Oh boy

Day 277 of practice.

What have I gotten myself into? Ha ha. My abs are killing me and my arms are exhausted. It reminds me of when I first started going to the gym. My body has grown complacent, it's comfortable with the level of belly dance I was doing and is protesting against this intense fusion stuff. Well, suck it up body, we're going to keep doing this!

Yep, I just got back from two more hours of classes with Jolie at BreakOut Studios on 4th Ave. Tonight was Bellydance 101 and Technique and Drills. I expected 101 to be really boring, ie, "This is a hip drop" but then she made us do rib circles without involving our shoulders or spine... completely controlled by the muscles around the ribcage. It was INTENSE. And in the drills class, we did crazy arm drills.

But it was also a lot of fun. We started 101 out with some walking practice, including walking like zombies as a creative exercise. And in Drills, to practice keeping our hands flat in a controlled snake arm, we had to imagine that we had little animals riding on our hands. My little friends were giant scarab beetles, because I got to handle one at an insect festival last month and it was SO COOL. But I guess that was cheating because I was supposed to feel bad if I dropped my little friends, and of course scarabs can fly.