Autumn Term - week 12

Last lesson of the term! I do hope I'll be seeing you again in the new year. Please remember, if you can possibly sign up before the end of December, I'd be very grateful. The viability decisions will be made early in the New Year, and I would really like this class to keep going!

The last lesson of term is always Technique Requests, and Y requested Camels. This is a move that requires good abdominal control, so I usually leave it until the second term. But what the heck!

But like last week, I wanted to focus strongly on the routine to Akteb Aleik, and get it finished, so there was a bit of recapping Verse 3 (which has 3 reps within it), and moving on to Verse 4 which is nice and short, and the finale, also short.

I'm sorry I couldn't do the video last week of Verse 3, but did manage to film it all the way through after class, with only a small bit of forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing, and as soon as I've got it edited and uploaded, I'll add it here.

And finally, in Music Corner, we spoke about the cool down music I used, which is from Jane Birkin's Arabesque album, which was recorded live in concert, with a small orchestra of Arab musicians. The piece I used in class was Elisa:

But I also sometimes use Comment Te Dire Adieu:

Wishing you all the very best for the Holiday season, and looking forward to seeing you on the other side...

Autumn Term - week 11

I decidedI wanted to complete the choreo, even if it's not fully "learned" by the end of this term. This is partly because Y will be leaving us, and partly just in case we don't get enough people to be viable for next term (I hope we will, but I'm planning these last two sessions on a worst case basis).

So we started with a quick catch up on the Vertical Figure 8s from last week, comparing the difference the foot position makes. Try practising the V8s Up and In with your feet a bit wider apart than usual and with your feet closer in.

But mostly we were working on Verse 3 of the Choreography. This one is a bit harder to remember, because there are 3 sections that are the same tune, so you need to keep tabs on where you are in the routine. 

As usual, I'll video the next bit and put it up here, and add it to the Youtube playlist.

Next week is our last session of this term, and we'll finish the routine - Verse 4 and the ending are shorter than Verse 3!

Autumn term - week 9

Tonight was partly catching up with last week, and partly keeping to my original plans for this week!

We started with Single Sided Hip Circles (horizontal), that C & I worked on last week:

Then we moved onto the Weighted Shimmy:

And then we worked on the Choreography, consolidating the routine up to Verse 1, and introducing Verse 2. It only took me three goes to film (well, two really - on the first go I forgot to press the record button)!

Autumn term - week 8

Tonight it was just me and C. We recapped the Step Push moves from last week, and we worked on Single Sided Hip Circles:

We did a bit of a recap of the first verse of the choreography, then moved onto the second verse. I'll leave videoing it until a few more people have learned it.

Autumn term - week 7

I hope you all had a good half term. My holiday in France was very stormy, windy, rainy... But it was still good to have some time away with my sisters!

Tonight was really about consolidation, making sure that what we did before the half term break is still there in our memory! We recapped the hip drop with release/kick. Remember, the key with this is to be really strong on the standing leg, and not put any body weight into the dropping/releasing/kicking leg. As soon as you even up your standing weight, your body won't want to do the little release/kick, because it takes you off balance. Also remember to keep the supporting knee soft, and don't pop the supporting hip out.

We also brought in the hip push (a very close relative of the hip drop) and used it to create travelling moves (we're going to need them in the choreography soon).

This covers the basic hip push and the on-the-spot twisting version. The Travelling versions are in the video below:

We also did some abdominal work - the usual pull in & release, but varying the speeds. Quick pull in, slow release, or slow pull in, quick release. 

• Use a slowish count of 4.
• Count 1, pull in the abs quickly
• Count 234, relax the abs slowly and smoothly
• Or vice versa
• Count 123, pull in the abs slowly and smoothly
• Count 4, relax the abs quickly to let them pop back out.

We also recapped the Akteb Aleik choreography Introduction, and added Verse 1 to our routine. I remembered to take both phones (one to film, one to play the music) so here's the dance to date, so you can practise it:

And in Music Corner... El3ab Yalla, by Oka & Ortega

I found the lyrics, to make sure I'd explained it right to you, and thankfully I did!

If you want to check out the words, they are here.

Autumn term - week 6

I can't believe we're already half way through the term! 

I was reminded that October is Black History Month and the theme is Celebrating our Sisters, so all the music for tonight's class is music that was performed and made famous by two great Divas of Arabic music - Oum Koulsoum and Warda. More on that in another post, it could get very muso-nerdy!

The new technique that was introduced tonight was the Hip Drop with a Foot Release (aka a Drop Release, or a Drop Kick, though that sounds like Rugby thing!). This is a bit tricky, because it's hard to get used to not trusting our body weight to the floor, you have to be confident working with all your weight in the standing leg, and not letting your "empty" leg to take the body weight.

By request we did a bit of work on Arms. We started with basic concepts. Use the back to lift the arms, not the shoulders. Consider whether you want symmetry or asymmetry. Think about your hand position - they finish off the curve of the arm. Consider all the joints you can use to move your arms and hands about.

This isn't the Arms Drill we did, but it's the same basic concept. You can follow along, and try to remember to do something else with your body, so you don't treat arms as a separate thing, but as part of your dancing as a whole.

There's an Arms tag/label, so if you're interested, you can click on the Arms label in the list, or at the foot of this post.

For the Akteb Aleik choreography, we completed the Introduction, and I will try to film and post a video by the end of the weekend.

Try to have a few listen throughs, a few follow alongs for the choreo, so you don't forget all about it over the half term.

See you on 2nd November - have a good break!

Autumn term - week 5

Tonight was all about the Three Step!

We started with a recap of the Forward Back Changeovers and the long (7-step) grapevines from last week, but bringing the focus to the short (3-step) grapevine. This is covered in the Grapevine videos I posted last week.

We also worked on Walking using the Three Step pattern. We did some basic Walking practice, to practise posture and centredness, and moved on to the three step walking pattern, where we can add accents, and then we used that pattern to move onto the Arabesque Walk

We also started the choreography to our chosen song, Akteb Aleik. I will do short video clips as we go along, and try to post them each week.

For now, here's the music for practising to:

This week was all about the Intro. It's a long intro, so we'll do the end of it next week.

I can only apologise for the complete lack of any attempt at editing. I had to film it on my work iphone, and I don't know iphones, I'm an Android girl.
I did lose balance a smidge on one of the turns, next time I hope I'll be better at it!

For home practice, listen to the music, trying to identify the changes. Dance along with my practice video. I hate to sound really boring, but you won't learn it unless you actually practice it!

Good luck!

I mentioned listening to an interesting radio programme on Breathing as a way of reducing stress/anxiety, all about how they teach breathing techniques in schools. They talked about some really interesting techniques. If you fancy a listen, it's only 14 minutes:

An Almanac for Anxiety: In Search of a Calmer Mind
Episode 4 - Air