::more than somewhat::

Think silk, cinnamon and spice. Think rose petals, soft breezes and pearly white sands. Think of the most beautiful things you ever saw. And the saddest. Things that touched your heart, made you reach out, withdraw, feel pain, feel joy…

All of these are embodied in the dance that Sarah dances.

In this video, Sarah shows you that it’s not enough to dance with your body. You must dance with your thoughts, your imagination, your feelings and your dreams. If I were to watch this video once, and put it away, the one message I would go away with is that you must fill every movement and moment with whatever affects you most deeply. Remember something you yearned for, think of something that awes you with its beauty, and draw it into your dance. Take the music and make it your own story.

Forget your isolations and muscle conditioning drills and authentic Egyptian moves and your flawless technique and watch as Sarah Skinner tells you what it is in her heart and mind that makes her dance the way she does.

This video must have been so difficult to conceptualize. How do you explain what passing thought or feeling you called upon while dancing to hold your audience? To a seasoned dancer, this must come so naturally so as to be inseparable from the dance itself. And yet, in this remarkable instruction, she has explained and illustrated her beautiful slow lyrical dancing from all aspects.

By now if you’re impatient to know what on earth is on that DVD that’s so special, let me explain bit by bit.

In her first section, Sarah takes up foundation moves. This is just a brief introduction to each of the basics. Starting with posture, dance walks and turns we run quickly through arm positions, poses and how they are used including how to maintain energy while holding a pose to further enhance an emotion. Sarah’s hand moves are fluid and lovely and she explores the basics of this movement here. Head circles, hip and pelvic circles, chest slides and circles, figure eights, hip rolls, one-hip eights are introduced. So are full body snakes, undulations and basic shimmies, contractions, and even stomach rolls. All brief reviews.

The second section teaches organic movement, or how to dance naturally. That may sound like a contradiction in terms, but you could certainly use the technique explained here to bring more naturalness into your movement. All I’ll say is that it’s about leading with different parts of your body in a way that makes the entire move fuller. Practiced regularly, this will impact the overall look of your dancing.

The next section explains the meaning of taqsim and how it relates to rhythms are how these are interwoven in slow dancing.

Rhythms used in slower forms of belly dancing are now taken up in their own section. Sarah shows how to move to these rhythms. This is a unique and very interesting section where she gets you to try with her some movement sequences. Frankly I’d love a companion video just full of these. Say about a thousand of them. Watch every nuance and accent in this section - and there are many of them. The chiftitelli rhythm segment is particularly intresting if you’ve seen other videos that cover this (not that there are many). The slow and playful 9/8 is also covered here. This movement to rhythm is practiced in motion sequence chapters, step by step.

Rhythmless taqsim (the real taqsim, as many would say) is also explored. There are movement sequences with lots of tips on execution. From how to breathe to how to place your foot - Sarah takes you through this with lots of analogies for you to draw upon later.

Practice flows invite you to improvise a little on your own with minimal prompting, using the concepts just learnt. Each rhythm is taken up. Sarah will cue you on how to lead or what sort of moves to come up with. This section reminds me of some of the concepts used by Nadira Gamal in her improvisation toolkit. There are practice flows for rhythmless taqsim as well.

In a beautiful section on expression and musicality, Sarah dances to John Bilezikjian’s chiftetelli (a piece which totally gets me) as she analyzes and explains how she interprets the music and translates it into emotive movement. There are a lot of lessons here, as there are in the next section which is a music-only demonstration of many of the movements and sequences taken up until now. You can pick up so much from here for all the times you don’t know what to do when there’s a long slow entrance to a piece of music. Watch the relationship of emotional expression to music to movement. See how to use slowness, how to be inward oriented and outward. Watch also as Sarah uses the shamadaan to completely change the mood of the same movements. Sarah teaches may ways to engage an audience, when to be warm, when to be cold, when to look mysterious… amazing insight into the complexity of this beautiful dance. This long music-only section gives you the opportunity to focus on each move, distraction-free. She dances to several pieces of music. She includes a mysterious lethal-looking snake dance - not with snakes, but in a snake mood. There’s a clip with swords as well. For each, watch the complete change of mood and expression.

Finally, there’s her lovely performance to Lama Bada. This one is with the veil. It’s filled with both joyousness and emotional turmoil.

I want more Sarah.

Tags: Belly dance and fitness DVD Reviews // 3 Comments »

I still haven’t managed to do massive bouts of exercise (not more than an hour, or two in separate sessions) but I’m definitely hooked on the stuff. At first, I needed to push myself to let go of the dancing to get to exercise - and now it looks like it’s the other way around! No one’s more surprised than me, because I had little room in my head for anything that wasn’t dancing. Oh well.This trait of mine is how I happened to choose the title “More than Somewhat” for my blog.

I’m so tempted to move on from the basic video (Pick Your Spot Pilates) and hook into any of the other wonderful choices around. But I’m forcing myself to be patient and not short circuit my “program”. Or injure myself silly. So, I continue with the same 25 to 30 basic pilates exercises I started out with. However, I couldn’t help also starting on a ballet conditioning video, which is totally wonderful! More on that later.

The pilates is showing results at the same surprising speed. Yesterday, I found I could do push ups. Not the girlie half-push ups on many dance videos, but full fledged military ones. And I know I couldn’t do these about a week earlier. I was, in fact, having a tough time stabiliizing the high plant position from which you begin these push ups and couldn’t really get my back as straight as I thought it should be. That could lead to pain. But after a bit, I find I can do them! How many, I don’t know beczuse I don’t really want or need more than a handful, but do them I can and I’m thrilled. As long as they’re controlled and in good form, a few will do for a bit of strength.

I notice that most exercises have become easier to do because of the increasing strength in the core. It’s actually palpable. And I’m amazed at how this strength contributes to dancing moves. Yesterday, I did a round of Bellydance Rhythms Flow One (to which I’m now saying goodbye for a few years) and I saw all sorts of subtle differences. I found, for example, that turning from one angle to the other was lightning quick. I found that doing 3-step turns didn’t topple me off balance. I also found a greater range of hip motion though I can’t figure out why on earth that should be.

I think I have mastered Flow One though and have somewhat overdone it. So I’m dropping it and not going on to the second one now. I think I’ll look at something else. The Autumn choreography, maybe. Anasma. And perhaps I’ll fix that one week segment from the Luscious workout, the Body Line.That’s before my Love Potion arrives.

Hmmm. So many choices!

Tags: Dance Diary // 1 Comment »

There are absolutely zillions of exercise videos out there and a whole lot of them are Pilates programs. In my recent focus on exercse, I acquired a few of these. After looking through a bunch, I settled down on working with Pick Your Spot: Pilates from the “Crunch” series.All available on amazon and other places.

There is a number of reasons why this program is working for me. First off, I like the instructor, Ellen Barrett. She’s pleasant and lively but not horribly teeny bopper. She’s not like Rees Witherspoon and friends in Legally Blonde, for example. I think what I’m trying to say is she’s not a bimbette. There.

Second, I like the fact that there’s not an awful amount of cheerleading through the program. She does of course say things like “beautiful” and “looking good” but luckily it’s not over the top. I wish they’d put a ban to this sort of stuff on exercise videos though. It’s been so done that it no longer has the motivating effect it’s supposed to. I keep thinking hey, you can’t see me so please let me be the judge of whether what I’m doing is a great job and lookin good or not, thank you. I just find it awfully condescending. Anyway, there’s an optimal amount of that on this video.

Then, I like the pace of the instruction and program. There’s a lot of reminders needed in Pilates and yoga so that you breathe right and keep checking on posture to make sure yo don’t hurt anything, specially the back. So I can understand that lots needs to be said. But some instructors have a way of shooting instructions rapidfire at you in such a way that it makes you hyperventilate. Thankfully, Ellen does nto make you gasp for breath.

Another thing that’s good about this video is that there are really not too many reps. I believe you don’t actually need very many reps for each exercise in Pilates anyway and that’s really good. So here too, you’ll find just a few with the exercise stopping well before it gets painful.

And finally, I like the program because it uses Pilates basics. It’s a good way to start. I do have Pilates for Dummies, for example and that’s very good too, but the pace is a little bit more demanding than on this video.  So that’s another thing in Pick Your Spot’s favor.

What’s not in its favor is that it has no warm up and cool down. I believe every exercise and dance video should have at least a bit of warm up and cool down. In fact, they could put in a short routine and ask you to rewind and repeat it a few times. For the totally unexercised, warm up is critical.

Ellen Barrett leads you through four mat routines on this DVD. Abs, Butt, Thighs and Total Body. Each is ten minutes. The abs routine has The Hundred, Single Leg Stretch, Mermaid, Criss Cross, Can Can and a few more. No crunches. It’s actually quite easy and after a few days you’d need to step up to something more challenging. But for a start, it’s wonderfully painless.

The Butt and Thighs routines have kick backs, stretches, leg lifts etc, all of which are quite nice to do. I particularly like leg lifts and now that I’m preoccupied with exercise, feel like doing a lot of them. I enjoy the difference in range mof motion and flexibility and feel quite ballerina-like at that moment.

The Total Body routine is a little more challenging and strenuous and has roll downs, plans, push ups etc. Oh, and the tough reverse plank. But well, master the other routines first and it should happen more easily. In any case, there’s a difference from one day to the next once you get into these exercises.

On this and most other videos, there’s always someone witht he instructor who does a modified version of the exercise, just for beginners or someone who’s got back problems. There’s no compromise on that. So that’s another way for the unexercised to begin - just follow the modified version for the first few rounds. I, unfortunately, like to push myself too hard, so I refuse to even look at the modified ones!

On these videos, they always tell you that you can do just any one routine and ten minutes of exercise, but while I believe that’s better than nothing, I don’t think it’s anywhere near enough, except to begin with. If you plan to lsoe a lot of weight, I also don’t think that this alone will help - but it would combine beautifully with a cardio or intense dance workout to start makign a difference depending on how regularly you work with it.

So, this is a good program in more ways than one. If you stick with it, chances are it could kick-start your exercise routine. Soon though, you could outgrow it. I haven’t reached that stage yet because I’m still grappling with 4 or 5 exercises I find particularly tough, but I know it’ll happen soon.

Challenging exercises on this video:
The Rol Up in which your legs go straight up and behind you and then open and close. I find it tough on the lower back.
Reverse plank in which you sit with legs outstretched and lift
The Can Can which takes a little while to get into the right posture
The proper Push UP for which one must first spend a little time perfecting the high plank so that the back doesn’t cave in.

Tags: Belly dance and fitness DVD Reviews // Add Comment »

One of the toughest things with exercising enough for it to make a difference is “routine-izing” it. So here’s a what one could try out. Assuming, of course, that you are a) clued in on what exercise to do and b) have the equipment you need and c) have the place to exercise in. I’m also assuming that will be at home.

I strongly recommend using one of many excellent exercise videos available spanning cardio, aerobics, dance, pilates, yoga, weights, fitness ball, kickboxing - and just about everything else, really.

First, just spend some time figuring out when and where you’ll exercise. And for how long. Now, each day when that time arrives, get your exercise stuff together and be in the place you plan to exercise in. Don’t plan on actually doing any exercise yet. This is so you don’t start out on an over-ambitious burst of exercise which is guaranteed to fail - and then feel horribly guilty about it all. Just get your stuff together and look at getting any obstacles to eventually exercising out of the way.

I have a dance room so the place part is quite decided for me. Time, often remains a troublesome parameter. Even though I have a place totally set aisde for ecercise, a few things do get in the way. One of them is the number of things I have to take there. Water, knee and ankle supports, phones, laptop, external hard disk, exercise clothes. It isn’t surprising to think about forgetting the whole thing and watching TV instead! So, I’ve started leaving some things in the dance room. Or, putting them there a good while before the exercise time. Basically, I try to separate the nuisance of carrying everything there from the exercise session itself.

The next step would be to get to the place on time and just watch the exercise DVD. Do nothing else. It helps tremendously to watch really carefully before you start the moves because when do finally do begin, you don’t have to keep stopping to check. If you’re not using a video, look at how the exercises are done on the internet or use a book.

Then, move up to doing a few moves. Don’t tire yourself out on any account. Just play with a few moves, practice the precision. Get them picture-perfect. If you have a mirror, check them out real carefully for form. Just a handful of exercises. Done slowly. Even if it’s cardio, focus on how the move travels doing it really slowly so that the form is perfect.Focus a lot on the foundation safety moves and breathing. For example, in Pilates that would be imprinting, holding the powerhouse in and the breathing format. For yoga, you might want to also practice breathing in the yoga method because every asana is empowered with the correct breathing sequence.

Now go on to learning the moves full time. Take your time doing this. Proceed segment by segment. Take one bunch of moves, and make sure you learn them well and actually do them for a round or two. So, if you have a 40 minute workout divided into 4 (as is usual), do just 10 minutes.

Add the next 10 minutes and the next, until you’re doing the whole workout. By this time, it won’t hurt and it won’t be a nuisance because you do the exercises in auto pilot.

Tags: General // 3 Comments »

Just as I’d promised myself, I kept up a dance holiday to focus on exercise. I didn’t manage the amount I would have wanted because of work pressures steppng up slightly, but I did manage to “change tracks” for a while to become as preoccupied with Pilates as I was with dance. Well, almost.

I have only managed to do a round of Pilates about every alternate day for between 30 to 50 minutes. But even in this short time of not-quite-enough exercise, I am amazed at the difference it makes. Now, I have not shed a whole lot of weight or anything like that. It’ll tke sensible combining with cardio or long sessions of intense belly dancing to do that, but I do see tangile differences in toning, strength and flexibility. Even more amazing is the fact that this seeps everyday activities like climbing the stairs… I can’t believe it.

I always resented the fact of having to climb the stairs two flgiths up to my apartment. Specially after work, when I step sleeepily out of the car and just want to eat soemthing and sit around like a lump of cement. I would find myself leaning on the railing a bit or becoming a bit unbalanced. But now, I climb them briskly and quite upright. In just ten days or so? Incredible.

I also find a difference in my balance. I have always had very bad balance and couldn’t even do that tree pose in yoga that everyone manages just fine. I’d just topple over - quite straightforward. But I tried various balancing poses recently (from general fitness exercises and ballet) and found there’s a new strength making it begin to happen! Possibly a strengthened core.

Today I got back to dancing by doing the East Coast warm up. I was gong to do mroe but had a visitor so stopped. Now I saw the difference the pilates made to this old favorite warm up. Hugely enhanced flexibility, for one. And a lot more precision and control. And also range of motion, which wasn’t small to begin with.

Understandably, I’m quite sold on these Pilates things! I’ve acquired a ton of fitness videos and will try to review them here. For now I’m sticing with a fairly basic but obviously effective one called Pick Your Spot: Pilates. It’s wonderful to work with and I’ll continue to use until I feel the exercises are being done very precisely and cripsly.

The best part of this whole experiment has been that I’ve felt no pain. Certainly some of the moves are tough and I hate having to rasie the neck and shoulders off the floor for exercises like the single leg stretch but that’s more because my neck hurts at that time, not because I’m getting post-exercise pain.

I highly recommend a spell of exercise familiarity for anyone who ins’t getting exercise. But especially for learner dancers. It makes a difference to everyone, including dance moves you thought you were already good at. I can do undulations in any direction any time, any number.

Tags: Dance Diary // 10 Comments »

Watching one of these period dramas is the closest thing to curling up with a long juicy favorite book whose pages have gone that deliscious shade of creamy yellow.

I watched The Young Victoria leaning back on soft soft plump cushions and sipping peach iced tea. How luxurious is that! Being fond of this genre of movies, I unsurprisingly enjoyed every minute of it.

Emily Blunt is Queen Victoria, or rather Princess Victoria. A prettier one than the real McCoy, probably. If you thought princesses have a nice pampered life within the walls and of the palace, forget it. The young Victoria wasn’t allowed to walk alone, she couldn’t read fiction, and right into adulthood she wasn’t allowed to walk down the stairs unless someone held her hand and she certainly wans’t allowed to hang out having fun. In fact, you name it and she wasn’t allowed it. As she grew up, Victoria, who had never known her father, was surrounded by vultures waiting to see her on the throne and take complete control of her. Not the least of these vultures was her own mother and her mother’s lover, Lord John Conroy. No one was without motive, no one just let her be.

When George the IVth died, the princess Victoria became queen. She also met Prince Albert, and this film is large part about thrie romance, their battles with one another, and the intrigue that surrounded them always. Well, they eventually had nine children and ruled together for twenty years - Victoria for over sixty years, I think.

Tags: Movies and stuff // Add Comment »

I’ve often mentioned this brilliant, brilliant photographer (and writer), Sridhar Sankar. He works at the same company I do, but his heart and soul seems to be permanently in Ladakh. In fact, he shoots off there at the slightest opportunity and comes back (rather reluctantly) with stunning photographs, each of which looks like a painting. That’s the most common response I get when I show his photographs to someone: Is this a painting? Or, has this photograph been edited in some way?

The truth is these are untouched photographs of an untouched land. Only in recent years has humankind begun to pluck at it with its insistent and destructive tentacles. For now, the beauty of the land holds. And it’s almost unreal.

The amazing thing is that Hasselblad Masters, the most coveted photography award among creative and professional photographers, has announced the list of 2009 finalists. Among the top ten in the UP and COMING category is Sankar Sridhar!

For the first time this year, Hasselblad has opened the final judging to the public. So the final winner will be chosen as much by the panel of judges as by general visitors to the site. To view his entries, visit http://www.hasselblad.com/mastersPublicJury and vote for him. If he wins, he would be the first Indian photographer to do so!

Photographs like that need to be seen by the world - a world which needs to wake up and understand that this beautiful land needs to be protected.

Tags: General // 4 Comments »

I’m toying seriously with the idea of taking a holiday from dancing. Not to do nothing and not because I’m bored of it (that can’t happen) but because I want to focus on yoga and pilates for a while. If I try to do both, I end up spending so much of the time on the warm up and conditioning and a bit of dancing that there’s no time left to do the real killer pilates exercises. After many attempts to make various formats and set definite times to each part of the dance and exercise sessions - I give up. I’ll just take a week to ten days and learn the yoga and pilates exercises. Oh, and the fitness ball exercises too.

While I’ve done some yoga before, any of the poses you ignore become rusty. The only ones that are gradually improving are the ones that feature in the warm ups. The pigeon pose, for example. I’ve tried a tiny bit of pilates before too, but that’s really little and tends to get dropped because the learning curve (for the muscles, not the brain) is a steep one. Getting the basic right like not allowing the back to arch off the mat or breathing correctly is so important that it really needs special focus, not just a hurried ten minutes after a dance session. Ditto the fitness ball, which I have to learn to work with from scratch. It’sa killer too. If you don’t watch it, you could topple off it in any pose and hurt your back good and proper. So, that too needs careful focus and training.

I’m working with the theory that if I spend a good chunk of time on yoga, pilates and the ball, I’ll be able to later add it to my routines with not too much effort. If I’m not busy dying over any of those moves, I won’t have too much problem giving it 20 or 30 mins.

I’ve found a wealth of exercise routines online - so I’m probably good to go!  If I manage 30 mins of exercise-learning, I’ll reward myself with a dance session!

Tags: General // 6 Comments »

Love Potion is just a few days away to reaching me and I’m really looking forward to that. A nice lively dancey workout is totally welcome anytime  - and the wonders that Neon, Blanca and Sarah will do with such a workout makes it even more welcome.

But I must say that I’m even more excited at seeing the preview of Sarah’s Opulent Motion.

I’m struck afresh by how beautifully Sarah dances. And this video she shares some of her technique secrets with you, showing you how to nuance and accent to different types of music, how to use the emotiveness of the music to express your own feelings - and just how to look absolutely beautiful dancing. I can hardly wait.

Tags: Dance Diary // 14 Comments »

I got Fantasy Bellydance in the mail today and have just begun watching it. I thought though I’d post bits as I go along…

Autumn Ward
Autumn probably has the best “dance face” I’ve seen yet. She’s infectiously animated and joyous. And it’s amazing how much vitality and energy this brings to her performance. Raqs Europa is a charming and lively piece, maybe similar in tone to her Rose of Damascus. Autumn is dressed in a silky brown costume that would suit her and her alone. She has her hair done in two exceedingly cute braids and overall looks like a bit of chocolate come to life. In this performance, she’s to be watched for the absolute perfect neatness of her moves. Beautiful Technique learners will now spot many many moves she’s taught and perhaps be inspired to get them as right as Autumn does.

She makes the whole performance look no effort at all. In fact, far from showing any sign effort, she looks like she’s having no end of fun prancing and gliding through life. The performance isn’t filled with a huge number of different moves, but it’s perfect and sprinkled here and there with several gymnastic surprises, including a bit of a summersalt! She also did a lovely neat 360 degree backbend that I’d die for. Though I’d probably just die, period.

But wait, the real fantasy performance here is The Rise and Fall of Atlantis, and it’s actually placed before Raqs Europa, but I watched Europa first because it’s more my kind of thing. This performance has several others with Autumn. What do I say… there’s a lot going on. It’s a full-fledged story. It’s very amusing. I’m a little surprised no one actually fell over the costumes.

I’m unable to separate the dancing from the story and find it difficult to describe in the usual terms. I suppose that’s how it will be with theatrical dancing. I wonder how they did that with the huge bubble ball…

Tanna Valentine
Okay! I like it! And I think I’d have liked more of it. Tanna’s Fantasy Geisha is very interesting and very watchable. She’s dressed in the perfect cross between belly dance skirt and kimono and the result is very cute indeed. She starts out with an umbrella but soon has two fan-veils which she swishes about with deadly determination and elegance. It’s set to Solace’s “Haiku” from the album Balance and the music and dance fit each other perfectly. Again, I’m clueless about what style the dance is in, perhaps because I’ve never cared overly. It’s in that category that’s cluse to American Cabaret, I guess, but don’t quote me on that. All I know is that it’s fun to watch.

Neon
…is very Neon-like as a Swan Maiden. Very ethereal and angel-like, Neon does one performance on this DVD. She dances, with wings and a tray of candles, to a piece of music I’m rather fond of: “Strange Flesh” from Solace’s Nagara. I wonder what it would be like to see this performance in person. It must be spectacular.

Sira
Someone has upset this nice mermaid real bad. And if I get hold of whoever the shark is, I’ll kill him good. Sira, in Mermaid’s Tears, is a mermaid with a big green tail and the most graceful snake arms you ever saw. She’s sinuous and regal and dances simply and beautifully in this lovely performance. It’s all quite watery and wavy. I wondered and wondered whether the mermaid was going to be able to stand up at all, given her slippery tail.

Fayzah Claudia
Fayzah, whom I’m not familiar with but who has a DVD coming with WDNY soon if I’m not mistaken,  has two performances on this DVD. The first Eleutheria, Rules of the Deep Seas has her as a scaly many-tentacled sea creature with a nasty expression.

She does a tribal-fusion fantasy dance to a remix of Solace’s “Darban Jooth Na Boley” which is a song I detest. The hindi words in this song mean “the mirror doesn’t like”  and the correct spelling of the English version of the worlds should be “Darpan Jhoot Na Boley”. Either way, I’ve never been awfully fond of it. I’m also not too fond of the dance done to it on this DVD. It’s just sort of unremarkable. There’s a lot of hand waves, snake arms, other arms, and undulations.. but nothing that makes me re-watch.

The second performance, Android Dreams, is more interesting. For one it has a whole lot of interesting special effects on screen. Sleepy Fayzah-Android wakes up and goes on the rampage with some kind of gun.

The dance movements are the staccato kind - locking and ticking and strobing etc. Overall though, it’s sort of… not my kind of thing!

Tags: Belly dance and fitness DVD Reviews, Maladance // 8 Comments »