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 10

We were working on Forward Back turns and Vertical Figure 8s as our Technique.

The Vertical figure 8 can be done mechanically or in a more muscular way. To learn the move in the first place, stick to working on the Mechanics - pushing the hip up, out and then dropping it down. 

The more experienced students who understand this mechanism, and can identify clearly the difference between up & out, and up & in Eights, and reproduce them without confusion, should be thinking about using the muscles of the abdomen (especially the Obliques), thighs and buttocks to control the move rather than relying on the feet and knees to activate the action. Think about lifting from the abs, rather than pushing from the legs. It may make the movement a bit smaller, but it makes it more luscious and intense, and it brings the attention up to the hips more effectively!

We also worked on some Forward Back Step turns, mainly because we're going to need it for the choreo. I had hoped we'd have time for some general turning and pivoting work, but instead I concentrated on using the Forward Back step with a 180º turn, and then the specific 360º turn that we're going to be using in the routine:

And talking of Choreography, I was more concerned with consolidating the work we've done so far, and getting it to feel more natural and flowing. Hopefully that's helping! But we're not going to move it forwards until next week.

I said I'd post the colour coded choreography notes. They are on my Google Drive, and you should be able to access them using this link. You can then save the document on your device. If you can't access the document, let me know and I can email it to you.

Enrolling for the Spring (January) term (if that's what you want to do)

First things first, I would really appreciate it if you can enrol before Christmas, because the decision on viability is going to be made quite early in January, and I want this course to have the best possible chance of running.

You can enrol three ways:

1 - Online - This is the link straight to the course page, where you can see all the details and enrol straight away

2 - By phone - Call 0300 200 1044, and ask to be enrolled on Belly Dance Mixed Abilities, course code QHEV442NZA.

3 - In  person at the Guildford Adult Learning Centre (or any of our Adult Learning Centres) - again, ask to be enrolled on Belly Dance Mixed Abilities, course code QHEV442NZA.

I really hope to see you all again in the New Year. Happy Holidays!

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!

If you use Instagram...

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.

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A post shared by The Bellydance Bundle (@thebellydancebundle)

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.

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

Autumn term - week 4

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: