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.
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.
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 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!
I use Instagram a lot. I do have a specific dance related account, which is very sadly neglected, I'm afraid. BUT this isn't about me, it's about a good hashtag/account for you to follow.
Every year, a US dancer called Tiffany runs an Instagram challenge #21daysofbellydance. It's a load of teachers from all around the world, providing an exercise, or step combination, or something to try out. It's basically 21 days of mini tutorials.
It's all to promote Tiffany's deal - the bellydance bundle, and given that hashtags aren't the best way to keep tabs on this, you might want to follow the Bellydance Bundle account, to be sure of seeing all the 21 days of BD entries, and joining all her giveaways. There's a free download to help you with working out what you want to practise, for example. And there's some free zills (finger cymbals) on offer.
The Bundle is a brilliant idea, I've bought it myself a couple of times, and I'd happily recommend it to others. It's basically a package of online dance courses, some live, so you can interact with the teacher, some of them recorded. Some of them are time limited, but a lot of them are lifetime access, so you can go back to them time & time again. It seems like... it IS a big chunk of money to lay down, but even if you only do half the courses it's money well spent. I don't want to bang on about it, or make it seem like I'm promoting it myself, but I just wanted to explain what she's promoting with all of this.
Anyway, just a heads up that today is Day 1, and we have a lovely Veil tutorial from Aziza, yes The Aziza of Montreal I always talk about! She's giving us a Veil combo that you can try out. And for those who don't have a veil, you can use it as an Arms exercise.
Those who did the course last summer may remember the Kiss Kiss Veil Move!
If you follow the hashtag, you'll see other dancers posting videos of their practice of the various tutorials, so you can see that they work for dancers of all different skill and experience levels.
Tiffany also did a podcast for a couple of the bundle years, talking with all the different teachers. So there are quite a few archive episodes, if you're into Podcasts. It's called Yallah Raqs, and it's a really good one for dancers.
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
Tonight was very strongly focussed on Forward Back steps and Grapevines. They're close cousins in the movement family.
We recapped the basic Forward Back stepping pattern and worked on ways to manage changing the lead foot. I was working on two different kinds of changeover - the new students were using my "take a step out" versions, and the more experienced students were using my "add a step in" versions. I'll video the Changeover techniques and add the vid to the Playlist and add it in here.
Beginner level Changeover:
Higher level Changeover:
Then we moved on to the Grapevines, which are the same basic stepping pattern, but moving sideways. For travelling a distance, I use the 7 step version, and I use the 3 step version for very short distances, or changing my direction. But I forgot to cover the 3-step version! I'll do that next week.
I've got a couple of Grapevine vids. The first one was filmed in poor lighting during lockdown!:
This one's a lot clearer, but maybe not so expansive:
We did a short bit of Abdominal practice, to remind our abs that they are going to be needed over the next few weeks, and had a bit of fun with belly rolls.
We used Kidda by Natacha Atlas in the Abs practice, and there was a request for the music, it's on Spotify. I can't get the right link, but you should be able to find it just by searching "kidda". Here is the YouTube video:
Tonight we worked on some new material, the Forward Back stepping pattern (aka box step, aka Pas de Bourrée). This can be a bit tricky to "get", but you just have to remember it's not a walking forwards step, it's a staying on the spot step, it's a case of balancing the forwards & the back.
For the more experienced students, we used the Forward Back step with a range of accents, to give it a bit of variety.
We also recapped the Hip Hits, and shimmies.
We also added a heel lift to our Figure 8,
I'm going to be using this term to build up your technique repertoire, so there's a lot to work on. I'm going to be teaching the basic moves to the new, less experienced students, and more challenging variations for the more experienced students. My advice to those new to bellydance would be: stick to the basic versions for now. There will be plenty of time to work on more sophisticated variations, when you have the basics firmly in your control.
Tonight we were going over the circles and figure 8s from last week, adding the half circles and the reverse figure 8. I'm afraid I don't have a video for the reverse version. I'll try and film one next week.
We also recapped the Shimmy, and worked on building up that "muscle memory" (it's more nerve memory, but hey!). We're trying to build a smooth, even movement. That means small moves, and keep breathing.
One new move that we used was Abdominal Pull-Ins. This is a really good move to create muscular control, that will help with posture and strong core balance.
The other new move we worked on was the Hip Drop.
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I would suggest for your home practice you pick one video and use it for practice several times over, to get the move into your body. When you feel you can do the move without using the video, then you can go on to another move.
I'm delighted to be teaching you bellydance for another year!
For those who are new, thank you for giving this a try. I hope I can make you fall in love with bellydance!
For those who are coming back, it's lovely to see you again! I hope I can move your skills forward and make you love bellydance even more.
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Tonight's class is starting with basics. I know the more experienced students can't be there tonight, so I can focus fully on the new starters.
We worked on some foundation moves: Hip Circles, Side to Sides (sometimes I call them Hip Hits), Figure 8s and Shimmy.
I have set up a YouTube Playlist with practice videos for the techniques we cover in class. For Home Practice you can pick one and watch it through and work with it, several times over. They're only short videos. But work on one thing at a time, to give your body the chance to get used to the move.
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If you want some music to practise to, you could try this song, for more flowing technique (circles, figure 8s):
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For the more experienced ones, who were not here tonight, here's some inspiration for you - the wonderful Sahar Samara...
