I feel a little guilty posting this in the face of the tragedy in CT, but I had a good day of dancing today.
Jolie, Rachel and I performed at a holiday party for the radiation/oncology department of one of the local hospitals, and it was a great show. Our audience of patients and staff was really, really enthusiastic and afterwards several of them wanted to talk to us about dance, their past experience with it, where they could see us again, etc etc. It felt really good to make them so happy. I did a solo to Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Revenge of the Sugar Plum Fairy" and I did so many turns with proper spotting that you would not believe they used to almost bring me to tears on a regular basis earlier this year. That is the power of practice, people!
Then tonight I went to High Heel Fit because Jolie was teaching, and she made us dance on chairs. In heels! Now, I happen to have a fear of falling and standing on things freaks me out -- doubly so in high heels, triply so when I'm getting light-headed because I didn't eat dinner. But I did it, and I didn't fall, and I had fun. I'm feeling a little bit like a bad-ass. I hope the video turns out, I want proof that I was dancing on a chair and I didn't freak out.
Tomorrow I am going up to Phoenix for the Circus Farm fundraiser, which should be my last gig of the year unless something else comes up!
Showing posts with label things I am bad at. Show all posts
Showing posts with label things I am bad at. Show all posts
Friday, December 14, 2012
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
I am a lump
Day 333 of practice.
Today I gave into the urge to be a lump. I had a more lousy day and felt so bad mentally that I made myself feel bad physically, too. Even before today turned out to be worse than yesterday, I was feeling bad about my current state as a dancer. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like I really have not improved noticeably at anything at all lately. I don't think I'm practicing often enough or hard enough, and I've reached the point where I'm not getting better just from being in class.
Jolie's classes have been both good and bad for me -- I love the material and I'm learning a lot of new stuff, but I'm also a perfectionist so it frustrates me when I can't do something. I'm feeling pretty down on myself because I'm not doing as well in her classes as I would like. For that matter, I also haven't been feeling too awesome in my various ITS classes. Lot of issues with not feeling graceful, being off the beat, etc etc.
I want to be awesome and amazing and right now I feel strongly mediocre. And hooray, I asked for the opportunity to perform a solo in just over 2 weeks. I'd better find some self esteem fast.
Oh, and today's practice? Working on said solo. It's the one that Jolie helped me get started on during our private lesson and I feel like I am not capable of achieving the awesome ideas we had for it (both when working together, and then the separate ideas I came up with after another listen), and like I am basically doing the same stupid moves over and over again with no real emotional investment. On top of that I drilled layers over tic-toc shimmies, because that should be simple but I suck at it. And I stretched, because stretching is good.
Today I gave into the urge to be a lump. I had a more lousy day and felt so bad mentally that I made myself feel bad physically, too. Even before today turned out to be worse than yesterday, I was feeling bad about my current state as a dancer. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like I really have not improved noticeably at anything at all lately. I don't think I'm practicing often enough or hard enough, and I've reached the point where I'm not getting better just from being in class.
Jolie's classes have been both good and bad for me -- I love the material and I'm learning a lot of new stuff, but I'm also a perfectionist so it frustrates me when I can't do something. I'm feeling pretty down on myself because I'm not doing as well in her classes as I would like. For that matter, I also haven't been feeling too awesome in my various ITS classes. Lot of issues with not feeling graceful, being off the beat, etc etc.
I want to be awesome and amazing and right now I feel strongly mediocre. And hooray, I asked for the opportunity to perform a solo in just over 2 weeks. I'd better find some self esteem fast.
Oh, and today's practice? Working on said solo. It's the one that Jolie helped me get started on during our private lesson and I feel like I am not capable of achieving the awesome ideas we had for it (both when working together, and then the separate ideas I came up with after another listen), and like I am basically doing the same stupid moves over and over again with no real emotional investment. On top of that I drilled layers over tic-toc shimmies, because that should be simple but I suck at it. And I stretched, because stretching is good.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Slow progress
Day 141 of practice.
So, I have this character flaw (actually, I have a lot of them, but this one is relevant to dancing). I only like to do things that I'm naturally good at. I don't like to struggle with things. Ideally I'd like to be the best at everything I do, but I long ago learned that if there's anything that I'm exceptional at, I haven't found it yet, so I have to settle for doing my personal best.
There are some parts of belly dance that I naturally took to, which is good because if not I never would have done it. In fact, my dance journey was delayed because the DVDs that I first tried to learn from had some isolations that I couldn't do right away so I got discouraged and gave up until I had a real live teacher to help me locate the right muscles and build up to it.
The thing about taking belly dance classes and being serious about it is that I can't just say "Oh well, I can't do a hip drop so I'm not going to." If I want to keep up with the class, and be the best dancer I can be, I have to work on the things that don't come naturally to me. And that's what a lot of today's practice was -- shimmies on the down, lower ab tucks, and working up to belly flutters (which is not something I HAVE to learn, but I decided to challenge myself with). There should have been some Arabic shimmy practice, too, but I didn't get around to that. Also, there was some fun dancing to music while I cleaned, because dancing makes dealing with clutter so much more fun.
I'm not at all sore from yesterday's workout, by the way, so clearly I did not work out hard enough. I'll have to be more vigorous on Monday. Tomorrow I have a date with some yardwork, which is a workout enough in and of itself, but I may go for a jog with my husband and the corgis if the weather is still nice.
So, I have this character flaw (actually, I have a lot of them, but this one is relevant to dancing). I only like to do things that I'm naturally good at. I don't like to struggle with things. Ideally I'd like to be the best at everything I do, but I long ago learned that if there's anything that I'm exceptional at, I haven't found it yet, so I have to settle for doing my personal best.
There are some parts of belly dance that I naturally took to, which is good because if not I never would have done it. In fact, my dance journey was delayed because the DVDs that I first tried to learn from had some isolations that I couldn't do right away so I got discouraged and gave up until I had a real live teacher to help me locate the right muscles and build up to it.
The thing about taking belly dance classes and being serious about it is that I can't just say "Oh well, I can't do a hip drop so I'm not going to." If I want to keep up with the class, and be the best dancer I can be, I have to work on the things that don't come naturally to me. And that's what a lot of today's practice was -- shimmies on the down, lower ab tucks, and working up to belly flutters (which is not something I HAVE to learn, but I decided to challenge myself with). There should have been some Arabic shimmy practice, too, but I didn't get around to that. Also, there was some fun dancing to music while I cleaned, because dancing makes dealing with clutter so much more fun.
I'm not at all sore from yesterday's workout, by the way, so clearly I did not work out hard enough. I'll have to be more vigorous on Monday. Tomorrow I have a date with some yardwork, which is a workout enough in and of itself, but I may go for a jog with my husband and the corgis if the weather is still nice.
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