Oh my gosh, a picture!

Day 86 of practice.

Hey, a picture! Stolen shamelessly from Facebook! These are just some of my lovely dance friends who came out for the Ren Faire invasion! The back row consists of the Ghazaal Beledi dancers, with one of their musicians standing in front of them. Everyone else is an attendee! We were out in force! And so well-dressed, too. You can't tell in the photo, but I'm actually wearing some purple and blue with my black and green, much to the delight of my friends. I'm trying to learn to love contrast.

Anyway, today has been a lazy practice day, because I'm tired and dehydrated from Ren Faire! I danced while washing dishes, and now I'm sitting here doing isolations and chair dancing while I type. I think I'll do some nice stretches after this, as I didn't stretch at all after yesterday's shimmy marathon, and my legs were telling me about it this morning. I want to throw myself into some more hardcore practice this week, so I need my body to be in good shape and ready for a little abuse.

I think I'll also get back to work on my flashcard project. I need to remember to put some blank index cards in my dance bag; my goal is to write down new combos right after class, while they're still fresh in my mind and while Cari is there in case I need to ask for some clarification.

Rachel Brice Kicks My Butt

Day 58 of practice.

My brother-in-law gave me Rachel Brice's Serpentine DVD for the holidays, and tonight I finally made it part of my daily practice. I decided to give the shimmy drills a try, because I'm really bad at drilling anything if I don't have someone (even if they're just on the TV screen) telling me what to do. The exercise consists of several different types of shimmies, with arm, torso, and hip movements layered over them. Some of the drills were easy, and some of them were impossible at my current skill level! Of course, Rachel makes all of them look easy. I think I'll do these drills every day that I have time for an extra-long practice and don't have class/workshops, at least until I can do everything in the exercise. Maybe then I'll move on to one of the other sections of the DVD.

And that was just the start of my practice! I skipped my usual shimmy warm-up, since I was VERY warm (had to change into a lighter-weight shirt partway through the drills!), and moved right into veil practice. My routine is coming together, but since the hafla is in less than 2 weeks, I definitely need to work out my entrance and smooth everything out. This was followed by two songs worth of Anaya Tribal fast, one of slow, and some solo practice to Collide. Add in some cool-down stretches, and I practiced for about 45-50 minutes total. Not bad!

I finished my Level 1 flashcards today. Of course, I don't really NEED flashcards for the Level 1 moves, but I'm a completist.

I gave myself a rain check

Day 57 of practice, sort of.

You may have noticed that I didn't blog yesterday. I also didn't dance yesterday. Why? I was SICK! I had some stomach issues, and I was utterly exhausted. The tummy problems ruled out belly rolls, and nausea and dancing just don't combine well. I was going to do some arm isolations and maybe some zills, you know, take it easy, but instead I fell asleep.

Dreaming of dancing doesn't technically count as practice, I suppose.

After over 12 hours of sleep, I woke up this morning feeling much better, and I'm back in the dancing saddle. Today I started going through the belly dance music CDs that I purchased at the Borders going-out-of-business sale, and I started my flashcard project (making flash cards for all of my Anaya Tribal moves, and eventually probably flash cards for all the combos from prop classes that I have handouts from). After setting up a new homework play list, I got half an hour of practice -- shimmy warm-up, veil practice, Anaya Tribal fast and slow, solo, knee shimmy drills and lots of stretching.

Tomorrow, I plan to get an hour of practice to make up for the half-hour I missed yesterday. If the weather's good (which it probably won't be), I'll take my zills for a walk around the block. If the weather's bad, I'll do some drills from a DVD. And I'll definitely keep going through my music and working on my flashcards.

So my year of practice won't be quite perfect, but I don't intend to let missing one day throw me off.