. But anyway...

Americans like structure. We like to know that we can travel from A to Z in a logical way, and most of want to see all the letters in between. We are often very uncomfortable with structure-less or form-less processes or designs. We need to know there's a box (and we usually even want the dimensions of the box) despite our determined effort to think and act outside of it.

Americans also DO NOT DANCE, socially. We don't. It's not part of our culture. We may get up and shuffle our feet at our cousin's wedding, but we don't do it often, and we don't usually even feel comfortable while we're doing it (unless the wedding has an open bar.) When we're younger and we go out "dancing" it's usually to meet a person of the opposite sex, or we go to the club to drink and hang out with friends, but we don't really enjoy or self-express through dance. We recognize the importance of dance for self-esteem and for posture, so when we have kids, we stick them in ballet class. But we don't "dance."

Ballet is wildly popular in America because it has structure. It has a graded syllabus. You learn this exercise which allows you to learn and perform another exercise, and eventually you are dancing. You can chart your progress with your "level" -- it's all very linear and very clear. Kids like getting "better." Parents love seeing their kids progress through the ranks. If ballet came with a belt system, like karate, you'd see even more kids in class.

But ballet takes a LONG time to learn, and frankly you spend the first 8 years learning how to do the exercises, not actually dancing. But since you're learning as a kid, that's okay. By the time you get around to saying, "When do we actually dance?" you probably are, if you haven't dropped out or traded ballet for soccer or debate team or whatever.

BUT - ballet is not inherently suitable for adults to begin and hope to master, as a form of self-expression. So we look to other things.

Because we don't dance, we look for something that we perceive won't take 8 years to master. Maybe we start with ballroom, but that's actually harder than it looks and usually requires a partner. We may try country line dancing or contra dancing (which is the closest thing we ever got to having a "national" social dance) but that doesn't float everyone's boat, and doesn't allow us to explore any kind of sacred feminine or meditation through movement.

Enter the belly dance. In America, belly dance comes with a set of preconceived notions. Belly dancers are beautiful, graceful, sexy, and in touch with their own femininity. If you're into the Goddess idea, it's easy to apply spiritual principles to this form of movement.

But belly dance is very nebulous. What's a "hard" move? How do you know when you're getting better? How do you chart your progress when there's no "ranking" system? Americans want to see progress, darn it! What's the movement vocabulary for "belly dance" ? Some circle-y shapes, a couple of traveling steps, some hip drops? Can I write it all down? Can I make a "list of moves" ? No? AAK! That freaks us out. If we can't express it on a spreadsheet, it makes us nervous. So we stylize it a certain way so we can get the same look on each dancer. We define the moves and write them all down. That way it's easier to teach too. Now we have a set movement vocabulary, with graded movements from beginner to intermediate to advanced. And since it's set down on paper, let's have tests and certifications, so we can maintain the purity of the written-down stylized form of this new dance we created.

While we're at it, let's get belly button rings with different colored stones so you can identify which level you're at currently! (I'm really surprised that hasn't become popular yet, frankly.)


Also, the whole sacred feminine thing becomes troubling to some people. Maybe I don't like thinking of myself as a beautiful sexy thing out there dancing for the MALE GAZE! !!!!!! So I'm going to change the way I move so that I appear stronger and less "vulnerable." I explore the "harder" side of movement, with contractions and pops/locks. I drill and practice and sweat and have biceps and a 6-pack and I look pretty tight and toned and tough.

So now I consider myself a "dancer," because I train the way a ballet dancer trains, or so I tell myself. I do yoga and I can self-express, so I start looking to other dance forms in the US, and I see the popularity of dance-floor hip-hop, so I start adding in some of that to my dance. I'm desperate to perform now, but I'm falling in between the genres of dance. I'm not ballet, I'm not hip-hop, and I'm not modern or jazz or theatre dance. So what's left? Oh there's a belly dance show this weekend. I can perform there, because after all, art evolves and my art evolved out of those first belly dance classes.


Sound familiar?

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

For what it's worth, practicing stuff like Suhaila technique and Tribal Fusion technique can feel really good on the body. So even if a person never wants to perform it, doing the drills is good exercise, and can be a lot of fun. I don't perform TF, but I admit I do like doing a "workout" or even going through a TF choreography, because it feels a little bit like Tai Chi to me. I feel "adjusted" physically after playing around with it.

TF is such a big category though, that the term is almost meaningless. Sharon Kihara and Kaeshi Chai would both be considered TF artists, I guess? But their dances are nothing alike. There are good DANCE artists out there who begin from the TF base. But there are a lot more STUDENTS who want to perform and do a piss-poor version of TF at Rakassah, stick it on Youtube and call it belly dance.



But this is nothing new. And the idea that we can do whatever we want because bellydance is a universal dance -- well, we only say that because we have CLAIMED belly dance to be our social dance. Americans don't dance, socially. But if we did, a lot of people would like it to look like bellydance. Or what they think bellydance looks like. But if the Texas 2-step had hip circles and figure 8s, we probably wouldn't be looking to the East for our dance inspiration.

Arabs and Turks have rolled their eyes at us for decades, when one of us (usually one with some small gene of Lebanese, Greek, or Palestinian ethnicity in our heritage) goes overseas, comes back and says "And now I present to you bellydance -- the REAL THING!!! And I should know because I am OF THE CULTURE (three generations ago, maybe.) And then that person starts teaching something, and we trust them because they have an Arab name, and so then there's a whole series of "rules" that get broadcast about the "true" form of the dance, and much disdain is expressed over other dancers who don't follow those "rules" -- and because nobody can agree on anything (since it's not a standardized, stylized dance like ballet) we lose a segment of the population to the attitude that "it's all right, and it's good, and Ima dance the way I wanna dance," and then the Shamadan to "Milk Shake" dance is born.


People who don't like Arab music are probably in the majority, at least as far as students are concerned. BUT - They don't usually have teachers who help them discover and understand the music. (Maybe the teacher doesn't know anything about it either.) The hardest part of learning about any culture is appreciating things like their cuisine and their music. We may learn to like falafal, but never bother listening to Um Kalsoum's live recordings.

Teachers are an easy target to blame. We teach with Hakim or dreadful Mezdeke versions of whatever's on Yallah Hitlist. Some of us wouldn't know a maqam from a matador. We can't even count an even 8-beat phrase, or alternately we insist all movement be done in such a structured way that we can't even talk about suspension and hanging on the note, even if we know what that means. But it's easy to blame teachers. With the accessibility of information on the internet and message boards, it's time to start putting the onus on the student. Assuming they're serious enough about the dance to CARE -- and that's a big assumption. A lot of students just want to move and self-express. To those students, I can't help wondering if a lyrical jazz class wouldn't be more to their liking, but whatev.

 

[Shanazel]

Structured? Me? :lol:

After reading that, I had to go check my passport to make sure I am really American. :dance:

 

[Sophia Maria]

After reading that, I had to go check my passport to make sure I am really American

Hehe! Yeah, I can't say that I've ever made a comprehensive list of bd moves. Or ever wanted to, really. Somehow that would take the fun out of dancing for me.

Americans also DO NOT DANCE, socially. We don't. It's not part of our culture. We may get up and shuffle our feet at our cousin's wedding, but we don't do it often, and we don't usually even feel comfortable while we're doing it (unless the wedding has an open bar.) When we're younger and we go out "dancing" it's usually to meet a person of the opposite sex, or we go to the club to drink and hang out with friends, but we don't really enjoy or self-express through dance. We recognize the importance of dance for self-esteem and for posture, so when we have kids, we stick them in ballet class. But we don't "dance."

Yes. A world of yes. I mean, this is pretty much spot on for an explanation of why so many people get so into bellydance...Ok. At the risk of going on an impassioned rant, this one of the many reasons why I feel out of place in American culture (even though I was born here). I learned how to dance from music videos, and from formal classes. Doesn't that seem odd? I learned no dancing from my family. Now I dance everywhere, hehe, but...Sometimes I think it has to do with the blandness of American culture, and how our culture seems to be based more off of brands, restaurant chains, and Superbowl ads than anything else. And when we do have some styles that seem to resemble some sort of "national" "social" dance, they are specific moves that are branded and have names (the dougie, the cotton-eyed joe, the stanky leg, the Charlie Brown, the Cupid Shuffle, the Reject, the moon walk, the twerk, the running man, the mashed potato, the twist, pop lock and drop it...I could go on and on...), with many of these created by being popularized by a celebrity in a music video. Or there is an actual song wherein the singer literally tells the dancers what to do, à la Cha Cha Slide.

This is why sometimes I call myself Italian as much as I call myself American. It's a lie, because we've been here for a couple generations, and I can barely speak the language...but it's that culture that gave me structure, gave me my food, my jokes, my music...It may cognitive dissonance or something, but whatever it is, it has a real impact on the way I feel about my identity.

Anyhoo, I'm gonna end that rant before I completely derail the thread.

I guess from that point of view, it makes more sense that American dancers would try to claim it as their dance...I think educated and passionate dancers everywhere are going to end up being more reasonable and trying not to claim that. But when you have a culture that, well, doesn't have much culture, maybe you risk having more willy-nilly culture-claiming. (Hey, I'm the pot calling the kettle black. I just called myself Italian).

 

[Shanazel]

But when you have a culture that, well, doesn't have much culture, maybe you risk having more willy-nilly culture-claiming.

A-hem. Just because you don't recognize American culture doesn't mean it isn't here.

Not to start a free for all but that is a very (how shall I say it gently?) inflammatory statement that may cause blood pressure to rise among certain members of the population who identify themselves as American first and anything else an exceedingly distant second.

My very dear Sophia Maria, you are hereby officially and sincerely invited to my house where I will introduce you to the culture of the Mountain West part of America. Just to start, we'll go up to the ranch, have a barbeque, a rodeo, a branding, and some old time fiddle tunes and cowboy music to set the mood for anyone who wants to dance.

If you go up to North Dakota we'll set you up with some folks who've made lutefisk as American as Davy Crockett, not because they're culture-claiming but because their folks brought the darned stuff here from Norway a couple hundred years ago. How 'bout a trip to the southern hills to listen to ballads and see clogging that came over from the Auld Sod so long ago that those things have developed a distinctly American flavor that no resident of County Claire or the Lake Country would call European.

All this hollering about cultural appropriation is a fairly new thing and not, I think, a good one. It's America. Y'know, melting pot, dozens of cultures coming together to form one, freely sharing customs instead of clinging to them like a kid with the only piece of candy in a room full of three year olds? Becoming a civilization comprised of Little Italy, Chinatown, Little Norway, Germantown, Nairobiville, Little Korea, etc. will just turn us into something like Europe. While Europe is fine in its place with dozens of distinct nationalities and its frequently fought territorial wars, this ain't Europe.

I do American Cabaret, American Oriental, American Belly Dance. I've taught it for over thirty years. I do not claim to do Egyptian, Turkish (fill in the blank) style but I also do not think what I do is simply a bastard child of "the real thing" which was, by the way, brought here originally by middle easterners who immigrated to- yep- America to add their own cultural flavor to the pot.

I shall now retire from my soap box, hopefully without catching my toe in the hem of the flag in which I'm wrapped.

 

[Amulya]

I wonder, if middle eastern people who came to America several generations ago, brought belly dance to America (or any other country) it would have looked very different, they would have used different music (maybe from the Golden Era) to now and people having learned from them, branching off as teachers, their students branching off etc etc (which already must have happened countless times) you'd end up with something even more different I guess. And you get that sort of thing happening that Aziyade mentioned.
I have traveled quite a bit in the past and seen belly dance performed in several western countries and it all looked different! It's sometimes even as if each country got it's own style. The Netherlands, where I learned it, even had a strong North/South division in style because everybody had had the same teachers either North or South. And probably today it would all look very different from 9 years ago when I last saw dancers perform in Holland (though I did see a show with all Randa copies 4 years ago, I wouldn't count that, as they were just copies)
I wonder if it would be better if different styles get different names or would it get too confusing? The only name I heard of that being used in regard to a style that develloped in the west and still is close to belly dance is Am cap, but that can be debated too I guess.

I don't understand when people don't teach with Arabic (or Turkish) music, that doesn't make sense! You need the specific rhythms for the dance. The music was part what attracted me to learn it. My teachers used a lot of Golden Era music, which was hard to dance to for a beginner but it's so beautiful!

I've been going to TF classes since the summer and they score remarkably high on Sweat and Effort.

Despite nearly 10 years Egyptian style experience I pretty much suck. Everything I do that feels natural looks wrong for TF. The only advantage I have over a complete noob is that my body has got the idea of isolation. Even the counting seems to be different. I can do a pretty fast Egyptian walk, but there's something about the counting of it in TF class that puts a spanner in the works. I think it's something to do with down beats.

These classes have pretty much nothing that ticks my This Is Belly Dance box. All there is in common is a few moves; the vocabulary and a lot of technique seem different. I much prefer non-ME music in this context because when we do use something traditionally ME it highlights the fact that the essence of it, the way of responding to the music, is so completely different. It's interesting, but I find a little problematic on some levels.

I did some ITS and ATS classes, the ATS were so opposite of what feels right in belly dance, using only the right side of the body felt wrong, and everything too rigid. ITS was more fun but still very limited. With TF it was a bit less limited, but lots of things I can't do due to the way my body is build (I have Ehler-Danlos) and it's frustrating! I do like TF but it's something completely different to Egyptian belly dance of course.

On belly dance and evolving, it does evolve in the East, Egyptian belly dance looks so different today than let's say 50 years ago. And also pretty different to in the 90s even.

 

[Sophia Maria]

A-hem. Just because you don't recognize American culture doesn't mean it isn't here.

Not to start a free for all but that is a very (how shall I say it gently?) inflammatory statement that may cause blood pressure to rise among certain members of the population who identify themselves as American first and anything else an exceedingly distant second.

My very dear Sophia Maria, you are hereby officially and sincerely invited to my house where I will introduce you to the culture of the Mountain West part of America. Just to start, we'll go up to the ranch, have a barbeque, a rodeo, a branding, and some old time fiddle tunes and cowboy music to set the mood for anyone who wants to dance.

If you go up to North Dakota we'll set you up with some folks who've made lutefisk as American as Davy Crockett, not because they're culture-claiming but because their folks brought the darned stuff here from Norway a couple hundred years ago. How 'bout a trip to the southern hills to listen to ballads and see clogging that came over from the Auld Sod so long ago that those things have developed a distinctly American flavor that no resident of County Claire or the Lake Country would call European.

All this hollering about cultural appropriation is a fairly new thing and not, I think, a good one. It's America. Y'know, melting pot, dozens of cultures coming together to form one, freely sharing customs instead of clinging to them like a kid with the only piece of candy in a room full of three year olds? Becoming a civilization comprised of Little Italy, Chinatown, Little Norway, Germantown, Nairobiville, Little Korea, etc. will just turn us into something like Europe. While Europe is fine in its place with dozens of distinct nationalities and its frequently fought territorial wars, this ain't Europe.

I do American Cabaret, American Oriental, American Belly Dance. I've taught it for over thirty years. I do not claim to do Egyptian, Turkish (fill in the blank) style but I also do not think what I do is simply a bastard child of "the real thing" which was, by the way, brought here originally by middle easterners who immigrated to- yep- America to add their own cultural flavor to the pot.

I shall now retire from my soap box, hopefully without catching my toe in the hem of the flag in which I'm wrapped.

Touché. I hope I didn't raise your blood pressure too much!! Look, perhaps it really has to do with regional difference as well. Maybe if I grew up in the Midwest of America, I would feel very different. But honestly, where I'm from, most people don't introduce themselves as American first and "everything else an exceedingly distant second". Many I know would also introduce themselves pretty prominently as Mexican, Italian, Irish, Indian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Haitian, etc. And again, maybe that's just my experience on the East Coast. Honestly, I think that's one beautiful thing about American culture is its welcoming nature--so you can feel free to bring all that other culture here, sustain it to some degree, and participate in others' culture. Note that I said American culture, as I do not believe, as I'm worrying you think I do, that American culture does not exist at all. This is a nonsense idea, because human beings simply do not exist in a society without any culture at all. And I definitely agree about things coming from immigrants then changing and developing so much that they are unique in America. One example that springs immediately to mind is the difference between Italian and Italian-American food.

Culture has many different aspects as well. In some ways, of course, I am culturally American. I grew up here, after all! In other ways...I don't know, maybe I just grew up different. Sometimes I really do have culture clash in my own country, and that can be disquieting. The aspects of American culture that I see in myself and in my environment seem to have more to do with work and money and brands than anything else, and perhaps that's what bothers me. I also came at this topic starting from a dance perspective, so that colored my opinion as well. I'm very biased on that point, and I would still argue that dancing socially here is not a very strong custom at all, compared to in other countries.

As for cultural appropriation, it is still a bad thing and still needs to be pointed out where it happens, period. Note that when I say cultural appropriation, I don't mean being open-minded and participating in different cultures. That's a good thing (I really like your metaphor of the child clinging to the candy). No, I mean a situation where one says they are a "bellydancer" without giving two hoots about Arab culture. That becomes ignorance.

Shanazel, I would love to come and see a party in western America. I have a thing for fiddles. Except...I'll probably skip the branding!!

ETA: Also please keep in mind that I was sharing how I feel about my country. It is necessarily based on my emotions, not an objective study of society. I am not offended by you wearing the flag on your soap box , and likewise, blood pressures should not rise if I state what I have experienced growing up in America.

 

[Afrit]

I wonder, if middle eastern people who came to America several generations ago, brought belly dance to America (or any other country) it would have looked very different, they would have used different music (maybe from the Golden Era) to now and people having learned from them, branching off as teachers, their students branching off etc etc

Except in the Middle East it isn't a teacher/student/class thing it is part of the culture. I doubt very much that "normal" people would be dancing to the Golden Era classics - instead they would be dancing to beledi improvisations to popular songs. Many of those have a very long history. Without TV and extensive travel most traditions/cultures change very slowly.

I don't understand when people don't teach with Arabic (or Turkish) music, that doesn't make sense! You need the specific rhythms for the dance. The music was part what attracted me to learn it. My teachers used a lot of Golden Era music, which was hard to dance to for a beginner but it's so beautiful!

And not just the rhythms but the musical phrasing. Without Middle Eastern music it simply isn't belly dance any more - just dance. It is the music (and its interpretation) that creates belly dance.

 

[Shanazel]

I love you, Sophia Maria dear, and my blood pressure is generally too low anyway. Only thing I objected to was the statement (which I've read versions of all too often) re: lack of culture.

Sometimes I really do have culture clash in my own country, and that can be disquieting.

How much of this (if any) do you think might be due to living in an area where people largely identify themselves by the place they or their people lived before coming to America? In California there were huge culture clashes between folks who identified very strongly with places of ethnic origin. Those clashes spilled over into violence more than once making me think of the lyrics to that old Kingston Trio song:

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!

Well, you have to come to the branding. That's when they often also do the castrations so there are all those yummy mountain oysters to experience straight off the grill.

At least I'm told they are yummy. I don't care how many testicle festivals they hold; I'm not convinced those things are edible.

My husband says every culture has similar foods designed principally to gross out members of other cultures. Lutefisk. Chittlins. Menudo. Haggis. Mescal. Sheep eyeballs. Lime jello with carrots and raisins.

But I digress. Carry on. :dance:

 

[Sophia Maria]

I love you, Sophia Maria dear, and my blood pressure is generally too low anyway. Only thing I objected to was the statement (which I've read versions of all too often) re: lack of culture.

I'm gonna concede my point on that one. Perhaps I just object to the culture that is there, rather than lack thereof. In any case, I'm still convinced region plays a big role here. The US is huge, and quite frankly, if you came up to Connecticut or Massachusetts and started talking rodeos, fiddles, branding, or lutefisk, people would stare at you as if you suddenly grew horns. I've seriously considered moving to another part of the country, and have had friends (from other parts of the US) tell me I would probably enjoy it better.

Well, you have to come to the branding. That's when they often also do the castrations so there are all those yummy mountain oysters to experience straight off the grill.

Ahahahaha! Umm, sure!

 

[Shanazel]

I absolutely agree with you about regionalism. I'm always sorta floored when I meet someone who is actually attending their first rodeo. "This ain't my first rodeo" is a cattle country way of saying "I'm familiar with the situation."

Okay. No branding. No castration. We'll go horsebackriding in grizzly bear country instead; deal?