Busiest Weekend

Those are sculptures of straight jackets hanging from the ceiling of the restaurant where I was having dinner after Club Bellydance... with the five members of Bellydance Superstars who are part of the tour, along with their road crew, Ava Fleming (who hosted the Phoenix Club Bellydance show), some of the other local performers, and a couple other audience members. And that is one reason why the busiest weekend was also the awesomest weekend.

(Side note: I had to steal this picture from Jolie's FB, because I left my phone in the car and couldn't take my own straight jacket sculpture pictures)

My weekend of busy awesomeness was not originally going to be anything too spectacular. I was going to vend at Yasmina's Bellydance Swap Meet, take a fan veil workshop, maybe have some dinner, and then go home. But a month or so ago Jolie asked if I would like to assist Skirt Full Of Fire at a gig up in Phoenix that night, because I had expressed some interest in doing some ride-alongs to learn more about the business side of dance. Since I was already going to be up there for the swap meet, this was perfect! So my plan became swap meet, workshop, assist at gig, maybe sleep over, then go home.

Then Club Bellydance was going to be in town on the 20th and I was torn on whether to go or not. After all, did I want to spend the entire weekend in Phoenix? But when the local performers were announced, I knew I had to go. Not only was Jolie performing, but so were my former teachers Anaya Tribal, so I really had to go make some noise for the ladies who have shaped my dance career (plus the rest of the line-up was pretty impressive). This meant that my plan was now swap meet, workshop, assist at gig, sleep over, Club Bellydance, maybe a quick late dinner after, go home.

I'll write separate posts about the swap meet and the pro gig, as each needs some things said about it and I don't want this to turn into a disjointed novel, but they were both good experiences for their own reasons, and I had a really good time on Saturday.

If you haven't been to a Club Bellydance show before, it's split into two parts. The first half consists of local performers who auditioned to be part of the show. This time around the judges had chosen a really great mix of soloists and troupes, tribal and cabaret. A really great mix of styles. Since it's pick-your-own-seating, I grabbed front and center, because why not? Besides, Fonda and I sat in the front row at my first Club Bellydance show, so I'd like to make it a tradition. I enjoyed the heck out of the first half of the show and was really glad that I went. It was incredibly inspiring and really a good time.

So during intermission I'm posting on  FB about how great the event is, when Jolie texts me from backstage and asks me if I want to go do dinner after with Sabah and the others. I played it cool in my response with a simple "Love to!" and meanwhile texted my husband going "Omgomgomgomg." I was going to get to hang out with the cool kids!

And that was about when I started thinking about the importance of making good decisions in life. If I hadn't decided to ask Jolie for the opportunity to help out with some pro gigs, and if I hadn't decided to spend the entire weekend up in Phoenix so I could see Club Bellydance, I would not have been in the position to get asked to the post-show dinner. By stepping out of my comfort zone with working to go pro, I had set myself up to go down a path that would lead to hanging out with a lot of dancers who I really admire. I think this is good inspiration to keep pushing myself!

As for the dinner itself, it was a lot of fun. I was between Sabrina and Ava. I spent most of the dinner being my usual shy, quiet self, just soaking up the conversation, but when Sabrina busted out her phone to show pictures of her cat and snakes, I came out of my shell a bit. I can always talk pets with everyone (thank goodness photographs no longer set off my snake phobia!). And I talked restaurants with Ava, who had picked the super-cool AZ88 as a place that could accommodate 17 hungry dancers and dance-related people at 10:30 on a Sunday night.

It was really, really awesome to meet all of the dancers and see how sweet and funny they are off-stage, and it was also nice to be reminded that while superstars may be far better dancers than I am, just like me they miss their pets when they travel.

Oh, and next time Club Bellydance comes through? I'm going to audition. Talk about pushing myself!

I'M GOING TO TRIBAL FEST!

Well, I found a way to shake myself out of my funk... This morning, I registered for Tribal Fest 13! I stayed glued to my computer until the shopping cart went live, with a handy list of the workshops I had decided on (an agonizing process! so many options!), so I was able to pounce and get into all of my first choices. I'll be studying with 3 awesome teachers I've had workshops with in the past, and four new-to-me teachers!

I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this. I've wanted to go for the past two years, but things kept getting in the way. But this year, thanks to the support of my two biggest fans (my husband and his mom), I am going to find a way to make it happen. I've already been selling off all the costuming bits that don't quite fit or don't quite go with anything else, and I've got a couple of big shows with my jewelry business planned, so I should be golden.

Now no matter how "blah" things get in Tucson, I can remind myself that in X months, I will be at Tribal Fest, so I need to keep practicing to be in tip-top form for my workshops. I can't wait! It's going to be the Best May Ever.

Feeling Competent

Sometimes I feel like I am just totally overwhelmed by dance, or by my goals. Today is not one of those days. Oh sure, we did a gliding exercise which my legs would not cooperate with, but we also did a new layering exercise and I actually GOT IT a few times. Most of the time when Jolie throws new layers at us, I am just completely messed up, but I made this one make sense to me and it feels attainable.

Then I went jogging tonight. I don't know if I've mentioned it on this blog before, but I hate running. I'm really bad at it. Or so I usually thought. Tonight, for the first time ever, I out-ran my husband. Usually he is the one jogging along happily while I am proclaiming that I am about to die, but today I was almost chipper about how well I was doing. I suspect maybe I have been replaced by an alien pod person, but I don't care. I ran and I did well and I completed the running training exercise we were doing for the night. Will I turn into a person who likes running? Well, we'll see how I feel as I continue this training, but tonight I am feeling pretty proud of myself. I feel like my dedication to class and home training has improved my base fitness and maybe running will be more accessible now.

My hideously ugly running shoes might help. They're a brand I've never heard of, and they are silver, sunny yellow, and bright purple, but they weigh pretty much nothing and fit my feet perfectly, so they were easy to run in.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow throws at me!

What a difference a week makes

Day 339 of practice.

I don't know what happened... maybe I broke through a wall. Maybe I just needed some introspection. Maybe I was holding myself back. But whatever happened, tonight I felt frickin' awesome at Jolie's class. We did 2:16 of a relatively difficult choreography and while there were a couple of parts I was a little iffy on, over all I felt really comfortable with the non-bellydance elements and like I was on top of it, fully committing, and most of all having FUN even when I was really cold. I really really enjoyed myself and I feel like I danced at my potential and didn't let my mistakes keep me down.

And of course, part of the fun was that it was just Jolie, Fonda and I so it was a kind of relaxed, intimate atmosphere and Fonda and I were having fun joking around about alternate choreography and how we should do a Gothic Fusion Horror Circus piece. More and more adjectives kept piling on throughout the night.

I felt so good when I got home that I also did a quick run-through of my solo and played with some different moves and ideas. I'm starting to feel better about the possibility of performing this piece at the Holiday Belly Dance show here in Tucson on the 18th, although I need to work on the emotional part as well as the moves. I'm great at roleplaying, but I have no acting experience so I don't know how well I'm going to do at portraying different moods on my face. Plus there's the costuming... I want to buy lots of new bits for it and the budget just ain't there!

No big deal

Day 336 of practice.

Guess I woke up on the right side of the bed today because by 3pm I had finished my business goals for the day, washed a mountain of dishes, swept the floor, and got much more than half an hour of real dance practice. Yeah. None of that "glutes squeezes while watching TV" laziness that I've been trying to get away with. I did zills! I did a real warmup! I practiced layering a shimmy over an Arabic and a Turkish! I worked on my solo! I practiced traveling moves! I did the Airplane... and I think for once I didn't mess it up. I did some other random things to new music! And when it was all said and done I stretched out all of my problem areas.

I am feeling pretty proud of myself, honestly. If my daily practice was always like this, I'd definitely be seeing serious improvement in my dancing.

Made of Awesome

Day 320 of practice.

This week has been full of frustrations, so I'm happy to say that the dance-related areas of my life were pretty awesome today! First I had a private lesson with Jolie, and she helped me work on my next solo, using emotion and gesture like we learned in Monday's class. It was admittedly very strange having someone there while I started working on a solo -- usually even my husband doesn't see an in-progress solo until I'm pretty comfortable with it. But it was also cool to get feedback at the very start, so that I knew what direction to go in. I'm excited and I hope I get the chance to perform it soon -- but not too soon because I need time to work on it :)

Also, having a big mirror to dance in front of was pretty nice, although it feels a little narcissistic to be staring at myself while I dance. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Then in the evening I finally made it back to Fonda's Dance Loft class, where we had a very special treat -- Friendly neighborhood drummer Carl was there to provide live music! He's going to be a regular fixture at classes for the near future, so we can learn more about dancing to live drumming and playing rhythms on our zills. We did a lot of zilling tonight which is great, I was feeling bad because I haven't practiced my zills since troupe rehearsal on Sunday. It was also so good to see my classmates again and be in the fun, relaxed atmosphere of Fonda's class.

I can tell that I'm starting to feel better, because after all of that, and even though I'm a little tired, I still feel like doing more dancing!

Jam-packed weekend

Day 135 of practice.

Whew, what a weekend I had! 9 hours of Deb Rubin workshops, a dinner with the aforementioned Deb and other workshop students, a birthday party for two dancer friends, retail therapy, exhaustion, dehydration, and so much more!

I'll try to make a really good workshop review post tomorrow. Right now my head feels slightly detached, and I'm not entirely convinced that I'm forming coherent sentences right now. I need sleep and fluids and corgi love.

Mira Betz and The Big 100!

Day 100 of practice. Woohoo! *throws confetti* (^^^^ Look, it's me with Mira Betz!)

Doesn't the title of this blog post make it sound like some sort of children's novel? But no, this is the story of how Mira Betz and Plaza de Anaya and my wonderful Tempe dance friends made days 99 and 100 of my daily dance goal really awesome!

First of all, I want to say that Kimberly of Plaza de Anaya is one of the best people in the world. She's so sweet, and she works so hard to not just provide dancers in the Valley and beyond with a great place to dance, but to bring us the best workshop teachers. So I want to publicly thank her for all that she does to make my dance life, and that of so many of my friends, so much better! Luv ya, Kim!

And my friends and classmates bring a lot to my dance and social life, too! Usually when I go up for workshops, I stay at Casa de Meghan, but this weekend Meghan had a lot going on, so Rosie and Nahks offered to let me crash with them, just hours before I was due in town. Not only did they give me a place to sleep, they even cooked me a super-yummy lunch before I headed home, and talked nerdy with me! I love that I've found people who love dance AND gaming AND SF/F novels as much as I do! Also, I need to mention that Rosie and Meghan performed beautifully at Saturday night's show, a wonderfully choreographed dark, dramatic, feathery fusion number that made me so proud of them! And I helped -- in the tiniest way, by stitching down some lace on Meghan's bustle. LOL.

But now, MIRA BETZ!!!! Wow. I have taken a decent amount of workshops in the slightly-less-than-two-years that I've been formally taking belly dance classes. Usually I learn some things, take away a few good tidbits, but whatever combos and choreos we learn get forgotten, because I take insufficient notes and have no one to practice with. I was really excited when I saw that Mira's workshops were going to be all technique instead of specific moves, because that's really what I want more of, ways to refine the moves I know and develop more of my own. I knew this weekend was going to be good, and a lot of fun, but I had no idea that it would be amazing.

Seriously, every time I take a workshop with a dancer that I really admire, I jokingly think to myself "Maybe some of her talent will rub off on me!" This is the first time that I've felt like it actually might. Well, not so much HER talent, but she gave all of us the tools to hone our own talent, to each be the best dancer we can, whether we dance Egyptian or American Cabaret or ITS or Gothic Tribal Fusion. She imparted so much wisdom and advice that I literally feel like this weekend changed my life -- it's shown me the path to be the dancer that I want to be, how to get myself out of the rut of ho-hum daily practice and work hard to perfect even the most boring beginner moves.

If you have a chance to take workshops with Mira, I totally recommend it. In fact, not just recommend it, I say DO IT NO MATTER WHAT! If you have to sell plasma and live off of ramen for a month just to afford the workshop, it will totally be worth it. I've never had an instructor inspire me so much, or make me work so hard! And on top of that, she's just plain funny, so even when we were working really hard, she kept the mood light and I never felt stressed, even when I was struggling to layer a rib circle over a vine step (yes, for some reason I am vine step impaired). It helps that she encourages failure as a way of learning, so I felt like even if I messed up, I was trying, and I was learning, and I got pretty much every exercise right at least once, through sheer persistence.

Although my muscles hurt, I am so energized from this amazing weekend. I feel like I could gush on and on in this blog post, or I could clean my entire house, or make a necklace, or go dance for half an hour, or work on one of my novels, or tackle any of a number of other projects. This is so what I needed, and I hope I can find a way to make this feeling last.

(Oh yeah, I'll post about my Day 100 reward tomorrow!)