Beginners - Week 7

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.

If you've got 5 minutes, use the follow-along from the Weighted shimmy video from Week 6

If you've got more time than that, use my Shimmy Music Playlist, and try combining shimmies with different arm positions. 

EDITED TO ADD the music from the Walking Like a Dancer section. Its Manbaa Innar by Hossam Ramzy & Samy el Bably

 

If you use Spotify it's here.