Today we’d like to introduce you to Ziah McKinney.
Ziah, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am a 50-year-old Birth Doula, Bellydancer, Teacher, Event Producer, and Mommy. I began belly dancing after a doctor suggested it as a way to avoid knee replacement surgery at the age of 21. I had always had extremely painful knees hip and back, and could never find an exercise form that was low impact enough to not hurt me further.
Bellydance did indeed help strengthen my muscles which helped support my joints. Twenty-five years later I was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome/EDS, a collagen disorder that is means its sufferers can suffer from painful, unstable joints, soft and fragile skin the is slow to heal, fragile arteries, veins and heart, brain dysfunction, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome/POTS (a type of dysautonomia). 85% of your body is made of collagen so anything that is made out of it can be affected. For me, I bruise easily and my knees, hips, spine, ribs, and shoulders are held in place by my muscles so I have to keep exercising, will have to keep exercising every day of my life. It is genetic but can manifest differently in each person, it was passed from my grandmother, mother (they both died of it undiagnosed) and now to my daughter. It is not a rare disease but a rarely diagnosed disease because it is seen as a women’s disease (which is untrue, just as many men have it) and there is no way for researchers to make money off of a diagnoses. Is estimated that 1 in 200 humans have one of the 13 types.
My bellydance teaching style is very safety and alignment focused because of EDS. I also share cultural information, history, and knowledge about music. Over the past 20 years, I have taught thousands of people in weekly classes, workshops all over the world, and as a Director of my professional dance company, Awalim.
My focus on health and advocacy, because doctors are not educated about EDS yet so you have to really advocate for yourself, and my sustained interest in birth, lead me to become a Birth Doula. A Doula is a support person for you during pre-natal, birth, and/or post-partum. They have resources to help inform your decisions, knowledge to help physically support during birth to ease discomfort, and can advocate for you to your medical team if it is something you desire. They are one of the few things that is known to reduce the chance of a c section, and even out poor birth outcomes and maternal mortality rates where there are social and racial disparities. I also advocate for EDS parents so that they, and their medical teams, know the issues that can come up like increased chance of bleeding, slow wound healing, and different reactions to medications. I have also trained to support LGBTQI+ parents with Trystan Reese and done a Dancing for Birth training to provide pre-natal, birth, and post-partum dance exercise courses to help empower an active role in your own birth.
Has it been a smooth road?
Ehlers Danlos is an extremely painful disorder for most people. Think about how much pain your body is in if you wrench your shoulder or your back is out, that is an EDSer’s daily life. It is very distracting to be in that much pain and try to go about a normal daily life. Exercise helps me but it is a cascade of effects because if you don’t feel good it is hard to get moving, and if you don’t get moving you can’t get your exercise in for that day, and then you feel worse the next day. I am grateful to have a diagnoses so that I know exactly what to target and why instead of just being careful all the time and just feeling like I am whiney. It means we can start early with my daughter and know what to look for and how to manage her pain. My mother and grandmother died not knowing why their bodies were like that and the medical establishment was not helpful, was even harmful, to them up until the very end. For my mother, it meant a diagnosis of “bipolar” because of brain fog (brains are built out of collagen so they don’t always work right), anger, exhaustion, and then exhilaration on days your body did work right.
I am so lucky that I have a diagnoses and can manage my pain through dance, exercise, meditation, advocacy, alignment, etc…the list is very long. I have taken my knowledge of my management styles and turned them into careers of dance and Birth Doula so they can serve to help others.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I have always played a support role in all of the aspects of my businesses. In dance class, I support the students in the kind of style they would like to pursue by teaching the basics of bellydance and performance that would apply to all styles of bellydance. By taking the dance down to its basics, knowing how to do a move without any stylistic dialect, a student can take any kind of workshop and access the teacher’s details, can watch any bellydancer and understand what makes them different, and can study bellydance from different cultures. I also focus on safety and alignment so that my students have a unique endurance, I personally can dance for 7 to 8 hours and love every second of it. When your body is balanced and not fighting itself, you use your own momentum movement to generate the dance.
As a Doula, my job is to support the parent in what their choices are with no agenda of my own. You don’t have to be “crunchy” to want the support of a Doula, my role is to be by your side to offer comfort during birth. Babies get birthed in very many ways and every birth is different each time around. I like to say that I provide birth support of anybody and any circumstance, whether I am a guide for something you have not experienced before, or I am physical support just so that birth is not as physically taxing as the last time and you can bounce back quicker this time. I am different than family support in the same way that a trained massage therapist is different, sure you partner rubs your feet sometimes but they are not trained in anatomy and thousands of years of technique in order to help you relax and heal. As a Doula who is using over six different types of training, my ability to support you and your family is truly a unique gift, you can give yourselves.
As an event producer, I focus on creating venues to allow performers that would not otherwise have a platform for their style, body type, gender, or message. I ran TribalCon, the largest Tribal Bellydance and Music Festival east of the Mississippi, for 14 years. It was retired last year as venues and expenses kept getting more expensive. I now focus on a smaller show called Atlanta Tribal Cafe to create a paid performance spot for people that are not hired at standard bellydance venues.
I also am still a professional bellydancer that performs weekly solo and with my dance company, Awalim. My 14-year-old daughter is also part of my dance company and it gives me a chance to share ways to keep her body strong, and for her to be confident in front of a crowd and explore her creative side.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I love living and working on the east side of Atlanta because it is a beautiful combination of nature and civilization, small town and big city. That is reflected by our small town friendliness but openness to so many cultures. The one thing that Atlanta lacks, that both small towns and big cities need, is more sidewalks, bike paths, and mass transit. Being in cars separates us from each other and is not good for our city’s citizens’ health.
Contact Info:
- Address: Tribal Bellydance Center of Atlanta, located inside Dance Foundry, 2977 East Ponce de Leon Ave., Suite C, Decatur, GA 30030
- Website: www.ZiahMcKinney.com
- Phone: 678 636 9333
- Email: ziahdoula@gmail.com
- Instagram: ziahatl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ziahavasmom
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tribal-bellydance-center-of-atlanta-decatur
Image Credit:
Dancers Eye, Issac Harrell, Studio Jaki
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