Day 249 of practice.
No more Miss Lazy Dancer! I've been noticing over the past week that my midsection was getting a little squishier than I would like, the results of not practicing hard enough and eating out too often. This is unacceptable! I need to dance harder and eat healthier and be the best dancer I can be.
So tonight's practice consisted of a nice dynamic stretching warmup to get the blood flowing and everything all loosy-goosy.
Then I did the shimmy drills section from Serpentine with Rachel Brice, which built up a nice sweat and reminded me that my shimmies on the down suck.
Then I grabbed my Rajna CD, because somehow I've never listened to it, and I set out to do some improv. But the first song was only 2 minutes long, so I decided to do the second song too, and it was over 6 minutes long. So yay for over 8 minutes of improv to unfamiliar music! Boo for the fact that the second song had a lot of dulcimer or qanoon or some other vibrating instrument that required more shimmies.
Then I grabbed my veil and practiced my solo.
Then I came in here to update my blog and SaraBeth's comment on yesterday's post reminded me that I had not practiced my 3-3-7 zill pattern! So I spent a few minutes working on that and made some progress.
Now it's time to take a relaxing shower, and do some stretches so I don't wake up with sore abs tomorrow!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Good, good, bad.
Day 248 of practice.
Today's practice was broken up into three parts.
First part: Partial dress rehearsal for my upcoming solo. While digging around in my closets, I not only found a pretty blue silk scarf big enough to be used as a veil, but I also figured out my costume for the solo, too. So I put it on and danced in it, making sure that the veil was going to get along with the costume. I just wore the clothes, though. I need to decide on hair and jewelry and put all those on with it next time, to make sure nothing will catch on the veil or otherwise not work out. But so far, pretty successful!
Second part: Awesome local dancer Kamrah posted a challenge on her blog to do improv every day. Well, I already improv all the time so I decided to try the advanced challenge, which is to do improv to songs I've never heard before. Today I danced to "Aim for the Head" by Creature Feature -- yes, I did belly dance to a song about shooting ghouls. It was a whole lot of fun! But there was a part in the middle where it was just someone talking, and I had to just kind of pose and I found myself wishing that I had my sword or some other weapon to make me look badass. Of course, no one was watching, not even the cat, so it didn't really matter.
Third part: Zills. Ugh! Why am I having so much trouble with the 3-3-7? Anaya wants us to layer it over a Turkish, and I can fake it in class when I'm following the better zill players, but at home it turns into 3-3-what was that awful clatter? I'm going to have to work on it every. single. night. until I can do it on my own.
Today's practice was broken up into three parts.
First part: Partial dress rehearsal for my upcoming solo. While digging around in my closets, I not only found a pretty blue silk scarf big enough to be used as a veil, but I also figured out my costume for the solo, too. So I put it on and danced in it, making sure that the veil was going to get along with the costume. I just wore the clothes, though. I need to decide on hair and jewelry and put all those on with it next time, to make sure nothing will catch on the veil or otherwise not work out. But so far, pretty successful!
Second part: Awesome local dancer Kamrah posted a challenge on her blog to do improv every day. Well, I already improv all the time so I decided to try the advanced challenge, which is to do improv to songs I've never heard before. Today I danced to "Aim for the Head" by Creature Feature -- yes, I did belly dance to a song about shooting ghouls. It was a whole lot of fun! But there was a part in the middle where it was just someone talking, and I had to just kind of pose and I found myself wishing that I had my sword or some other weapon to make me look badass. Of course, no one was watching, not even the cat, so it didn't really matter.
Third part: Zills. Ugh! Why am I having so much trouble with the 3-3-7? Anaya wants us to layer it over a Turkish, and I can fake it in class when I'm following the better zill players, but at home it turns into 3-3-what was that awful clatter? I'm going to have to work on it every. single. night. until I can do it on my own.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Drilling those zills
Day 247 of practice.
Got my practice done early today! My friend Dawn invited me to join her and a few of her troupemates for some zill practice, because we're all pretty unhappy with our zilling right now. So we spent a good 45 minutes talking about them and practicing, working on triplets and beladi. Much more fun than practicing at home, being around other people helped me stay upbeat and focused, instead of giving up and doing something else.
Got my practice done early today! My friend Dawn invited me to join her and a few of her troupemates for some zill practice, because we're all pretty unhappy with our zilling right now. So we spent a good 45 minutes talking about them and practicing, working on triplets and beladi. Much more fun than practicing at home, being around other people helped me stay upbeat and focused, instead of giving up and doing something else.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Solo Saturday
Day 246 of practice.
I worked really hard on my cleaning so that I would have time to work on my solo before company comes over... and it worked! Hurrah. Not only that, but I got to dance and explore some floorwork on a freshly-mopped floor. So nice :)
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I'm doing with this solo, but I'm enjoying the song. This week I'll work on my costume... I think I might wear my amazing black, aqua and cobalt silk wrap-pants. I normally don't use them in costumes, but I think they might be just what this piece needs.
The rest of today's practice consisted of shimmying my way through various chores, which always makes things so much more fun.
I worked really hard on my cleaning so that I would have time to work on my solo before company comes over... and it worked! Hurrah. Not only that, but I got to dance and explore some floorwork on a freshly-mopped floor. So nice :)
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I'm doing with this solo, but I'm enjoying the song. This week I'll work on my costume... I think I might wear my amazing black, aqua and cobalt silk wrap-pants. I normally don't use them in costumes, but I think they might be just what this piece needs.
The rest of today's practice consisted of shimmying my way through various chores, which always makes things so much more fun.
Nothing to see here
Day 245 of practice.
Not much to report today, just some simple isolations. It's really hot in my house. September hasn't gotten the memo yet that it's supposed to be cooler than August. C'mon Autumn, why don't you visit AZ and stay for a while?
Not much to report today, just some simple isolations. It's really hot in my house. September hasn't gotten the memo yet that it's supposed to be cooler than August. C'mon Autumn, why don't you visit AZ and stay for a while?
Friday, September 2, 2011
New session!
Day 244 of practice.
Tonight was the start of a new session, which meant lots of fresh faces in Anaya Fundamentals, and starting over with DC Skirt, which also had some new people. And one of those newbies is none other than frequent (only?) blog commenter SaraBeth. YAY! For a long time, the running joke was that we were never at the same dance events, so it's really awesome to be sharing a class with her. Amusingly, we both wore the same black iris sparkle scarf, so we had matching butts.
It was a really fun night. We did lots of zills in advanced class, and I enjoyed having my friend Amanda keep me company on the drive, allowing us to catch up with each other. Next class may find me with a FULL car for the drive up. I love having carpool buddies :)
Tonight was the start of a new session, which meant lots of fresh faces in Anaya Fundamentals, and starting over with DC Skirt, which also had some new people. And one of those newbies is none other than frequent (only?) blog commenter SaraBeth. YAY! For a long time, the running joke was that we were never at the same dance events, so it's really awesome to be sharing a class with her. Amusingly, we both wore the same black iris sparkle scarf, so we had matching butts.
It was a really fun night. We did lots of zills in advanced class, and I enjoyed having my friend Amanda keep me company on the drive, allowing us to catch up with each other. Next class may find me with a FULL car for the drive up. I love having carpool buddies :)
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Antisocial
Day 243 of practice.
I didn't go to class today because I was feeling cranky and antisocial. Blame the heat... or the rain... or my sleep schedule which still hasn't normalized from the double-whammy of vacation and sickness (my body: weee! Let's stay up reading past 2am like we used to! Oh, but then let's wake up at 7 when the husband's alarm goes off, and not fall back asleep!). So I stayed home and did shimmies and arm and hand isolations, on top of the housework dancing I did earlier.
Hopefully class tomorrow will snap me out of my funk. I do find myself eagerly looking forward to troupe practice... only to remember that the next one isn't until the 18th! There's a big part of me that wishes we could have practice every weekend... whereas the rest of me reminds that part that it is, in fact, a long drive up to Tempe and I have to get up at 7am to do it.
I didn't go to class today because I was feeling cranky and antisocial. Blame the heat... or the rain... or my sleep schedule which still hasn't normalized from the double-whammy of vacation and sickness (my body: weee! Let's stay up reading past 2am like we used to! Oh, but then let's wake up at 7 when the husband's alarm goes off, and not fall back asleep!). So I stayed home and did shimmies and arm and hand isolations, on top of the housework dancing I did earlier.
Hopefully class tomorrow will snap me out of my funk. I do find myself eagerly looking forward to troupe practice... only to remember that the next one isn't until the 18th! There's a big part of me that wishes we could have practice every weekend... whereas the rest of me reminds that part that it is, in fact, a long drive up to Tempe and I have to get up at 7am to do it.
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