Tonight we took our undulating figure 8s from last week, and got them fully vertical! We started with the Up & Out figure 8, and then moved onto the Up & In figure 8.
We also looked (briefly) at Turns, mainly to bring together all the different kinds of turns we've done this term - the 3-Step Turn (360°), Mini-Grapevine Turn (180°) and Flamenco Turn (180°/360°).
It was also a chance to think about what we can do to minimise dizziness, such as:
Spotting (where you fix your focus on a still point)
Anti-Spotting (where you fix your focus on a point that's moving with you, creating an illusion of stillness)
Today we added some vertical undulation to our horizontal figure 8, with an added heel lift on the "outside" of the move. The video for that is right here as well as in the Youtube Practice Videos playlist:
We also did some more work on getting our Abs to do clever stuff. This time it was about controlling the pull-ins and the releases, not only as to their speed, but also being able to stop the pull-in or release half-way.
And today we officially completed the choreography to Hayatak Fi Soura!!!
(I know we did it unofficially last week, but that was just messing about, I didn't actually teach it).
So from here on in, it's about troubleshooting and getting it to look good!
Here's the practice video, that takes you all the way through. I messed up a little bit in the second half, but hey, nobody's perfect.
Rosa is based in Maine, USA. She does a really lovely online Lunchtime Shimmy class, at 11am Eastern Time, which is 4.00pm for us in the UK. I've done it before, and it's a fun class (all kinds of Bellydance, not just shimmies!). And she offers a free try-out class, which is really good of her.
This week we worked on using the hip push while travelling - the Step Push, with a plain and cross-step option, going forwards and retreating. The practice video is here - it's a big vid covering various Hip Push options, but the Step Push section starts at 9mins5secs:
We also did more work on Arms.
The Arms music was Al Gani Bad Youmein, by Samira Said. It's very passionate and emotional. There's a lyrics video with English translation here, if you want to follow the words.
For the Choreography, we've got started on the repetition of the sections we did at the start. One of my Principles of Choreography is that when we have repetitions in the music, we use repetitions of the moves we used earlier. So with Verse 2, we're repeating exactly what we do at the start of the routine (the cross step, hip drops, grapevine combination). But in Verse 3, it's "same but different", still hip drops, but in a different pattern, using profiles rather than facing front.
A bit of background - I created this choreo as part of a workshop series with Kay Taylor, who runs FaridaDance.com. It was all about creating choreography, I wanted to gain insights from how other people approach it. All of us on the course created our own routines to the same music. To see how other dancers interpreted the music, you can see our compilation video here.
Homework suggestion, either the Step Push or the Choreography (the more you practise it, the more it will stick in your memory).
We've all heard the saying, "Practice makes perfect".
It's not true.
Well, it's sort of true.
What practice achieves is creating a "muscle memory". It's not really the muscles remembering anything, it's more that your brain and nervous system learn to remember the sequence of nerve twitches that power the right muscles to make that particular move (or combination of moves). The more you do a move, the more the nervous system learns that "neural pathway", so that in the end, the nervous system doesn't need much conscious brain input, it remembers the sequence well enough that you can go straight into it.
Repetition means you are creating those neural pathways, so that the brain can delegate decision-making to the lower nervous system. That's why it's hard to learn a new variation on a move you already know. Your brain, for the sake of efficiency, wants to leave everything to the nervous system. The nervous system defaults to the old move, because that's what it has learned. You have to make a strong conscious effort to make the changes for the new variation, so that the brain overrides the default.
But back to Practising...
You can see that if you aren't working a move correctly, all the repetition in the world isn't going to make you better at that move. All you are doing is learning the move wrong - when you have to relearn it, it's going to require more conscious effort to overcome the default that's been wrongly set up, and more repetition to set the correct move.
The saying really should be: Practice Makes Permanent.
So when you're practising, you do need to be sure you're reproducing the moves the right way, so that you set the correct neural pathway.
Try to remember the suggestions I make in class, about foot positioning, about where your weight should be, where the move starts, where the energy for it comes from, how it flows...
Use the practice videos to help you remember what you're doing.
When you're trying to practise something new, work slowly. Give yourself time to think about what you're doing. Fast moves may feel satisfying, but they often lead to the nervous system using its established shortcuts, rather than learning a new set of neural pathways.
You can always ask me in class for more feedback, or to check what you're doing.
Finally, don't worry! I'm not expecting Perfection. If I give you feedback or corrections, I hope they make the technique easier for you, or make the moves look better on you. I want to give you the chance to dance, and enjoy moving to lovely music, in a way that will work well for you. But it's always your dance.
Welcome back! In this second half of the term we'll be working on more new techniques and more variations on those techniques we know. We'll also be able to finish learning the choreography and hopefully we'll be able to troubleshoot any problems you're having, and see how far you can remember sections for yourself.
This week we were focussing the Technique on Walking Like A Dancer, thinking about how to make the stepping look light and add accents to make a plain walk more interesting. Possible accents include - pause, chin lift, shoulder roll, shoulder hit, chest lift, abdominal pull-in, hip push, hip twist, hip drop (needs a lift on count 3, to prep for the drop on 4), knee lift, heel drop... so many options!!!). We also looked at using floor patterns for our walking, thinking about straight lines and curves.
We also worked on the Hip Push - a close cousin of the hip drop. This video covers the basic hip drop with the twisting forwards or backwards variations.
For the choreography, we didn't proceed any further than the Instrumental section, where we're walking in a figure 8 (or two circles, if that's how you see it). This week was more about refreshing your memories after a week off, and consolidating what we know already.
I'm planning on recording the full choreography practice video after class, either this week or next week, so you'll have the full version available soon.
Home practice suggestion: Shimmy!
If you've got no time, just do 30 second bursts of shimmy, plain or weighted, no music, just the knee action. If you do two bursts per day, that gives you 7 minutes of practice in a week, without really thinking about it.
