OCEANSIDE – When Carlsbad resident Maria Simon was a little girl growing up in MÁlaga – a Mediterranean port city in southern Spain – learning the Flamenco was part of the school curriculum.

She caught on quickly to the dance known for its intricate hand-and footwork and continued its practice throughout her teens. At 18 years old, she persuaded her parents to let her join her uncle and sister for the summer as they traveled and performed on a circuit of dinner shows at hotels and fine-dining restaurants in the Middle East.

It was during that first summer that Simon met dancers who introduced her to the dramatic, expressive movements of the Middle Eastern artform that she's grown to love – belly dancing.

Simon began taking belly-dancing classes about two years after that first summer she spent dancing with her family.

DETAILS Belly dancing classes What: Maria Simon teaches for technique and fitness. When: 6 to 7 p.m. for beginners and 7 to 8 p.m. for intermediate students on Tuesday nights and 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Where: John Landes Recreation Center, 2855 Cedar Road, Oceanside. Cost: $46 for one six-week session. Information: (760) 435-5545.

“I thought it was so beautiful, but I never thought it was something I could do professionally,” Simon said. “It was just something I really wanted to do for fun.”

Today, Simon teaches students to view belly dancing with the same carefree philosophy.

“This is your time, I tell them, so just relax and have fun,” she said.

Simon has taught belly dancing classes – with an emphasis on technique on Tuesdays and fitness on Wednesdays – at the John Landes Recreation Center in Oceanside for the past eight years. She charges $48 for six-week sessions and accepts students ages 16 and older.

“The veil, the music, the movement, everything,” she said. “I just absolutely love it.”

Simon said belly dancing is a fantastic form of exercise and works all the major muscle groups – shoulders, back and legs – and particularly helps to shape the abdomen.

“When you dance you're on your toes, so it's really good for balance, too,” she said.

Escondido resident Janie Maguire said Simon's classes can be used as a weight-loss tool. “Just like any exercise, you really need to do it three to four times a week,” she said. “The classes have helped me with grace and having more fluidity with movements.”

Maguire was hesitant to wear the traditional belly-dancing costume when she started taking Simon's classes about two years ago.

“It took me a little while to get over that because I'm very conservative. I'm the type of girl that I don't even wear a two-piece,” said Maguire, who was dancing at Greek Paradise, a now-defunct Oceanside restaurant, about a year after she started taking Simon's classes.

“Maria has absolutely no inhibitions,” Maguire said. “She makes you laugh and makes the class fun, which is great.”

Simon is passionate about teaching the craft and helping students overcome their insecurities, something she had a hard time with.

After spending a few summers dancing with her uncle – traveling everywhere from Iran and Beirut to Syria, Dubai and Kuwait – hotel managers learned she could belly dance and encouraged her to add it to her routine. There was one problem: Simon was a bit shy.

“It's only two pieces of costume,” said Simon, who had reservations about performing the seductive dance in front of a crowd. “In the Spanish Flamenco you wear a long costume and flowers – it's a very different look.”

Once Simon broke out of her shell, she was hooked. Every night she performed both dances. She said after many in the audience told her they thought two different dancers performed the two shows.

“People didn't know where I came from,” she said. “They thought I was Arabic. I think in my other life I might have been from the Middle East.”

Throughout her 20s, Simon returned to dance with her uncle in the summers. Just before she turned 30 she moved to the United States to be with her late husband, who was working in Iraq when they met in her mid-20s.

Although her family still lives in Spain, she is grateful for her home away from home in San Diego – where climate brings warm memories of her childhood in Spain.

---