Memoir Table of Contents
"Izzy, why is it so hard to connect with you? Trying to find your contact form is like navigating a labyrinth. Grrrr..."
Yes.
Yes, it is.
Traumatic Brain Injury is a big meanie of an ocean that routinely engulfs me and drags me down to the Underworld.
One of the most difficult things I do is balance my health, my work/passion projects, and connection with the world outside my mostly-silent home.
Before you email me, please check out this list of Frequently Asked Questions. If, by the end of it, you're still inspired to contact me, your patience with my sporadic response times will be deeply appreciated.
Thank you!
For easy navigation, see the anchor menu
(alas, only on desktop view)
👉
DANCE
Do you still teach? I want to study with you!
I absolutely do! Here ya go.
Do you still perform?
Yup. Just rarely onstage or live. Stage lights, travel, jet lag, crowded auditoriums, big events - all these melt mah brains, so I don't do it very often. (Amidst a pandemic, I don't do it at all.) Now I mostly create dance performance videos. You can see a bunch of them HERE on my site, or on my new YouTube Channel, which also has some of my instructional material and vloggy musings.
Why don't you belly dance anymore?
Welllll...did I ever really? That's up for debate. I have studied so many different forms of movement from around the world in dance, martial arts, fitness, expression, and wellness, and I've loved every single style. They all blend together when I start creating, and that's the way I prefer it. It is my essence. Dichotomy, variety, opposition, balance.
Since I'm an innovator, not a cultural preservationist, and since martial arts and storytelling are equally important to me, I have shifted into a form whose thematic imagery is not cultural, but universal to this planet. We all need air, water, nutrient-rich earth and the things that grow up out of it, heat and light, and protection--from the elements, from dis-ease, and from all that would seek to harm us. (And by "we" I don't only mean humans.) Belly dance is an integral part of what I do. I couldn't ever extract its influences from my dancing to save my life.
But I've never been ONLY a belly dancer.
Okay, so what style DO you dance now?
Mine. 😜 It is the more comprehensive evolution of my old Tejedora Style:
It is called the Dance of Elemental Alchemy, inspired by my System of 5 Natural Elements:
1) Earth
2) Air
3) Fire
4) Water
5) Metal
Alchemy is when they all work together to form the whole.
Its purpose is not to focus on the fusion of cultural or traditional forms. Rather, it explores personal expression through movement, inspired by the building blocks that make up our planet and Universe, and those that make up ourselves:
1) Body
2) Spirit (soul, chi, life force, energy, etc.)
3) Heart
4) Mind
5) Persona
This is a storytelling form, from a tale as simple as, "This is how this music makes me feel right now," to a full-blown, full-cast, full-length ballet. As such, characters, creatures, costumes, setting, and plot line are vital elements we explore, along with musicality, body language, emotional expression, communication, and the mindset conducive for both artistic creation and the protection of our artistic babies so they can grow up into artistic Badasses.
How long ago/how did you get started dancing?
Long story begins HERE. (Be warned. My blog is NSFW or for anyone under 18 years of age.)
Short story:
I have been obsessed with dancing pretty much since I could walk. In high school, I substituted cheerleading for my wish that I could study dance officially. I had to wait for college for that, where I started out in Theater and Dance. Along the way, I switched to History and Dance. I also discovered belly dance while sitting on the theater stairs, waiting to rehearse onstage with a gal who performed at the local Greek restaurant. She suggested that, because I had so easily caught onto the Polynesian dance we were learning, I should take belly dancing, and then take her spot at the restaurant once she graduated and moved away.
Over the next six months, the Muse kept bwonging me on the head until I finally said, "All right, already! I'll take belly dance! Sheesh!" And so I did. And the rest is history. (And dance.)
Many dances, in fact.
Then martial arts got in there and mucked everything up. 🤣😈🤣
So what types of dance HAVE you studied?
--Cheerleading
--American pop-culture shtuff
--Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Tap
--Ballroom, Latin, Square, Swing, Salsa
--Ecstatic, Expressionist & Spontaneous Dance
--Various American Cabaret belly dance styles
--ATS, Dunyavi, Gothic, and other Tribal & Fusion belly dance styles
--Hahbi'Ru and other Renaissance Festival & SCA folksy styles
--Turkish Oryantale and Romany
--Ghawazee, Guedra, Saidi, Tunisian, Egyptian Folkloric
--Flamenco, Mexican Folklorico, Irish/Scottish
--Bollywood & Odissi
--Polynesian, Hula, Tahitian
--Dance of the Kama Sutra
--Sensual Flow & Flow Yoga
--Other stuff that infiltrates my dancing--see Martial Arts below
What's your favorite style?
Maaaannn...I'm a Sagittarius. I don't really do favorites. Like...with much of anything.
What kind of skirts do you dance with and where did you get them?
My dance skirts range from 10 to 25 yard, multi-tiered skirts. Two of them are even bigger: my Mexican folklorico practice skirts.
Here is the pattern:
As for where I get them, when I don't make them myself, whuff...all over! Ebay, Etsy, and other shops you can find just by Googling them. They are made of satin, polyester, brocade, cotton or gauze, some are embroidered, and I have one that is cotton with thin mirrors and cowry shells weighting each tier.
What kind of swords do you dance with and where did you get them?
I answered this at length OVER HERE.
Any advice on sword dancing?
YES. I highly advise against dancing with weapons that still possess a sharpened edge or point. I always beg my friends with machine or hand grinders to help me out so that I don't stab myself or cut off anything I need and like. There are horror stories of dancers who have sliced off their fingers after dropping still-sharp weapons, and I personally know another dancer who possess a scar on her thigh from not grinding off the point of her scimitar.
Also: Whether sharp or dull, Swords Are Weapons. Be careful not to kill off the chandeliers in your restaurant, that patron (or waiter or spouse or child or pet) sneaking up behind you, the light fixtures in your home, the mirror or sprung wood floor in the studio you rent, or the expensive Swain mats of your dojo.
Swords may be strong and fierce, but they are delicate. If you drop one, you may have to readjust its balance.
If you want to balance it on your head, start with a book to build up the isolation. Progress to the scabbard or a cane because it's much lighter and will actually be harder to keep balanced. If you have baby-fine, slippery hair like mine and don't want to wear a head covering, ratting and hair-spraying the hair on your crown helps. So does beeswax--although be aware that beeswax melts with heat - i.e. stage lights, body heat, etc.
If you balance the sword on bare skin, especially sweaty places at the top of the body like chin or forehead, I recommend doing those early in the performance so as not to coat the balance edge with sweat and/or melt your beeswax.
Constantly work to elongate the neck while you have the sword on your head, and especially if you're in a cranked-back position like balancing on the chin. LOTTTTS of space between the vertebrae. Think twice about doing this if you have neck injuries.
Will you come dance for my birthday/wedding/bachelor party/private entertainment?
Birthday, wedding, anniversary: Maybe. But not until the pandemic is...done doing what it's currently doing.
Bachelor Partay: No. I assure you, I won't be nearly as fun as you think I will be.
Private Entertainment: Well, I dunno. Are we currently dating? No? Then you're funny. Yes? Game on.
Yer real hawt. Are you married? Got a boyfriend? Can I ask you out? (Or...IN...or in-n-out? Heh-heh.)
NOPE.
Are ya sure?
MARTIAL ARTS
How did you get into/how long have you been doing martial arts?
What styles have you studied?
Will you teach me martial arts?
All answers to these questions and more
WRITING
When/how did you start writing?
Same as with dance. As soon as I started understanding how to put sentences and paragraphs together, I started writing down the storylines and characters I was already playing with in the bathtub, my forts, with Barbies and Dawn Dolls and S/He-Men and Star Wars action figures and...my imagination. Gradually, I learned how to do it as a skill.
Will I ever be able to read your writing?
Yup. After years of hearing "you really need to write your memoirs!" I have begun doing so. You can poke around my gobs of autobiographical, educational and thoughtful-musey-inspirational stuff HERE on my memoir blog.
Fiction is a very different animal. Occasionally, I will pull a poem or short story out of my butt. Mostly I write novels. They started out as Fantasy, but I had a lot of trouble with people saying that female warrior women were inconceivable characters (it started in the 90s and I was writing about a Gladiatrix), and traditional publishing in that genre kept trying to get me to write the equivalent of Spartacus With Boobs. (I write the Heroine's Journey, a very different type of character arc from Spartacus.) So I eventually switched to Fantastical Romance.
I finished my first novel at 17 and have never stopped writing them since. I've written about my adventures in fiction writing, and how had to fire my literary agent for sabotage, as well as detailing what I write HERE. All my writing about writing is HERE.
Currently I'm looking into options for just posting my darn novels in their unedited versions into a platform like Patreon, so I can afford a freelance editor and a marketer since Dain Bramage and traditional publishing aren't happy playmates. Self-publishing on TBI is pretty much the same as being a touring, indie performing artist on TBI, just...you know...in an even bigger pool so...
I dunno what to do with the gobs of fiction sitting in my computer. Yet. In the meanwhile, I continue to play with my favorite characters and my blog. I had experimented with putting the memoirs on Medium for a time, but I'm not sure if it's the platform for me. I may or may not keep it. If you're a member over there and want to help me afford my rarely-needed tanks of gas by clapping for me, here it is.
What kind of Fantastical Romance do you write?
My writing buddies and I call it Twisted History & Myth--gutsy, passionate tales, set in fantastical locales about soul-searching quests, liberation & love. OK, let's be honest. This is me. I write steamy, kinky, gory tales about soul-searching that are even less SFW and kid-friendly than my memoirs. Why? Because it's fun. And I'm a Fire Sign. 🔥😈🔥
My biggest series is about my gladiators. I've also fallen down the Persephone & Haides rabbit hole, and They spawned a whole bunch more tales about Dionysos, Eros, and others that will at least be novellas. I've been posting those tales in the Speakeasy for the past couple years. Then there are my mystical islands that have been basically Brigadooned, and the modern world that keeps trying to infiltrate them. The fiction pretty much never stops around here.
DAIN BRAMAGE, INJURY & HEALING
What/When was your accident?
1) Which one?
2) The big one in 2000 was not an accident. It was a drunk driver.
3) The other big TBI in 2012 was domestic violence...
4) Which resulted in additional neurological damage from a year of chronic seizures.
5) The car wreck in 2014 WAS an accident--rammed from behind by a dude not paying attention at a stop sign.
6) And then there are the other smaller incidences of domestic assault that...didn't help. Anything.
What was injured?
1) I have trauma-induced scoliosis and lopsided hips, as well as a backwards curve and sideways swing in my neck from severe whiplash.
2) Traumatic Brain Injury (permanent brain damage) from those head traumas.
3) Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from those incidents and many others since I was very young.
4) A twice-torn meniscus from my hip injury, from the times that my knees have been damaged in the smaller incidences of assault, and the fact that I demand a lot from them.
5) A bone in my opposite foot that pops out of place after having to pogo-stick on one leg for a week after I re-tore my meniscus (they neglected to send me my crutches)
6) Post-Traumatic Visual Syndrome: my eyeballs were stretched out of my skull when the drunk driver rammed me from behind, resulting in warped peripheral vision and wonky depth perception.
7) The minor assaults have also injured both my knees, both elbows, one shoulder, and additional neck/brain damage.
8) All the hair on the parts of my head that received the worst brain damage suddenly went silver. Fascinating...
9) Asthma - they're not sure if this is from brain or diaphragm/rib damage.
10) All sorts of varied and sundry, annoying maladies
Wow! You should write about all this!
I do. If you want all the gory details, I'm starting to deliver them on my memoir blog. I've decided that, rather than trying to compartmentalize these interrelated and tangled threads so they can be divvied up into book-sized memoirs, I'm just putting them all up here. Plus, I really like this multi-media format. Music, movement and beauty are such a huge part of my healing that to tell these tales in a solely 2D written medium?
NO WAY!
Since photo shoots, videos and dance performances are so integral to my story--sometimes they told the story when I wasn't in a position where I could speak about things--I love being able to include them in the memoirs.
Also, since music is such a huge part of my life, and since I have always found that the art of the MixTape could communicate the magnitude of emotion that courses through this HSP's heart and soul, the soundtrack of my blog is just as important as the words I write. Anybody who skips over the musical journey is missing half the movie.
--The tale begins with the night I was hit by a drunk driver.
--The full details of my injury prognoses from that night, and some myth-busting I only recently learned was necessary.
--With my initial brain injury, I lost the ability to compartmentalize decades of previous trauma, which made navigating TBI far more onerous than it needed to be. Those tales start HERE.
--And I am currently in the process of telling the tales of my adventures in Dance and Martial Arts
**If you missed it above, these memoirs are NSFW or written for anyone under 18. I also rarely post trigger warnings, because I'm a storyteller, a hard-ass teacher, and a martial artist. I don't pull punches. Consider this your warning.
What healing modalities have you used for bodily injury?
--Ice & Heat
--Rest
--Chiropractic (traditional)
--E-stim
--Massage Therapy
--Acupuncture (which, alas, my system is too sensitive for)
--Bowen Therapy
--Physical Therapy
--Pilates-based PT
--My dance, martial arts, and home PT regimen
--Denner Roll
--Neurological-Based Chiropractic with the Integrator**
**What's this new chiropractic you're doing?
Traditional rack-n-crack doesn't work for me, except limb treatment from my Sports Medicine Chiropractor. Upper Cervical was better, but Neurological-Based Chiropractic using this little device called the Integrator is actually beginning to change the structure of my spine.
I just had X-rays (July 6 2020). Here is what we learned:
--My hips are almost level for the first time in 20 years
--My scoliosis is reduced--low back curve is lessened, and I only have a curve, not a jag in the middle of my spine
--I only have one place in my neck that is still causing nerve impingement
--I no longer have a C2/3 that bulges out to the side of my neck
--The backwards curve is beginning to move forward
Do you still have seizures? Do you take medication for them?
Almost never for the past 4 years, and only under extreme circumstances. (Like going to a writers' conference of 350 people in a loud, crowded convention center and fire-hosing my brain with publishing ins and outs.) 😝
I do not take medication. I also do not have grand mal seizures. (Thankfully!!!) I have only ever seen one neurologist after 13 years of living with this condition, and it was an utter nightmare. If you want the gory details, you'll have to wait for the blog post about it. I'll get to all that. Just not yet.
The episodes finally stopped when I began getting my neck put back in alignment--first from Upper Cervical Chiro, and more so from Neuro-Chiro. We're pretty sure that my cerebrospinal fluid was backing up from the subluxations in my neck.
Oddly enough, I think the gray hair is also beginning to reduce. For sure, the big spot over my right Occipital bone (where my backup would have been, and where I can always feel the distinctive itching before a seizure) has grown smaller. It is no longer a coarse, wavy iron gray that even bleach and dark permanent dye had a hard time with. Fascinating...
What sort of other healing modalities do you use?
As detailed a bit in this post:
--Meditation.
--EMDR.
--Affirmations.
--Movement.
--Present awareness.
--Gratitude.
--Martial Arts.
--Artsy-Arts.
--Nature.
--Writing.
--Cleansing.
--Middle Fingers.
--Laughter.
--Trust…
More posts can be found under the various Healing Anchors in the Table of Contents HERE.
How can I get the same results you do?
You can't. But you can get your own if you never give up searching for the perfect combination that works for you. You have to also understand and accept that it's a journey, not a Hollywood ending of "And Then She Was CURED Forever! And nothing bad ever happened to her again."
To get results like mine, you have to learn how to live Happily Ever After anyway. Even when you're in pain. Even when your heart is ripped to shreds. Even when you're pissed off and enraged. Even when you're just not fucking happy and there's nothing to be done about it because you're inconsolable. Cool. Be inconsolable. Until you're not.
I know. That probably wasn't the answer you were hoping for.
No magic pill. No magic wand. No 6 Easy Steps. It's more like 6-bazillion, and not half of them easy. Which is why I'm a fan of Baby Steps and of taking regular breaks. Naps are my addiction. I believe the world should accommodate Siesta Hours.
Where can I start looking for my own personal cocktail?
As I write about the ones who have helped me, I'll update the links above. Otherwise, if you live where I live(d) you can ask me for recommendations. After that, I'm a fan of search engines, libraries, coaches, friends, and YouTube.
Will you coach me during my search?
That is a distinct possibility. We should chat to see if we're a good match!
THE REALM OF SPIRIT
What do you believe/what religion are you?
I am not at all religious, but deeply spiritual.
My spirituality is deeply influenced by science, and I suspect that religion, philosophy, mysticism, etc. is all trying to explain many of the same things: the stuff we don't yet have the science for, and may never acquire. My exploration into devotional practices is as varied as my passion for dance and martial arts. The Realm of Spirit infuses everything I do.
I practice the Law of Attraction, but I'm more curious about it than anything.
That could be said of how I am about most things.
I have way more questions about most important things in life than I do "answers."
I believe that where the mind goes, the body will follow.
And vs. versa.
I believe in being as tenacious as a weed, and laughing at myself. (The latter helps with the former.)
I believe in laughter as medicine in general.
I believe in the dichotomy of following your heart, and of balancing it with practicality.
I believe in being a perpetual beginner. (Laughter, growth, humility, and neuroplasticity.)
I'm a proponent of Everything In Moderation - including moderation.
I know that I know nothing - and even that I'm not 100% certain of.
I believe in dangling my prepositions, starting sentences with "and", using sentence fragments, communicating entire paragraphs through emoji, making up my own words, and creating obnoxious lists for impact. I believe that the semicolon is not dead, that alliteration is one of the finest weapons of snark-asshattery, that the ellipsis is a beautiful thing that allows me to write much more like I speak...
And I believe in miracles.
I've sure lived enough of them. I'm finally starting to gain a tiny inkling of how to share some of them, but it's a long process. This site, like my life and my journey, is a big, messy splatter-factor. A constant series of derailments and pivots. The art project of a big kid.
But isn't that what life is?
Really?
Oh, you still want to email me? OKAY.