Saturday, January 1, 2011

Obstacles already

Day 1 of practice.

This year of practice is not off to a good start -- I woke up today to find that not only was my furnace acting up, but I had no hot water pressure in my bathroom. I'm cold and cranky, I had to go to Home Depot for parts that didn't fix any of the problems, and then we had our holiday gift exchange with my family. There was barely time to dance, let alone inclination. But I danced! I barely squeaked in for the day, finishing my practice at 11:58pm.

Because the furnace isn't working well, I'm holed up in the office with a space heater. I had a tiny patch of floor about 2x3' to dance in, with a low-hanging ceiling fan directly overhead, which means that I mostly just drilled shimmies and snake arms and levels. But then I got bored, so I put on a few songs and figured out what I could do in my tiny space.

Today's practice songs:
"Kodama" and "Bushido" by Faith and the Muse. Yes, I do in fact like to practice belly dance to Japanese-inspired Gothic music. I've got an entire three-part Japanese steampunk performance tumbling around in my noggin.
"Sweet Demure" by Beats Antique.

No real major breakthroughs in this practice, though it did warm me up nicely and did wonders for my mood. But I still hate dancing in a tiny space. I have long limbs and I like to use them!

While I was in a bad mood earlier, I popped onto Etsy and made a treasury of dance items, some of which I might use as rewards for my dance progress. I call it Tribal Wishes.

2 comments:

  1. Sometimes a small space can be really fun (like a drum solo on a drum)--you just have to figure out the fun things you *can* do instead of thinking of all the things you can't. A metaphor for life, I guess. Thanks for recommending Faith and the Muse! I hadn't listened to them before, and they're my new happy thing ^^

    ReplyDelete
  2. YAY! I'm glad to have made another Faith and the Muse fan :) They were one of the first "Goth" bands I really liked, and I got into Goth music at around the same time I started belly dance, so they're very tied into each other in my mind!

    Practicing in a tiny space is a good exercise on how to express yourself in cramped surroundings without appearing cramped... but I still prefer to be able to spread my arms and take huge steps ;)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for reading, please feel free to ask questions, post encouragement, make jokes, and otherwise be a part of my blog!