10,000 Hours

Another beautiful shot from my photoshoot with Liora K.

 

Have you heard the widely-touted saying that it takes 10,000 hours to master something? I've been thinking about it lately because I've been chafing about the lack of home practice lately. We're in the grips of a hot, humid summer and my home is so warm some days that practicing makes me feel sick, like literally queasy. But as the temperatures are slowly creeping down into the 90s instead of the 100s, I've been working practice back into my schedule, sometimes at night when it's a little more bearable. I've got my eye on being able to dance for hours every day (well, 6 days a week, gotta give my muscles a break), whether or not I have class.

 

When my husband I discussed this concept a few months ago, he said he thought it would be cool to figure out how many hours I'd already put into dance. But even coming up with a rough estimate would be difficult, as I'd have to look at the past 5 years and estimate how many hours of class I was taking per week each year. Ugh. If I calculate it at all, I might choose a start date other than when I started taking dance classes -- either when I started my Year of Practice challenge, or when I started studying with Jolie (if we want to assume that I'm trying to master tribal fusion, and not just general bellydance).

 

This week, not counting home practice, I'm going to spend 10 hours between ballet class, bellydance class, troupe practice, a private lesson, and a workshop. Plus I'm performing Saturday night. If every week was like that, that would mean 520 hours a year, which means it would take about 19 and a quarter years to master bellydance, at which point I would be in my early 50s. Clearly I need to practice more.