One step forward and two steps back

Spent the morning trying to do something that looked a like a simple move- a diagonal figure 8 maya I can do a good maya, a great hip twist.  So, in front of DVD I bent my knees, pelvic in neutral, ribs lifted, shoulders up, back and down, head tall,  and twisted left hip forward and from this diagonal maya-figure 8.  Fine, not smooth, but I think it is a good start. Then from the back right corner, twist to maya back left corner and this is not so good. The slide to front...no, try again, slide to front right corner.  No, seriously...front right and maya.. okay, how about just the slide..? What? What had happened? SAH-CUR-i- TEE.....Sah-cur-i-tee! Someone stole my maya while I was sleeping.  I have searched my whole body. Stretched,  tried some yoga, back to basics. But my front right diagonal is completely gone! If anyone see it..please return it to me.  ( It may be seen in company of my sharp rib slides. )

First Costume in Progress.

This really is a lot of fun. The hardest part so far is taking the pictures.

Journaling the dance.

Sail-Awolnation:

Face Back first 8 counts ( In that cool Zoe stance like a martini glass?)

Snake arms:

First 8: low snake arms

Second 8: medium snake arms

Third 8: medium with torso sway

4th 8!  Arms up (1,2)- slight dip- look over left shoulder/right arm up, left hand to face finish both arms up (2-8)

Fifth 8 ! Arms up (1-2) dip, look over right shoulder, right hand to face, left arm up (2-8_

6th 8 ! Arms up-slide across back of head ( find a pretty hand floreo for this) and our to 2nd.

7th 8 ! Scissor turn (step back left) face DSL (1-2), rib lock/drop (3-4), half hip circle to DSR (5-6), rib lock/drop (7-8) ( This rib lock seems quick when I turn and I need to practice a ton with pop/lock quicker)

SAIL!
8th 8 !  From the rib lock to RB's body wave with hip circle from right to left

9th 8 !  RB's body wave, hip circle left to right

10th 8 !  Ami CW x 2 ( four count each Ami)

11th 8! Forward Figure 8

! This is how I show my love   DSR Left shoulder roll?  Heart beat move (5-6-7-8) cave in pop out


! I made it in my mind because   From Chest out Liquid frame face ( Anasama)


! Blame it on my ADD baby  Ladder (tuck pelvis 1, upper abs 2, chest 3, chin 4)  1-2-3-4  head slides (5-6-7-8) (From Anasana) Or this Sedona?

! 8 ( Transition something to face front? pass the circle thing?)

! This is how an angel cries  Tribal Camel (1-8 : Up left -right (1-2) slide right with hand floreo left hand up gaze down (3-4-5-6)  leg back (7-8) face front.


!Blame it on my own sick pride  Arms up and wave down (flame)with chest/rib pop/lock hands at chest)Peacock hands ( Shimmy II)


!Blame it on my ADD baby    Right arm up with floreo (1-2) Left arm up with florea (3-4) and Head slides (5-6-7-8)

!8   Chest circle horizontal (1-2-3-4) and hip circle ( 5-6-7-8)

SAIL-8  Side to side undulation right ( From Rachel Brice)

SAIL- 8 Side to side undulation Left

SAIL-8  Side to side undulation Right

SAIL-8  Side to side undulation Left

SAIL-!  Something easy..maya? Figure 8 That move from Sedona's big hip leading into hip circle.


! Maybe I should cry for help  Hip Circle: ( slide left-sit arm up_ maya up) From Hannan Sultan)

! Maybe I should kill myself  Hip circle: slide right forward left back with hair/head down up maya) (lebanese hip circle from Shimmy bellies in beirut)

! Blame it on my ADD baby   Something something Head slides (5-6-7-8-)

! Drum/cymbal 8  From arms up-Tribal chest undulation down ( This is not working for me)


!Maybe I'm a different breed Pose beautiful face gesture look out( From Shimmy Season II)

!Maybe I'm not listening  Scissor turn face back( 1-2)  Something something (3-4-5-6)  hands to head (7-8) From my own head

!So blame it on my ADD baby Scissor front (1-2)       Shoulder see saw (5-6-7-8)

!8 ( upbeat transition)  Shoulder lift/drop (1-2), Chest lift/drop (3-4)Left shoulder lift drop (5-6) Roll down ( 7-8)  ( Was this Rachel? or Anasana?



SAIL-!8 (guitar added in) Maya level change down,  Reverse Maya

SAIL  (guitar 8)  Maya level change down, Reverse Maya up

SAIL (guitar)  

SAIL (guitar building)

SAIL 

Toy Piano Part

8 Da-da-DA-da-da ( sounds like pairs of 4 or 5 counts) Hip drops releve right

8 Travel hip circle R (1-4) Travel hip circle L 5-8)

8 Hip drops releve L (1-8)

8  Traveling hip circle L (1-4) Traveling hip Circle R (5-8)

La la la la la la la la la -Oh! Maybe saidi step with four hip lifts, turn and repeat..( If I can't figure out Ashley's 1-2-3 back steps.

8 Saidi step with four hip lifts.

la la la la la la la la-Oh!  3 step turn with hip bounce (


La la la la la la la la  3 step turn with hip bounces

 (Rachel's cool 16 count thing) from Serpentine. Work out SAIL on the lifts?)

SAIL  Grapevine left pivot (1-2-3-4) Grapevine Right Pivot (5-6-7-8)

SAIL  Step pivot (1-2) Step Pivot(3-4) R-L-R (5-6-7) LRL ( That's too many steps, no?)

SAIL  ( Should do easier things a few times, smile breathe because pinball is hard as hell)

SAIL

SAIL 

SAIL

SAIL

SAIL

SAIL  Pinball right 

SAIL Pinball left

Clap reverse the beginning.

Choreowhatgraphy?

Wow!  There is so much more to this than I could ever imagine!   I am planning my first dance to do in front of family at our Christmas gathering this year.  Two years ago, without any prior lessons other than some Shimmy fit DVD's, I found a teacher willing to teach me a VERY simple choreography that consisted of a couple turns with a veil, a shimmy and some side to side steps.  I think there were like four steps in the dance to a 2 minute song that she even slowed down for me on her magic machine.  I had 3 lessons with her, that pretty much destroyed my confidence in anything that I thought I had learned. 

Last year,  I was going to try to dance again and really did start working out a choreography with the ONLY local belly dance teacher. She is wonderful and I asked the impossible of her- help me work out a whole choreography in 3 hours- and by this time, I had 8 lessons in a real class.  Christmas was super busy and we didn't do our show because we were missing key family members.  But this year, we will nearly all be together again.

I am working on the same song I planned last year, but I can't remember what all the notations of the choreography mean. So, I am working it out on my own with last year's notes as a guide.  There are many things that make this undertaking complicated for me.

Firstly, I don't yet understand music and often have to have someone else count out the beats for me. I will hear 6 or 7 when everyone else clearly hears that 8 count.  ( I actually just learned about 8 counts last year).  I am not yet comfortable with improvising at all, so I need to work it all out and memorize it.  I don't know how to write the music or dance notes down.  I am learning.

Secondly,  I am learning that one can not just string together 8 count phrases because one phrase must lead to the next. I have to figure out how to end up where I want to be, that is, which foot, facing which direction in order to move to the next step.   I have been working out the expression of the lyrics and know in my head what I want to do, but when I start practicing, I realize..oh, that doesn't work because in the last move I ended on DSR with arms in second.  Wow! I can't believe that came out of my mouth.

Thirdly,  my eyes are bigger than my belly.  I mean, I imagine moving to the music like I saw in Rachel's DVD, but um, I actually can't DO sidewinder.  So, the challenge is to either learn some things that are not yet  in my scope ( that is what I say as a nurse practitioner, not sure what a dancer would say) or learn to express myself in a much simpler way, but with moves that are actually graceful rather than forced when I do them.

It is fun and challenging.  My family will have no idea if I mess up. Well, one of my daughter in laws has taken up belly dancing, so SHE will know, but she will laugh with me, not at me.

Star-struck

I can't even remember the first time that I saw a youtube video of Rachel Brice, but I, like many of her fans, was mesmerized. I played them over and over and searched for every video that I could find of her.  As a novice to all forms of dance, I was fascinated by her control of her body. She could isolate muscles I did not know that I had.  In the year that I have been actually taking lessons off and on, I use her DVD's to practice.  At home, I often pause her DVD's and play sections over and over until I can understand the movement.

When I found out that she would be giving workshops at Jamballah, I marked my calendar to get tickets the very first available moment to get tickets. Then, finding out that she was the surprise yoga instructor before the workshop, I was worried that I could not keep up.

I knew that she not very tall from her videos, but was surprised at how tiny she really is.  Without makeup or costuming she is a completely different woman, and I doubt anyone who had only seen her in performance would be able to recognise her.  She was warm, friendly and most surprisingly very funny.  She has adorable names for yoga poses that are not nearly as funny is you are not there in person.

I was prepared to stay in the back left corner of her dance workshop, so I would not get in the way of other students who are professional dancers.  I was still so star struck that I would get so caught up in watching her move that I was not as self conscious as I usually am.

There was a point where everything shifted for me.  There was a new combination that she was teaching us in reverse and it wasn't flowing as she had it written in her book.  She called a friend/student/dancer up and just walked it out with her.  I know that I am not the only one who could not imagine that the best dancer ever actually has to practice. She told me that sometimes she would get so frustrated when learning something new and was pretty hard on herself.  Like me she thought she was the only one that wasn't getting it.  Yes, I said just like me.

Wow! An amazing shift in my feelings about dance happened hearing that.  She works hard to be able to use her body so artfully.  Sometimes she isn't perfect.  The way she was able to laugh about it and solve the problem by just talking it through with Shanti made me finally feel that I could actually learn to dance one day.

She is human and it made me have even more appreciation for her talent.  Somehow I thought that all the dancers that I see are just amazingly gifted and it comes easily.  They don't show youtube out takes. They don't show hours and hours of practice to make it look so effortless on the instructional DVDs.

This moment with her completely shifted the way I see my practice. I am more encouraged and excited about learning that I have ever been. Not because I think even with daily hours of practice, I will be as wonderful as Rachel, but I now believe that I will be the best dancer that I can be. 

I cannot express how very excited I am about the upcoming JamBallah in Portland.  I promised myself last year that I would practice every day until this year so I would not be so very lost. But my whirlwind of a life kept me too spun to remember. 
I do more a bit more than I did last year. I did spend lots of time practicing at the beginning, but the past few months have been so busy working on the business that my body has forgotten the very basics I had drilled most of last year.  This year, I sort of know what to do in my head, but the signal does not always get to my body.
Four more days and I will be dancing...yeah

Whiny circles

Chest circles in any direction are difficult for me. In my defense, I have a LOT more to lift and circle around than does Rachel Brice who makes it look so effortless. I have been practicing tightening upper back to push forward, lifts, contracting upper abs to move back, the "down" is the hardest. Collapsing looks sloppy, but I have not been able to "feel" the right muscles. I put away the other DVDs and grabbed the Shimmy TV DVDs today and found a couple of drills for that and my upper back hurts a lot. I am hoping that means that I have found those elusive back muscles.
Years ago, while recovering from shoulder surgery ( twice in a year on the same shoulder), physical therapists worked so hard to try to get me to contract muscles between my shoulders-but I had NO idea how to access those muscles. It took those electrical muscle stimulators, poking, and lots of tears before I could barely flicker them with a lot of effort. So, this is not easy for me. It is painful to get just the smallest chest movements.
I am going to keep practicing in short bursts rather than any extended sessions. I seem to learn that way better- small moments of practice with more time to process the feelings between. So the added move to slow to medium 3/4 shimmy is chest circles..side to side and front to back. In between "roll up" or reverse undulations. Practice, practice, practice....