Krogh belly dancing while carrying her baby.
When you think of belly dancing, you might think of exotic Arab women and a lot of hip gyrations. The image of a pregnant woman belly dancing does not come to mind.
Belly dancer and therapist Ar'nie Rozah Krogh, 37, is here to change that perception and help pregnant women in their antenatal and postnatal journey.
This mother of four, who hails from Singapore, started belly dancing as a teenager when she was fresh out of school and working in China.
She started developing the belly goddess therapy (a combination of belly dancing and therapy) in 2000 when she was pregnant with her first daughter and saw the need for it.
“When you're pregnant, your joints become slightly disjointed, your ligaments seem to soften, and you're a bit wobbly, basically.
“And, each time I was pregnant, my babies would tend to go to the left side. The way that they would park themselves would change the way I stood. So I developed sciatica – a pinched nerve,” she explains.
In addition, Krogh had a fall during one of her pregnancies and it made the pain unbearable. She went for physiotherapy, chiropractic and other treatments – all of which only provided relief for a short time.
She then spoke to a belly dancing counterpart in Australia who had also had back injury.
“We started talking about injuries and she advised me to just look in the mirror as I belly danced to see what moves would work for my body.
“I did that and found the movements to help ease the pain. So whenever the pain started to recur, I would do certain movements and it actually helped.”
Therapist
Krogh has lived and taught belly dancing in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, France, England, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
With children, aged two months to 12 years, she is used to teaching classes while carrying her baby.
Although there are no professional bodies to certify belly dancers, Krogh is a certified therapist.
“I developed my professional therapist skills in England as I love learning. When I was in England, it took so long to get my visa and I couldn't work, so I thought I would just study the various therapies,” she explains.
Krogh is a certified yoga therapist (includes hypnotherapy and rehabilitation for yoga injuries), massage therapist, reflex therapist and accupressure therapist and NLP therapist. Being an athlete in her younger days, Krogh has remained interested in health, nutrition and psychology.
Yummy Preggy Mummy
Having just moved to Malaysia, Krogh is now offering the Yummy Preggy Mummy Programme to pregnant mothers here.
Mothers can join the programme when they find out they are pregnant or even after a few months. The one-on-one programme is catered to their needs. It ends two months after the baby is born.
It consists of six face-to-face sessions and two remote sessions (over the phone or via Skype). Altogether, the sessions total 13 hours.
She explains that it is basically a coaching programme in combination with dance therapy.
“A lot of Asian women are very cautious and think that they can't do a lot of things when they become pregnant. This is due to the culture and old wives' tales. But, we are in 2012 now and medical science has proven that we don't need to listen to old wives' tales when it doesn't do you any good.
“When I moved to Malaysia, I was 33 weeks pregnant, with three kids and a huge tummy, carrying my own suitcases. In Malaysia, you wouldn't find women doing what I was doing because they have been told they cannot do it. They need to be told, 'Yes, you can.' Do whatever you want; be empowered.
“For me, the Yummy Preggy Mummy Programme is about making pregnant mothers feel sexy, fabulous, fit, awesome and to get them ready for the baby. Once you feel fabulous and you're pregnant, you will be excited to have the baby. When the baby comes, you will heal faster because your mind is prepared for the upheaval.
“The purpose of my pregnant mummy coaching programme is to teach them to be fit - how to think fit and how to be fit,” she adds.
Initially, Krogh would discuss with the pregnant mother what their goal is, what they want to achieve, whether they want to keep working, how they feel and what she can do to help them.
It's all about positivity and bringing mothers up to a level even higher than before they were pregnant.
Benefits of belly dancing
Krogh explains that belly dancing has its background in fertility dance; it's part of the people's expression. The “medicine woman” would bless the couple when they get married and bless the bride so that she would be fertile. According to another story, when women went into labour they had no epidural or painkillers then. Their form of painkiller was to go into a trance. The village women would gather and go into a trance and the pregnant woman would perform undulating movements to push the baby out. In those days, they didn't lie down on a bed to deliver their babies.
Limited time offer:
Just RM5 per month.
