Day 46 of practice.
Now that practicing every day has become a routine, it's starting to feel, well, routine. The excitement of daily practice has been replaced by the feeling like I should be getting more from it. I'm thinking half an hour might not be enough. Oh sure, it's a good minimum, for days when I have house guests, am working at the gem show, or just don't feel good. But on the average day, I should be doing more. I mean really, how much can I be gaining from one song each of shimmies, fast, slow, veil, and just plain dancing? It's helping me keep moves fresh in my mind, which is good, and get more familiar with them, but I feel like I should be pushing myself harder, learning new things, strengthening my muscles, tiring myself out.
This isn't a good time to be thinking these things, since I should be getting my house ready for my mother-in-law's visit, and once she's here I'll be busy doing the hostess thing again, but at least I can plan for next month, maybe set some goals to work towards.
(Practice, by the way, was breakfast shimmies and then 28 minutes straight practice of Anaya Tribal and veil moves)
LOL!! Your hurdle seems to be boredom and mine is exhaustion. Rehearsal 3 days a week from now until early April, and possibly later is tough.
ReplyDeleteWhat about:
-finding more local belly dance classes
-cross training with some other type of dance
class
-DVD Day!! Mine is Thursday.
-signing up for one month of on-line classes
And there's always the intense exploration of a move; practice hip-ups, aka tick-tocks, using just your knees, then just your glutes, then using only the obliques. Then mix it up: glutes with obliques, knees & glutes, etc. Then do it all again with level changes, walking, turning.
Exhaustion is definitely a bigger hurdle to get over, but I kind of wish I had some rehearsals to tire me out. Dancing by myself is part of the problem, I want more leader-follower practice, and feedback from my fellow dancers.
ReplyDeleteYour ideas are good ones, though! DVD Day sounds ideal! Extra classes are out for now, due to time and money constraints (I'm cutting back on workshops, too). And I would definitely benefit from intense exploration, if I could overcome my habit of getting frustrated when something doesn't click and switching to something easier!
I'll experiment with some things the week after next, after my MIL goes home!
I really like my DVD day. Constantly going over routines can get a bit, well...routine, after a while.
ReplyDeleteI'm not doing too many workshops myself. I'm doing two of the WEI workshops on March 6th and then the big Lisa Zahiya & Ava one in November and that's probably going to be it for the year.
I think we all get frustrated when a new move doesn't click right away. It took me months & months to learn to generate snake arms from my shoulder blades rather than from the shoulder. I gave up on that move over and over again.
Yes, even though I am not doing routines, I am pretty much doing the same moves over, because once I start dancing, I forget everything but the combos I know really well ;) I've been wanting to make myself some flash cards of combos, so I can challenge myself with moves I do less often.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could do the WEI workshops but they're the same weekend as the big steampunk convention here in Tucson :(