Workshops with Mahin!

Photo by Lee Corkett, costume by Mahin, beaded jewelry by me!

Yesterday I spent five hours in workshops with Mahin! It was great to be in belly dance workshops again, and I always like working with Mahin because she has a ton of knowledge, a great personality, and a good teaching style. Oh, and good taste in jewelry! I always love seeing pictures of her wearing the custom-made set I beaded to go with her costume.

Anyway, the workshops in question were on anatomy, 3/4 shimmies, and palm flames, so it was a really good range of topics and everything was applicable for all styles of bellydance. I'd taken a much shorter version of the anatomy workshop in Bisbee last year, so I was looking forward to the full two-hour version to cover even more ground, and I'd also purchased palm flame in Bisbee so it was well past time that I started working with them. And as for the 3/4 shimmies, well, mine always need work!

Belly Dance Anatomy and Injury Prevention was definitely my favorite workshop of the day. I really like knowing how my body works and how to take better care of it, and this workshop really gets down into that. Not only does Mahin talk about the different muscles used in dance, but she teaches lots of great stretches and exercises for conditioning your body. She even has a tiny skeleton that she uses to show you where on your body different muscles and tendons connect. I totally geek out on this workshop and will probably continue to take it whenever I get the chance.

Full on with 3/4 Shimmies covered a wide variety of 3/4 variations and how to pair them with foot patterns and upper-body layers. I enjoyed this workshop because Mahin introduced me to some shimmies that I don't often see in tribal fusion and some foot patterns that I never use. It definitely got my brains and muscles working! Plus she has a really smart way of breaking down 3/4 shimmies to help you remember how to do each one and to diagnose the problem if you're not getting it. I highly recommend this one for anyone struggling with the 3/4 shimmy or looking for some new versions to add to their bag of tricks.

Hot! Hot! Hot! Combos for Palm Flames covered palm flame basics since we were all beginners to working with them (well, I took an 8 week session years ago and haven't practiced since...), then concepts for working with them such as framing, tracing, and negative space, and then combined all of those ideas into a long combination. We also spent some time discussing nice ways to travel and turn with palm flames. It was a really good introduction to the prop. It also reminded me that I have not been working my arms and shoulders enough lately. Yikes! I'm a little sore today.

Over all, my head is full of new knowledge and new ideas, and my body is full of the pleasant aches and pains of a busy day of dancing.

Datura Online -- finally!

I was finally able to make use of my Datura Online subscription tonight! The whole thing was a bit of an ordeal. It turns out that there's something about the way they do the videos that means that I can't play them using the internet or video sharing options on the new TV, they only work if we use an HDMI cord to plug the TV into a computer, turning it into a giant monitor. So that's something to keep in mind if you're shopping for a new TV with the idea of using DO: Don't buy an LG Smart TV.

Unfortunately at the moment the only computer free to be plugged into the TV is Chris's old laptop, which is pretty much on its very last legs. I keep having trouble with it freezing, or taking forever to load the videos. It's hard to say when slowness is a problem with the site and when it is a problem with the stupid computer. I will probably invest in a new laptop sometime in the coming year, but right now I'm hoping to nurse this one along.

But anyway, enough about my technical problems... How is Datura Online? I have to admit that I was so annoyed about the crashing laptop that I almost gave up on dancing, but instead I loaded up a shimmy drill warm-up with Rachel Brice, and I started smiling almost immediately. I mean, when one of your favorite dancers is guiding you through a little yoga to warm up your back, how can you not feel better? I really enjoyed this video, as it did get me warmed up quickly and was an easy enough sequence that I feel like if I use it regularly, I'll be able to memorize it and make use of it backstage before gigs, which is what she originally developed it for. I like the fact that it involves a minimum of traveling steps, making it easy to do in a tight spot like my living room or the hallway next to the bathrooms (aka what counts for backstage at most restaurant gigs).

After that I decided to try the Slovenia Slam scale combo, also by Rachel Brice. I enjoyed the scales when we did them in her workshops last year, and I like that it's another quick 10 minute video. These scales are great drills to add to your daily practice to work on basic isolations -- they're based on the concept of the scales that musicians drill over and over again when learning to play. This one has a lot of chest isolations, including a chest circle to the back which kept throwing me off, I am too used to going to the front first! I think I'll do that scale every day until going to the back feels natural.

I like the idea of DO because it's flexible to what sort of practice I want to do. Tonight I wanted to warm up quickly and drill. Maybe tomorrow I will feel more like an hour-long class. Or I might decide to give the Unmata ITS language a try, since that's gaining popularity in Tucson.

One of the main reasons why I subscribed were the conditioning videos. I know that I need to work on my strength and flexibility, but without an actual routine to follow, I tend to slack off. I feel like with workout and yoga videos at my fingertips, I will be able to make sure I'm doing enough reps, holding long enough, and have a visual representation of what I'm supposed to be doing instead of what I think I remember from class. DO will make it easy to mix and match the routines that work well for me, throwing in some drills and cool-downs, instead of having to switch back and forth between my various DVDs and YouTube videos.

I'll be sure to post about the other videos that I try as I work to keep myself busy until classes and troupe practice return!

Smorgasbord

Oh, how I love that word. Smorgasbord! It's fun to say. It's fun to type.

Today's practice was a little of this and that -- some snake arms with glow fans, some layered shimmies, some fast turns with spotting, some 3/4 shimmies, and of course some choreography (where I completely skipped the 16 counts of taxims, oops!).

I think I overdid it on the glow fan snake arms, though, since my arm is trembling as I attempt to drink. Uh oh!

Indecision

The hardest part about practicing at home is deciding what to practice. Some things are a given -- right now I have to practice the F&G choreography, and I have to work with my glow fans. But what else should I work on? Layering over shimmies? Improving the range of motion in my taxim? Freshen up my ITS, which has been a bit neglected lately? More emotionality?  Hands? Sword? Veil?

I should probably sit down and come up with some sort of plan and schedule, to make sure that everything gets practiced. Otherwise I tend to neglect things. And let's face it, if I want to work my way up to being a professional belly dancer (and I do!), I need to develop good practice habits.

As for tonight, I decided it was a great idea to do snake arms with glow fans. I should probably do that every day to build up a little muscle! And I did some shimmies with a bit of layering on top.

Class and Practice

My tattoo is healing nicely, so it's not slowing down my dancing. Hooray! Today I went to Jolie's community class, where we did a modified version of Monday's choreography, and lots of shimmies. I worked up a nice sweat!

This evening, I worked on the F&G choreo (getting better every day!) and the solos I'm going to present on Monday to possibly be used in our big show on May 20th. I have two pieces I'm working on, for a total of just under 7.5 minutes, with the idea that I can do either one, both, or neither depending on what we need.

I also made time for some stretching, because muscles need love, too!

Work and Fun

Good times at class tonight. There were lots of fun conversations before class, about insects and chemical showers and other crazy things. I love dancing because it introduces me to so many interesting people from different walks of life -- massage therapists, astrophysicists, biologists, and more!

Once chatting time was over it was time for lots of drills and shimmies and discovering more things I'm bad at. Well I guess I already knew I was bad at a walking 3/4 shimmy on the down, but now everyone else knows it, too.

Tomorrow is a big day because I am getting my FIRST TATTOO!

So much layering!

Oh my goodness. Lots and lots of layering and stuff at Jolie's classes tonight. Lots of leg work. Lots of shimmies. Lots of belly rolls. I am utterly and completely exhausted, and sore in numerous places. I definitely got my money's worth tonight! I'm going to go die now.

Sore!

Day 326 of practice.

Another intense day of fast-paced class, which is good because there's still no heat in BreakOut so it's nice to keep moving and stay warm. Today was about layers and sharp accents and moving through space. Lots of shimmies! I'm glad to know that I'm burning off a lot of calories before I eat chocolate pie on Thanksgiving.

Fabulous daydream life

Day 259 of practice.

Do you ever daydream about a life where you have no obligations and can spend all of your time on creative pursuits? I know I have it easier than most because I don't have a dayjob or kids, but sometimes it gets so annoying to feel like I'm going to have most of the day wide open for dance and yoga and jewelry and costuming, and to instead spend it running errands and cleaning the house.

Well, at least I got a lot of cleaning done today.

And I shimmied while I cleaned. And my zills turned up.

But I'm tired, and I didn't get to do yoga like I wanted to, and by the time we got back from our late dinner with a friend we hadn't seen in forever, I was too tired to do a dress rehearsal for tomorrow's performance, which means I have to do it tomorrow before I leave, and if something doesn't work I won't have much time to replace it with something that does work. I don't even want to think about everything I have to do before I leave tomorrow. Uuuugh.

Getting down to business

Day 249 of practice.

No more Miss Lazy Dancer! I've been noticing over the past week that my midsection was getting a little squishier than I would like, the results of not practicing hard enough and eating out too often. This is unacceptable! I need to dance harder and eat healthier and be the best dancer I can be.

So tonight's practice consisted of a nice dynamic stretching warmup to get the blood flowing and everything all loosy-goosy.

Then I did the shimmy drills section from Serpentine with Rachel Brice, which built up a nice sweat and reminded me that my shimmies on the down suck.

Then I grabbed my Rajna CD, because somehow I've never listened to it, and I set out to do some improv. But the first song was only 2 minutes long, so I decided to do the second song too, and it was over 6 minutes long. So yay for over 8 minutes of improv to unfamiliar music! Boo for the fact that the second song had a lot of dulcimer or qanoon or some other vibrating instrument that required more shimmies.

Then I grabbed my veil and practiced my solo.

Then I came in here to update my blog and SaraBeth's comment on yesterday's post reminded me that I had not practiced my 3-3-7 zill pattern! So I spent a few minutes working on that and made some progress.

Now it's time to take a relaxing shower, and do some stretches so I don't wake up with sore abs tomorrow!

Antisocial

Day 243 of practice.

I didn't go to class today because I was feeling cranky and antisocial. Blame the heat... or the rain... or my sleep schedule which still hasn't normalized from the double-whammy of vacation and sickness (my body: weee! Let's stay up reading past 2am like we used to! Oh, but then let's wake up at 7 when the husband's alarm goes off, and not fall back asleep!). So I stayed home and did shimmies and arm and hand isolations, on top of the housework dancing I did earlier.

Hopefully class tomorrow will snap me out of my funk. I do find myself eagerly looking forward to troupe practice... only to remember that the next one isn't until the 18th! There's a big part of me that wishes we could have practice every weekend... whereas the rest of me reminds that part that it is, in fact, a long drive up to Tempe and I have to get up at 7am to do it.

Shimmies

Day 210 of practice.

Today I did shimmies because I didn't really feel like doing much else. Too many other things going on as I try to get ready to leave for a trip on Monday. Tomorrow I'll make time for some good practice, but today was just chaotic and didn't work out how I planned, plus I was just tired and unmotivated. Hopefully I'll get some good sleep tonight and feel refreshed tomorrow!

Shimmies and mayas and blog posts

Day 208 of practice.

I skipped class tonight, because I was feeling rundown and dehydrated and really not up to an hour and a half at the hot, hot Dance Loft. Instead I stayed home and practiced shimmies and mayas. Another unexciting practice, but at least I'm working on things that need work. It's hard to get excited about practice when you're rundown and it's hot, after all.

However, I can get excited about the fact that my friend Aquariann asked me to write a guest post over at her blog, in honor of the fact that National Dance Day is this weekend. Click here to read it!

I am a social butterfly!

Day 196 of practice.

Wow, I am one tired dancer. I was just thinking about it and I realized I've been out of the house and social every day this week. Monday and Tuesday were spent with Jen, Wednesday was class, Thursday was carpooling with Dawn to class, and today was lunch and shopping with my Mom (scored some sweet dancy stuff!) and then I spent the evening at the Metal Arts Village, where I got to hang out with Fonda and meet a lot of people. I'm an introvert, so all of this socializing has worn me out. Or maybe it's the heat. Either way, tired!

Because of this, I'm taking it easy on the practice tonight... Shimmied while I did the dishes, and now I'm dancing to Pandora tunes while I clean the house (being gone all the time is not conducive to a tidy home). The pile of dance stuff that needs to be put away is particularly intimidating, but really it's mostly fluffy 25 yard skirts!

Blown away

Day 186 of practice.

Well, I didn't really blow away, but we had some crazy windstorms today. Could it be because my new DVD by Tempest arrived in the mail?!? Who knows! I'm excited to check the DVD out as I really love Tempest's style and it apparently has a warm-up that is good for daily practice. My practice could use some more structure!

Today's unstructured practice included hand drills, shimmies while I washed the dishes, glute squeezes while reading, and some practice of various versions of Arabic. On Fonda's advice, I've been working to smooth out the chest lift and drop on my Arabic. I do it well enough when I'm dancing slow to medium, but apparently I get very choppy when I get fast. It's so good to have specific things to work on!

Dancing in the rain

Day 184 of practice.

It rained today! This is kind of a big deal because it feels like we might be in for a real monsoon season for the first time in years. The desert has been so dry, and of course if you follow the news at all you probably know about the fires here in AZ and also in NM. We had a storm on Wednesday, but it was at 3:30am so I didn't get a chance to dance in it. Today's rain came in around 10pmish, so I paused the movie we were watching and ran outside to dance just a bit. It was surprisingly COLD so I didn't dance much. Ha ha! But it felt so nice. I wish the storm had lasted longer.

The rest of my practice consisted of shimmies while I did the dishes and glute squeezes while I read. The big problem with monsoons is that it makes a lie of our unofficial state slogan "But it's a dry heat!" The only thing worse than trying to dance in the heat is trying to dance in heat and humidity.

Weird places to dance

Day 182 of practice.

What is the weirdest place that you've ever practiced dancing? So far, for me, it's Office Max.

I don't know if it's all Office Maxes or just the one near us, but it seems like every time we go there, either there's a problem ringing us up, or a problem with the person ahead of us, and there's only ever one person working the register. So annoying! Today we were there to buy some card blanks for my jewelry business, and the lady ahead of us was doing a return, which required the use of the only register. After a few minutes I got horribly bored and put the package of cards on my head and began to do mayas and hip slides. After all, if I have to be stuck in line, I might as well DO something.

Today was apparently the day for multi-tasking practice, because not only did I do that, but I also just shimmied my way through an entire sink full of dishes, and now I'm going to go lie in bed with a book and do glute squeezes. It's the lazy girl's guide to shortcuts for dance practice when it's too hot to dance and you've only had 5 hours of sleep so you really don't care!

So hot

Day 178 of practice.

Yeah, I'm not even going to pretend that I'm going to practice during the day for the next few months. 110+ degree temperatures are here to stay. Tomorrow night's drum and dance in the park has been canceled because the forecast says it will still be 100 degrees at 8pm. Remind me again why I committed to half an hour of daily practice, even through the summer? Oh yeah. Because I like becoming a better dancer. Not that one needs to practice every day to get better (but it certainly helps), it's just that I used to really slack off without the accountability that this blog and the challenge provide.

Anyway. I not only worked on my veil solo, but I also played around with my veil. Experimented with different things I could do. And I did some shimmies, and some super slow tribal moves.

Slooooow like a mo-fo.

Day 164 of practice.

Fun practice today, over 40 minutes of dance. Well, ok, some of that time was actually spent reading the descriptions of skirt combos and walking my way through them, but that was dance-like. In addition to that I did the shimmy drill section from Serpentine, and then I put on a song and practiced dancing as slow as I could. I dance so slow that I ran out of song long before I ran out of slow moves that I could remember off the top of my head, which doesn't usually happen.

On! Sailing On! To Our Fate!

Day 157 of practice.

Decided to do the random song practice again tonight, and the iPod decided it was in a fast mood and gave me "India" by Xandria. That's where the title of the post comes from. This is a song that I would love to do a steampunk piece to sometime, it has the perfect adventurous spirit... but it's also fast metal, which makes it a challenge to dance to. I was shimmying, making grand gestures, spinning, and rushing across my living room, which left me in a sweat.

That was the capper to my practice, which started with a shimmy warm-up, moved into practicing my solo, then doing one of the combos Jen and I developed this weekend, but only a couple of times because my thighs don't want to do levels today, then Anaya Tribal fast, then working on the shimmy I need to layer over my Arabic, then Anaya Tribal slow. Whew. I am going to have to practice for more than half an hour a day if I want to stay current on my skills and also develop new things. I didn't get to skirt tonight, and I haven't done veil, zills, or balancing props for a while! I probably also need to practice at home on days that I have other dance plans, too. I spend a minimum of three nights a week out of the house for belly dance things, which is great, but when I'm at class, or dancing at the park, or taking workshops, I'm not necessarily working on the areas that I should really focus on.