So if you didn't know...Hipnotic drove up to support the lovely ladies of Rak'n Rakhshanda because they brought the funny, lovely, and slightly satanic (just kidding) Samantha Riggs to Milwaukee.

So Samantha basically kicked our bootay's with Bhangra on Saturday morning - I proceeded to have Bhangra "thighs" for the rest of the weekend...and even today! Bhangra is intense! It's a great workout and fun....as long as you don't have stairs..I thought a lot about booty scooting downstairs..A LOT!

Samantha followed that up with Fossil-ized!! For those of us that have forgotten how to dance (other than belly dance) it was a great refresher course! We even tried some of these at the after party :). We had five wonderful combinations and of course, I can think of two - but they were all fun and I remember those two because I think I want to rework them - so look out - you may see a "bastardized" version of a Fossilized combo!

Samantha had two AMAZING and HIGH ENERGY performances. I don't know if I should hate her or be jealous of her strength. I don't know how she does it all. I didn't get to see the first half because we performed in the first half. I was mostly peeking around the corner on the floor in the lobby - thanks Marie (of Trillium) for the booty pat :). From what I could see from my cubby hole on the floor, the Blue Loti did great...everyone else was pretty close to the back of stage - so I have nothing to report on them - SORRY - I'm sure you kicked butt!

Second half people - I didn't see everything cause I went and sat my booty down - I remember seeing
Rakhshanda - Love the Hipnotic Jump!! Hehehehe!!
Trillium - Tribal goddesses - and surprisingly good stage managers!
Kickin' ass and takin' names as usual!
Danielle - graceful as always!
I'm sorry that's all I can remember...

The next day, I wobbled down Leize's stairs - and we did the Temple Dances. I never realized how little we belly dancers use our FINGERS while dancing...which means we don't. I thought this was pretty hard because my brain would not process the hands, the moves and turning. It looked great on Samantha, though :) Which was very encouraging.

Then we learned Domba combos - yay! I think we may be keeping and "bastardizing" almost all of them :). After Samantha taught them all, she broke us into groups (my group kicked bootay - Neta and Kelly Holder. Samantha then broke us up because we were doing too good. She then put me in the group with two women that had little to NO previous belly dance experience! I'm confident in my ability to teach moves that I know...but NOT moves I learned in one hour! Then we danced in a circle and did duets in the center - which was really fun :)

Over all, the Rak's girl, rakh'ed - and Samantha is going to make me a website for grandma's words of wisdom - something about listerine, roses, and popicles - an EXCELLENT WEEKEND - well worth the trip. Almost as funny as riding a hot pepper....don't ask :)

THANKS RAKHSHANDA!!!