With shining eyes
This is for my dear friend Alok, who firmly believes he is tone deaf. Please set aside 20 minutes and see what the wonderful, inimitable Benjamin Zander has to say. And see if your eyes don’t shine too.
Everyone else too!
::more than somewhat::
Belly dance, fitness, and a bit of whatever.
Shilpa’s Yoga
Without even trying, I’ve managed to collect ten yoga instruction videos. Shilpa Shetty’s video came to me quite by chance, thanks to a friend.
I remember reading about Shilpa Shetty and some kind of fantastic “power yoga” that sounded like it was something no one had discovered until now. I had promised myself I’d check it out – but hey… age caught up with me.
Well anyway, I finally have checked it out. And no, it isn’t something specific to Shilpa or something that every yoga class you’ll find in every neighborhood in India, isn’t doing. But that doesn’t mean it’s not nice.
First two things that struck me: 1. If I’d been as thin and figureliscious as Shilpa Shetty, that would have been 99 percent of the battle. And 2. If I had such lovely places to practice yoga in, I’d be doing it all the time. More seriously though, the settings the DVD has been filmed in are wonderful. Just looking at them brings your pulse rate down to an even keel. Although I’m being a little facetious here, there’s no doubt the atmosphere created as you go through the workout would make a big difference to how de-stressed you feel. Shilpa is on the beach in Kerala. She’s surrounded by lush green gardens and trees, she’s in an elegant veranda, and she’s on a cool deck with green all around. Mmmmm. What I wouldn’t give.. I was tickled to find an elephant amble past grandly. And a boat or two glide past behind her.
Shilpa performs all the asanas and pranayamas in this routine but the routine is narrated by someone else. Very surprisingly, there’s no Suryanamaskar (sun salutation sequence). Considering that most of the poses that make up the sequence are taken up separately, there’d have been no harm putting that together in one corner of the video somewhere. Oh well.
So, the asanas in this programme are divided into on-the-back, sitting, standing, on-the-stomach poses. Pretty much what I’ve gone through with my yoga instructor (the live one!). Each asana isn’t gone into in a lot of detail – I’ve seen way more detail – but it should do as long as one is careful to do everything to prevent injury. Or perhaps a good idea would be to read up on these once and be aware of the contraindications. All of these asanas are the “regular” ones everyone does.
Except the chakrasana, they’re doable by most people. What Shilpa brings to it is the sequencing and the pacing. It’s a comfortable and calm rhythm throughout. Each asana is supposed to build on the muscle groups used in the previous ones. There’s a good flow through the sequence. The mix of poses ins’t bad at all. Except for the absence of the Suryanamaskar, as I said
Shilpa also takes up the main prnayamas, but very briefly. Some more safety tips would have been a good idea. And it would have also been nice to make this section more do-along. By the time the explanation is over, so is the pranayam.
In a bonus section, there’s a 15-minute “Quick Fix” for those who want a shorter routine on busy or lazy days. Here’s where they could have put in the Suryanamaskar. Ah yes, I’m not willing to let go of that one.
There’s also some carefully orchestrated bloopers, some of which are funny. A Meet Shilpa section and a Behind the Scenes that isn’t uninteresting. Makes you wonder how she managed to look so peaceful in the middle of all the filming chaos. Okay… it’s the sea. This looks like Kerala.
Not bad. A couple of reviewers on Amazon have objected that it isn’t a “workout” at all because it doesn’t make you sweat. For those who’ve done some yoga before, it may just be a little on the easy side. But others rate it highly and are struck by how genuine she seems in her belief in yoga. It obviously seems to have done Shilpa a whole lot of good.
The DVD costs around Rs. 300 in India or $17.99 from Amazon. It’s a 72 minute disk. In India, there’s a music CD in the box as well. I forget what the Baba Ramdev ones cost – but then Baba Ramdev is not Shilpa Shetty!
Drum Solo with Jillina
Now is this a lively funky drum solo or what?
I always knew of Jillina’s “original” drum solo video, but just happened not to have bothered with it. Until I saw this clip on youtube. I immediately decided I was going to learn it. I was about to try and learn it straight from the clip when a sensible person from the bellydance video group told me I’d miss most of the layering. She was right. I did end up learning the drum solo, but from the DVD – an award winning one, incidentally – and recently performed it for the little gathering we had on my father’s eightieth birthday. I also recently performed it for my video camera and as usual was pretty disgusted with the results, but that’s another story.
Jillina has since come out with many more videos, but this one, Drum Solo with Jillina, produced by IAMED, is still a winner. It’s probably part of most bellydancers’ video collections.
To teach this cute drum solo, Jillina begins with a demo of the whole choreography. Not in costume. She then goes into selected exercises that you must add to your own warm up. These are very specific stretches for the muscle work you’ll need to do. And then it’s on to a Technique section.
This is not a beginners’ instructional video. The absolute basics are not taken up here. But the foundation and explanation of specific moves that will feature in the drum solo are taught so that the learner can do them the same way Jillina does. The Egyptian shimmy, the camel, the omi, a lock down move and the Hagalla step are some of the moves. A lot of time isn’t spent on each move, but whatever time is spent is very focused. All through this video, a “One More Time” format is followed in which an entire segment is repeated for practice. This is a format IAMED has given up but this video was made a few years ago.
The drum solo is in 9 combinations. Instruction now moves rapidly, so you have to be on your toes for this one. Each combination is quickly but clearly gone through without the music, for one repetition, and then with the music. Each subsequent combination is added to the ones before it until you reach combination 5. From here on, each combination is added the previous ones, excluding 1 to 4. Talking-through is done for the combination that’s been just taught. One problem is that you can’t get to the combo-with-music parts separately. Finally, you run through the whole choreography with music. No vocal cues. And you’re done.
You can now watch some performances from Jillina. An Egyptian style performance to, I think, Tamra Henna. The drum solo we just learnt is also performed live at a restaurant. Some filming bloopers end the video.
So, how easy was it learning this drum solo? Not very! I won’t say it’s an outright advanced difficult drum solo of the category that Sadie does on her video, but neither is it simplistic. You do have to do some layering of shimmies, you have to be active and perky with the moves, you have to be super quick with mayas and reverse undulations (at torso level), you have to have to be able to do stomach pops. I actually have left out some nuances for now. One of these is keeping a shimmy going in the hips while doing stomach pops. Sorry. That ain’t happenin yet! Also camel with a shimmy going on in the hips. I haven’t practiced that yet. I’m managing all the rest, but managing is the key word. I can perform it for a non-knowledgeable audience. From the video taping I just did, I see that I need to keep every move sharply distinct from the next. Each sequence must end nice and abruptly and not try and flow into the next. I also need to work on suppressing some bounciness again. Ouch. My Egyptian shimmy also needs to be made distinct from the “regular” shimmy. This one is prominently knee-driven and must have a totally different look.
All in all though, it’s been immensely fun learning this solo and it continues to be fun performing and practicing it now. It’s too lively not to get a great reaction from an audience. It’s got a nice collection of moves that add an amazing amount to one’s repertoire. I plan to continue polishing it until I get it right! Hopefully some day!
Oh, a final point on the most recent drum solo video by Jillina. This is part of a 3-DVD set that hit the shelves a few months ago. Now this one is not an IAMED video and has a different format. Here there’s a very nice short warm up that I’m itching to try out. Jillina is looking wonderful and fit in this warm up.I love warm ups. The drum solo is infinitely more advanced than this one and is overflowing with shimmies and rhythms and detail and stomach work. But that’s another story…. J