Just what I needed!

Yesterday I was in the mood to do some Datura Online, but I also had a lot of my own stuff to practice so I didn't want to dedicate 2 hours to diving back in to Raq Steady. I decided this was a perfect time to try the new Intermediate Tribal Fusion class from Ashley Lopez. I'm happy to say, it was just what I needed!

This 50 minute video is structured just like a normal bellydance class -- it starts with a nice little warm-up, goes through a series of moves and layers by breaking them down and drilling them, includes some turns and traveling moves, and ends with a short cool-down. If you're starting out cold you may want to warm up a little more than the video does, and you may want to do some extra stretches to target your own problem areas afterwards, but in general it's nicely well-contained and perfect for when you have just an hour to work.

I found that I really enjoyed having Ashley Lopez as my virtual teacher, she had a very friendly personality in the video, explained things clearly, and drilled things just enough that I had time to understand them but not time to get thoroughly bored. Because this is an intermediate-level class, there's not a lot of time wasted on getting into the basics of a move, which was good for me.

For the most part I already knew the moves in this video, but she combined them into layers in a different way than I normally do. That's a big part of why I say it was just what I needed. It let me take things that I could already do, and do them in new and interesting ways. I definitely have a bad habit of falling back on the same moves and layers, so it's good to shake things up. And since I already knew the basics of what we were doing, I didn't waste any time getting frustrated and removing layers to be able to keep up.

I think I'll want to revisit this video a couple of times so I can get the layers into my muscle memory, and it serves as a good drills session since the pace is pretty good. I believe this is going to be a four-class series, so I'm really looking forward to the rest of them, and I may even go back and check out her beginning-level fusion classes to see if they'll give me some new insight into my basic moves.

As a silly aside, like all Datura videos this is filmed so that you can see Ashley from behind and in the mirror, which is really helpful for seeing the move from all angles. This video also has two students following along, and you can see them in the mirror... which lead to a weird moment where my brain was like "OMG why can't I see myself in the mirror?!?" Oh brain. You're so easily broken!

Rarin' to go!

I feel like this picture captures the sense of anticipation as I'm about to launch myself forward

 

My year of dance has been off to an awkward start. Having a house guest means I haven't danced as much as I would like, due to my schedule being off-kilter and my feeling that it would be rude to just take off with our only car for dance class every night. I have been to a few classes and I've been reading a lot and doing some journaling and obviously blogging, but I am just rarin' to go next week! Especially since I'll only have about a week and a half to dance before I get side-lined again by the gem show.

 

I'm trying to be patient with myself and with life. After all, I pretty much knew I wasn't going to jump right into doing dance stuff 40 hours a week right off the bat. I just wish I was putting in more hours than I am. I have a lot I want to work on! There's costumes to make and choreography to practice and moves to drill and muscles to tone.

 

I think mid-February is when I'm going to be able to really hit the full-time mark, but I am looking forward to giving it a good go next week. 

Practicing vs. Performing

A photo from my Vegas performance, by Lee Corkett

As I was on the way to the show I was performing at on Friday, I was hoping that I wouldn't screw anything up, thinking about the things I did wrong during troupe practice, and wondering how it is that I always manage to pull it together for a performance. I mean, that's not to say that I never mess up on stage (in fact, I messed up on Friday), it's that I usually recover well and put on a great face and give an overall pleasing performance with a flub or two in between.

But at practice, one flub can suddenly snowball into half a dozen flubs! Taking the wrong step at the start of a choreo can mean feeling slightly "off" for the entire dance and thinking that I am screwing everything up.

So what is the difference?

I think when I'm in class, at troupe practice, or practicing choreography at home, I'm in thinking mode. There's a little track running in the back of my mind, reminding me of the things that I specifically need to work on, the things the entire group has been told to watch out for, etc etc. Then if I make a mistake, I'm now thinking "Wait, what did I just do? What was I supposed to do instead? Oh crap, while I was thinking about that, I just missed that other step and now I'm off by two counts and I am making a weird face and and and and..." Add to that an element of tiredness if I'm at the end of an hour of troupe practice after an hour of class and a busy day leading up to that, and I'm going to look and feel like a hot mess.

When I'm at a show, on the other hand, I am in performing mode. I know that at this point, there's nothing to be gained by worrying about what I'm about to do, because I've practiced as much as I can, and I'm as good as I'm going to be for the moment. I'm all dressed up, I've got my makeup on, and now it's time to give it my all. If I mess up, there's no time to think about what I did wrong, I need to be on top of what I'm supposed to do next so the audience doesn't catch on. Even if they realize at that moment that I screwed up, if I recover well I can probably make them forget about it by doing an awesome job for the rest of the song, giving them an over-all good impression of the piece in question.

I guess the point is, I'm allowed to fail in class or practice, so sometimes I do. I learn from those failures, and learn how to train my body, brain and face to respond to failures. But when I'm on stage, failure is not an option! So that might mean that when I'm at home, practicing a new solo, I might try some crazy method of getting down to the floor which results in me tripping, or some new fan veil trick that results in silk strangling my neck. Those failures show me that those ideas need some more work, so when I get on stage I stick with the safe stuff. I know not to try that crazy drop because I don't want to face-plant in front of the audience!

So if you mess up in class or practice, don't let it get you down. You have to screw up behind the scenes in order to know what works on stage! You'll be fine. 

Annoying Dance Sayings Pt 2

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to disagree with Martha Graham. That would be stupid. Obviously she knew way, way, WAY more about dancing than I ever will, and that is why there's a ton of quotes from her on Pinterest and absolutely zero by me.

The problem with this quote isn't the quote itself, its in how people interpret it. People see this quote and they think "Well, I'm passionate about dance so that means I'm great! I'm gonna sit on the couch and watch a movie instead of drilling my arm work because I'm already awesome. Thanks, Martha Graham!"

I've fallen into this trap before. I'm a passionate dancer. I go to class several times a week. I emote all over the stage. I can talk about dance until I'm blue in the face. As such, there have been times where I've gone to a show and thought "Oh sure, she has great technique, but she's not showing a lot of passion in her dance. I'm sooooo much better than here." Well, that's just plain wrong. Great dancers have technique and passion. I can't just coast along on my passion and ignore the fact that my footwork is sloppy.

Great dancers are great because of their passion, but it's because a passion for dance drives you to be great. When you have a passion for dance, it's not enough to go to class on Wednesday night and then maybe practice once or twice between classes. Passion means you take all of the classes you can afford and you practice every day (when you can overcome your natural laziness, I'm talking to myself here, can you tell?). Passion means when you're the only one in class who can't do something, you ask your teacher for advice and then you go home, and you practice it in the mirror, and you cry and yell and stomp around the house when you can't get it right, because sometimes passion is a little sad and angry, instead of beautiful and lovey-dovey. Passion means sitting on the yoga mat cursing like a sailor because you're 30 seconds into a 2 minute stretch and your glute is cramping like a mofo, but you've got to work on your splits so you tough it out.

Passion means sometimes you go weeks or months without being able to really socialize with the non-dance people in your life, because you have class on weeknights and performances or workshops on weekends. Passion means sometimes you tell your spouse you'd rather stay home with a DVD than go to the movies, because you've got to work on your new costume. Passion means that you go to class in cheap Target yoga pants but perform in custom-made velvet skirts. Passion means that you give up an international vacation so you can save your money to study with great dancers. Passion means wearing pants and long skirts all summer because your knees are always covered in bruises from floorwork. For some dance forms, passion means you never wear sandals again because your toes scare small children.

Passion does not mean "Oh, I really like dancing and I'm SO emotional on stage."

Don't agree with me? Here's another quote from Martha Graham that you probably won't see on Pinterest:

"[When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma."

That's passion.

Back on Datura Online!

I let my Datura Online subscription lapse back before Tribal Fest, because my credit card on file expired and I hadn't been using the videos very often, so it made sense to let it go dormant for a bit. However, with my current focus on practicing more, more, MORE it seemed like a good idea to turn it back in and take advantage of all the great new videos.

It's still too hot during the day for me to want to buckle down for one of the hour-plus videos, but luckily DO has a lot of shorter options, too. I decided that I'd try Henna's "The Cairo 8" video because I've been wanting to learn some more Egyptian stylization, and at 16 minutes long it was just right to round out my practice after I did my solo for Saturday and some zills.

This popular move which dates back to the Golden Age of bellydance is broken down into components, then put together, then drilled at slow and fast speeds, and is done on the right and the left, then together. There's also a variation with a hip drop, and Henna demonstrates how a couple of Golden Age dancers did it and explains what sort of music you'll often see it used with. I was able to keep up with the slow drills, but I'm definitely going to have to revisit the video several times until I can do it up to speed!

I like having a short video that focuses on a single move. It's a good way to be able to really drill something specific, learn it inside and out, and build it into your muscle memory. Plus when it's less than 20 minutes, it's really easy to work it into your day between other things and get a little targeted dance practice.

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. 

The Perfectionism Spectrum

Last week I posted this quote on my Facebook fan page to spark some discussion: "Perfection is an interesting idea, but I don't think it should have a place of honor in the creative process." – Sasha Soukup


I was surprised to find that a lot of people agreed with Soukup, because I actually strongly disagree. I have perfectionist tendencies, not to the point of OCD, but I always strive to be as close to perfect as I can. This ethic leads to me practicing a lot, taking extra lessons, getting professional help to learn about makeup and costuming, reading up on dance etiquette and so much more. I realized that my opinion on perfection was more than I could put in a Facebook comment and I needed to make a blog post about it.


As I was mulling over the topic, I came up with the idea of the Perfectionism Spectrum. I don't feel like the quest for perfection is an all or nothing deal. I think that there's a very wide range and that most people fall somewhere in the middle rather than to one extreme or the other. 

At the lowest end is what I would call the "Eh, Good Enough!" people. These are the sort of people who shrug off problems with their work by saying "The audience will never know the difference" or "It's handmade it's supposed to have flaws!" or "You're not paying me enough for me to work harder on this." Now, there are times when it's valid to say any of these. Sometimes there are problems that are beyond your control and you need to just accept them. But it is not cool to have this attitude all the time and use it to slack off on things like practicing hard when you have a show coming up, or trimming all the threads on your new costume or behaving professionally at a gig. I think you can tell that I don't have a lot of patience for this sort of person.


At the highest end of the spectrum are the "It's Never Good Enough!" people. These are the sort of people who create beautiful work but never share it with the world because it's not perfect yet. This is the author who constantly revises their first chapter and never moves on in the story, the dancer who comes to class every week and practices hard but never performs because she doesn't dance like a superstar yet, the painter who doesn't think his work is worthy of hanging in a gallery. I feel bad for these people because they have something beautiful but they never think it's good enough to share with the world.


I try to maintain a happy relationship with perfection. I strive for it, knowing that it is impossible to be perfect all the time. However, I do think that through hard work, it's possible to achieve moments of perfection. Surely as a dancer you've felt it, when you do exactly the right move to the very best of your abilities, and you hit the note right where you wanted to, and you caught the audience's eye, and you were feeling the music so hard, and it was.... perfect. I know that I will never have a performance that is a string of perfect moments. But I do know that I can achieve perfect moments, and if I have just one or two in a solo and the rest of the time I am doing really well, then the over-all impression is going to be that I did an amazing job.


So yes, I do think that perfection should have a place of honor in the creative process. Why wouldn't I want to strive for a perfect 3/4 shimmy or Arabesque? Why wouldn't I want to know my song inside and out so that I can hit the perfect accents and truly feel the music? I think that it is possible to have a healthy approach to perfection, and that artists in any medium can strive for perfect moments in their work.

Please feel free to share your opinion in my comments section, I enjoy a lively discussion!

Slump... or not?

So, after telling the trolls of the world that they couldn't stop me from dancing, I spent the past week not really dancing. I mean, I went to class and troupe practice like a good li'l troupe member, but I have not been dancing at home. I could try to blame it on a variety of reasons -- it's too hot in this house, I hurt my arm, Chris left a table in the middle of the living room floor, I had to write a million things this week -- but mainly it is that I am still feeling incredibly uninspired.

But those are all just excuses. No matter what, I could have at least carved a little space out of my living room and done some drills and then taken a shower to cool off. The truth is I haven't felt like dancing, not emotionally anyway, so I didn't dance. Every single day I would say to myself "I should practice today" and every single day I would grab onto every excuse not to. I even considered skipping class!

Today I broke free of the excuses and danced. I wanted to work on my Open Stage solo and on the solo I am going to audition for an upcoming Plaza show. Well, ok, I didn't WANT to work on them (I wanted to sit here looking at much prettier, better dancers on Pinterest), but I knew that if I didn't I would have no one but myself to blame when I looked like a dope on stage tonight and made an awful audition video.

So I put on my music and I started dancing, and I surprised myself. I felt connected to my music. Timing that I had been struggling with in my audition piece suddenly snapped into place. I feel really, really good about the practice I just had. I expected it to feel forced and awkward, but instead it felt inspired.

I need to remember times like this when I just do not feel like dancing. Maybe some days it won't be like this. But if the inspiration doesn't come, I can at least drill. There's no excuse for laziness. Life is too short to not practice.

A good time

I've really been enjoying classes again lately. There was a while, when I was frustrated by a lack of progress, where it felt like every class threw some stumbling block in my path and had me doubting myself. But now that I've managed to make some headway with things like chaine turns and some of our more difficult troupe choreographies, I'm feeling a lot more relaxed in class. I still struggle with things, but I don't let it get me down. After all, this isn't like a college class where I'm being graded and I have to worry about passing or failing. What is important is that I am there, I try my best, and I work on keeping a positive attitude.

Home practice, however, is a bit more of a struggle. Drilling things at home alone is boring! I mean, drilling in class is often boring, too, but at least I get corrections when I'm doing something wrong, and I get to see my friends before and after class. At home it's just me and Daisy, who just sits on the couch and looks sad that I am dancing instead of rubbing her belly. She's not a very good coach. I am having fun working on some new solos, and I am practicing troupe choreos because we're coming into the busy performance season, but drilling basic skills is such a slog!

So tired!

Mondays and Tuesdays are the hardest for daily practice. I have to fill an hour with stuff that will improve me as a dancer, but not leave me too tired to keep up with class/troupe practice. Even when I take it easy, I am still pretty tired by the end of the night. Three hours of belly dance is nothing to sneeze at!

Played around with veil and zills today, trying to freshen myself up on skills I have been neglecting. I actually prefer to dance without props in most instances, because my personal style relies a lot on the expressive capabilities of my hands and arms, which is limited if I'm holding a prop... But the truth is that audiences like props, and if I want to be a professional someday, I will need to be able to fill up an entire show, and that means having a variety of skills to draw on. It's different when I am doing a < 5 min solo and can thus do whatever inspires me the most.

An hour a day

About 1 3/4 years ago, I started this blog to chronicle my attempt to dance for half an hour a day for a year. After that year ended, I kept up daily practice for a while but eventually I fell off the wagon, and lately I have not been doing hardly any home practice at all. This is simply Not Acceptable. I work from home and I have plenty of time on my hands, time which I waste on the internet. I could be a much better dancer than I am, if I just practiced harder.

So over the weekend, I was struck with inspiration. It was time to be really strict with myself and set a time for dancing every weekday. Dancing right after I got up just wasn't working... there was too much "Ok, but first I need to..." because sometimes it is hard to dance when the floors need sweeping and the laundry needs doing and the dogs want their breakfast, and the next thing you know, it's two in the afternoon. So fine. I'll dance in the afternoon, from 3-4pm. That gives me plenty of time to get everything else out of the way -- housework, correspondence, listing items on Etsy. And anything that isn't done by 3pm is just going to have to wait.

Today I gave it a try. At 3pm I parked myself in front of my mirror with a glass of iced tea and an oven timer set for one hour. I set my iPod on shuffle and let the songs dictate what I was going to drill. Then I worked on some troupe choreo and my solo for this weekend, a little playtime to a song I'm in love with, and a quick shimmy drill, then spent the last 8 minutes stretching while I was nice and warm -- so, so warm.

As always, once I got started it was easy to keep going. I love to dance, after all! And I let myself play a bit between drilling, if a song didn't strike me as being appropriate for drilling.

Things I learned today:

1. I need a bigger glass of iced tea tomorrow.
2. Doing snake arms for a 6 minute long song really sucks when you spent the previous night doing arm work with fire fans. Ouch.
3. I am actually making progress with chaine turns. In fact, I kept doing them in the silence after the song ended, because I was on such a roll.

I'm looking forward tomorrow!

So Busy!

I had a crazy busy dance weekend, and that's after paring down some of my plans because I couldn't do everything.

Today I drove all the way up to the Phoenix area for a very special practice, which I'll blog more about tomorrow when I am hopefully less exhausted. I also got to drop by Plaza real quick and see my Anaya friends. Every time I see them dance I miss being around them! Anaya Tribal really has some of the best ITS moves, they always look so polished, and their zilling sounds SO GOOD! If you are going to be at the Vegas Intensive, you should make sure to go see them on stage and in the vending area.

Then I got home and went to troupe practice, and only two of us showed up, so we got to spend the night drilling things that we needed to work on -- including 20 minutes of shimmy drills. Hence the exhaustion. I am now ready to eat a cookie and veg out for the rest of the night.

A Better Day

I woke up today and it was raining! For some people, living in other places, maybe that would mean a bad day. For me it meant that it was not hideously hot today, and I got to dance without feeling gross. I worked on my solo, and practiced a couple of troupe choreos, and did some random improv to random songs, drilled my taxims and chaines, and felt OK about myself.

I am still working out the best time for me to practice. Jolie suggested that I wake up in the morning and get it done right away, before I get distracted by Facebook and chores and such. But honestly, I need to eat my breakfast and maybe have a cup of tea, and wake up fully. And some days I have to do a little housework to get things tidy before I can dance. Maybe I need to do my housework before bed, and drink my tea while reading a book instead of sitting at my computer. Or maybe it will work best for me to dance in the afternoon, as long as I pick a time and stick with it. I definitely can't wait for the evening, that never works. Especially not on class nights.

The adjustment period

The worst part of tackling some new physical challenge is waiting for my body to adjust to it. When I started taking Jolie's classes last year, my body rebelled. "What?" said my muscles, "We have to do push-ups and stuff? I thought we gave all that up when we quit CrossFit!" After a bit I got used to it, and then I got better at it, and then I turned into the annoying person who wants to do the hard push-ups because she wants sexier arms.

So now I've got this new practice regimen. I'm doing it 6 days a week regardless of what classes or practices I already have, and it's going to be a good 30-60 minutes per day (including the time I spend on choreos and solos and such). Maybe I should not have started it on a Monday. Maybe I should have waited until Thursday, when I don't have any classes.

Today started out fine. I did my practice, I felt pretty good about it because even though doing basics is booooring, I'm staying focused and correcting my errors as they happen. For instance, for a while I've been getting some pain in my feet and ankles when standing in one position to drill. I realized that it's because even if I start out with my weight evenly distributed, I start to pitch forward into my toes and that puts an unnatural strain on my ankle. So now when I catch myself doing that, I can reset into a more even stance and drill comfortably.

Then I went to class and my body was not happy with me. All those hours of dance yesterday, and a bunch of dance during the day, and I expected it to do more dance and exercise tonight? There were moments where I felt so exhausted that I almost cried, but I powered through and waited for the endorphins to kick in.

Soon enough this will all be part of the past, but it's going to be annoying until I get through it.

Making it official

I came to some big decisions last week. One of them was to take a hiatus from the Tucson Tribal Belly Dance Collective. I've been so busy trying to learn the Fire & Gold choreos, and master my glow fans that I had not been practicing my ITS moves or working on the TTBDC set. I still love ITS but I'm finding that it's not really my focus right now. I'd rather do it casually, and break it out at parties with friends, than actually perform it in a troupe setting. Maybe I'll feel differently later, but for now my interests lie elsewhere.

And where is elsewhere? Other than F&G (which I'm really loving), I've decided that what I really want is to be a professional tribal fusion soloist. Dancing with a troupe is fun, but being a soloist gives me total creative control to express myself artistically, dance to the songs I love, and go crazy with costuming. As for being professional, well, if I'm going to do this, I might as well do it at the highest level possible.

So to make it official, I e-mailed Jolie last week and told her that was my goal, and I wanted to have a private lesson to evaluate where I was at and set me up with a good strict practice regimen (I'm pretty sure I blogged before about being baffled by how to structure my practice). Now I have a crazy amount of homework to do, focusing on drilling the hell out of my basics to undo some of the bad habits I've developed.

To give you an idea of what my days will be like now that I'm on this path, here's what today was like:

-Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, check internet things.

-Private lesson with Jolie, set up practice schedule.

-Come home, get together some beadwork, deliver to Kate's house so it can be photographed for her upcoming book. Something not-dance related!

-Come home again, do chores because they ain't gonna do themselves.

-Decide I want to go ahead and start my practice regimen today. Get into a fight with iPod while trying to set up practice playlists. It thinks that one of the troupe songs is 32 minutes. It is not.

-Go to early dinner with husband, because I skipped lunch and I am staaaaaaarving.

-Go buy groceries.

-Come home for the third time today. Finish setting up play lists, spend about half an hour doing homework. No time to practice choreos or solos before class.

-Drive over to BreakOut Studios, coordinate with a troupemate who is placing an order of tribal jewelry for the troupe. Woohoo!

-One hour of Choreo class. Fun Mira Betz/Gypsy-influenced piece where we got to channel our inner machisma. I enjoyed the hell out of it and want to find a song that makes me feel that way for a solo.

-Over an hour of troupe practice because hey, less than 2 weeks til our big show!

-Come for the fourth and final time. Realize that I still have to update my blog and stretch. Devour all food in the house like a locust.

Suffering for my art

I beat my arms up with my glow fans today! There's these plastic bolts that hold the glow part in and they always scratch my arms up! Today I gave myself a really nasty scratch on my inner elbow, which is annoying because now I have a bandage in my elbow. Oh, how we suffer for our art. I need to decide on the best solution for covering the bolts so I don't destroy myself.

Fonda's classes started back up tonight after a couple of weeks off. We had some review to prepare us for next week, when we'll start learning NEW MOVES! I can't wait. It's been forever since I learned a new ATS/ITS move.

In other news, Blogger changed my blogging interface and I hate it. I do not like change.

Smorgasbord

Oh, how I love that word. Smorgasbord! It's fun to say. It's fun to type.

Today's practice was a little of this and that -- some snake arms with glow fans, some layered shimmies, some fast turns with spotting, some 3/4 shimmies, and of course some choreography (where I completely skipped the 16 counts of taxims, oops!).

I think I overdid it on the glow fan snake arms, though, since my arm is trembling as I attempt to drink. Uh oh!

Indecision

The hardest part about practicing at home is deciding what to practice. Some things are a given -- right now I have to practice the F&G choreography, and I have to work with my glow fans. But what else should I work on? Layering over shimmies? Improving the range of motion in my taxim? Freshen up my ITS, which has been a bit neglected lately? More emotionality?  Hands? Sword? Veil?

I should probably sit down and come up with some sort of plan and schedule, to make sure that everything gets practiced. Otherwise I tend to neglect things. And let's face it, if I want to work my way up to being a professional belly dancer (and I do!), I need to develop good practice habits.

As for tonight, I decided it was a great idea to do snake arms with glow fans. I should probably do that every day to build up a little muscle! And I did some shimmies with a bit of layering on top.

Ow

Class tonight was canceled, due to a family emergency, so I was left to my own devices. Apparently when left to my own devices, I eat a steak dinner and sit around doing beadwork and watching silly movies. But of course I also practiced, including trying to learn how to spin my glow fans... which resulted in me scratching up my arms. Just inside my elbows. OW! What an obnoxious place to get scratches. Maybe I should wrap that part of my arm in bandages until I learn to stop hitting myself. As it is, I have to practice over the couch so that when I inevitably drop a fan, it doesn't get banged up on the tile floor.

Commitment!

Tonight was all about committing to things. No, I'm not talking about dedication like I did yesterday, but about to committing to what you're doing at that moment. Combos and Choreography was a freakin' crazy sad lyrical piece with pretty much no belly dance in it. It was great practice for committing to unfamiliar moves, to not being "pretty" and to getting sad as all heck.

Then we FINISHED OUR CHOREOGRAPHY in troupe practice! Hooray! It's done! So of course we had to commit to that while we were doing it, dance like we meant it. I am pretty happy and excited. Practicing all week really helped, I felt comfortable with even the difficult parts, even if I messed them up, I knew what I was supposed to be doing. Now it's all about fine-tuning.

Lastly, I am now committed to doing a glow fan solo at our big troupe show on May 20th! This means I have to practice obsessively, which is pretty much what Jolie always expects of me anyway. It's nice to have a reputation of being a person who throws herself into things, even if it means that people then expect you to throw yourself into things and you can't be lazy.

And that's the secret truth about me. I am, at heart, a lazy person. If left to my own devices, I will happily spend all day goofing off on Facebook or reading a book. But having dance goals, and having a blog where I have to write about what I'm doing, keeps me motivated to actually do stuff. Being in a troupe really helps, because if I don't practice I'm not just failing myself, but I'm letting down my director and my fellow dancers. Between that and my intense hatred of being bad at things, I get motivated to actually practice instead of thinking about practice while I read another chapter.