::more than somewhat::

A few days ago, my cousin and her family moved out of the Taj hotel and into their home. If they hadn’t, they’d have been in a burning room in the Heritage wing. What has happend with the beautiful Taj hotel of Mumbai has turned the city from a “city of dreams” to a city of nightmares. A bunch of misguided youngsters who have convinced themselves that their god, sitting in his big gold office up in the sky, is smiling upon them as they rip through the city in an insanely violent rampage.

It’s unbelievable, numbling, bone chilling. I was watching a video of how a police vehicle had been jijacked and how the men inside it suddenly began to spray bullets all around them when the video seemed to fall down… apparently the video journalist was killed. Even from this far away in Delhi, every moment on television is blood curdling.

My best friend was supposed to be in Mumbai last night – when it all started – but didn’t go because he had to be there for his mother’s eye doctor appointment. My ex colleagues are somewhere in the chaos of the city, I hope, safe! I’m sure I’ll discover more and more people that one knows will turn out to be affected in some way. Every few hours someone comes up and says “two friends of mine are at Trident” or some such thing.

With all of this intense burning war on one of our top cities – our finanical capital in fact – the prime minister’s address to the nation made in his usual sing song calm voice sounds mellow and unreassuring. We will find these perpetrators and punish them… Ah, sure. Whoever these guys are, there are more where they came from. An endless supply of brainless non-individuals, ready to die, congratulating themselves on each act of violence, believing themselves to be righteous and good…

It’s going to happen again, isn’t it?

Tags: General by Mala
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I just finished collapsing after an hour of the first flow, which I did end to end today. Moves are definitely improving. So is speed and sharpness.

You can take a “baby” move like 3 hip circles traveling and one in place totally for granted. But do you stop the final circle abruptly? I didn’t before this and that’s no good for a drum solo! I also watched my head level and tried to make sure I didn’t bounce, specially on saiidi moves. As a bonus, I found my deep reverse undulation looking quite good! I do with with a bit of a backbend and it no longer felt strained.

I very much wanted to do the flow (about 40 minutes of it) both with vocal cues and then without, making a good 80 minutes of work. But hey, I got tired out and am most disappointed with myself. Am I losing my stamina? Tomorrow I’m definitely going to try it twice in a row.

I found that the tireder I got, the more apt I was to forget moves. I forgot the simplest of all moves and one which I’ve done a lot because the first combo from any DVD gets my maximum attention. I actually got foggy enough to go back and check what move it was I was forgetting! I also became a bit fuzzy about the last few moves, probably because those have got the least practice yet.

This is working well and I refuse to go on to anything else including the second flow yet. Let this settle in thoroughly. I will also experiment with using these moves to improvise. Maybe not for a drum solo, but for a pop kind of song. I’ll use these moves as “single units” as has been suggested by Nadira in her Movement Recall video. She says to keep 3 key moves ready to use and these are to be anything you see as a single unit. Well, let me try what happens with a handful of moves from Rhythms.

I noticed a nice thing I didn’t know about earlier. During the rhythm pattern repetitions, Raquy whoops out and I was wondering why she kept doing that. it indicates the last move and cues you to get ready for the next! I don’t know if that’s usual — but it’s most useful! I like to work with this routine so that I’m exactly with Neon rather than lagging behind by a second or two while she cues. So this helps.

Good fun. Oh when when when will I get thin!

And here’s what Neon says about stamina and getting tired with this flow:
“it’s totally normal if you are exhausted after 1 hr – you are in an excellent shape to keep going for so long -  the better you know the material you work with, the deeper and stronger and sharper is your movement, and it will certainly exhaust you much faster than if you are following a program like this for the first time, or just trying the moves on your body, or not really focusing on perfecting them.
I am often wiped out entirely after 1 hr of practicing and not ashamed of it – when you give your all to these moves, it’s not low-impact stuff any more, it really works your body no matter how simple or involved the moves are.”

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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Because I’d said so here, I ended up making sure I stuck to the plan and did in fact finish up learning Flow 1 from this video. It was quite tiring. I’d liken it to say, Shape Up ‘n Hip Out’s Rhythm Hips section in terms of pace. Also Neon’s own Belly Dance Party. But of course all the moves are drum pattern moves. These should improve one’s drum solo skills and sharpness no end. Normal drum solos, that is, not Saide-drum-solos.

What improved for me during this first big session with the first flow was sharpness and being able to make each mo ve distinct. Also spotting and turning quickly from one diagonal to the other. Staying on the beat.

So, I won’t be moving on to the next flow yet and will instead smoothen up this one so that I don’t have to check anything on-screen. I can see that Flow 2 is full of fast percussive moves, so.. not yet.

I have an odd way of doing this. I record the audio and move it to my iPod. On the way home in the car, or anywhere else I like, I give it a few listens. Naturally my mind  revises the moves that go witht he sounds. And this means I dance it way more smoothly.

An interesting thing I did was to listen to some drum solos and identify the riffs, fitting some of the moves from this video in. Just for fun.

I also decided I will sometimes write about working with a particular DVD, like I have with this one!

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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I worked with the first flow from Bellydance Rhythms. It was quite fun!

The format really lets you do a lot with this. It’s definitely a workout because I had to turn the fan on (It’s officially winter here) and I didn’t do as much of the routine as I wanted to. Of course I had tired myself out with my usual round of Asharah exercises. And a shopping trip earlier. Shopping is so tiring!

I arrogantly dumped the tutorial section – only to get a bit stuck on three or four moves. Serves me right, huh? I found I will need to spend a bit of time on a move that involves a grapevine with chest lifts and a hip move. So I plan to tackle this flow tomorrow for several rounds. First, to learn the moves flawlessly. Second, to work on my horrible balance. Third to work on sharpness and definition. If I don’t get it with these moves, I’m hardly likely to ever tackle Sadie’s scary videos. I find that one needs to work on the stopping of each movement as much as its beginning. That’s when you get “clean” looking moves. Neon’s moves are not only very sharp but have a big range.

And then finally, I plan to use it as a workout. Flow 2, another day. And another intresting thing I’m going to try is zill with these combinations. They’re short and repeated for many rounds, plus there’s a music-only segment. So that makes it quite ideal for zilling to 5 different rhythms too.

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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Come to think of it, there are many instructional videos in this sub genre. There’s The Heartbeat of Belly Dance from the same producers, World Dance New York, there’s Sonia and Issam’s Art of the Drum Solo, the rhythms video by Saida with Mario Kirlis, and probably a few more I haven’t encountered. Each one brings its own format and combinations, style, and instruction style.

In this video, Neon, Raquy and Liron Peled bring vivacity and verve to drum solo technique. The format, specially if you go by the menu, looks very simple. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t well-conceptualized. Neon explains the entire concept of this instructional program (choreographed by her) in her five-minute welcome. She views it as a fitness program as well as a belly dance one. As she introduces the video, she stands in what I call her Andy Troy (fitness expert) pose. You can see the intro in the preview clip, so I won’t get over-descriptive here. It’s not an aerobic program, but it is active and involves much muscle work. It is not about floating around leisurely – so you may well sweat.

It seems that there are many “multi-level” videos being turned out of late, and this is another in that category. There’s something in it for beginners, and something in it for intermediate dancers. I’m beginning to like this format a lot because as intermediate dancers, you like to also drill and refresh your moves while as beginners you want something to gradually work up to. This video also works on these lines.

First, drummers Raquy Danziger (dumbek) and Liron Peled (base drum) take you through the rhythms featured here – just the most popular ones – chiftitelli, beledi, saiidi, maksoum and masmoudi. The famous Raquy has a very nice way of explaining them here – she breaks them up into “low” and “high”. That also corresponds to the movements you can make, so it works very well. There are no backgrounders on the rhythms and their cultural significance, etc. Just brief, practical, effective primers.

And then come the 40 drum solo combinations in two dance flows, one for beginners and one for intermediates.

As has become almost standard with World Dance videos, there’s a separate tutorial section which you can choose to do or not do. I choose to do because although I “know” the moves, they need both smoothness and sharpness. And speed. For those familiar with Neon’s work, each combination is explained in total Neon style. For those who don’t know Neon… she explains fully and demonstrates clearly. Explaining basic moves is her thing.

The combinations are short and easy for the beginner flow, Flow 1. You hear the rhythm and vocal cues through many repetitions (12) and that helps get the rhythm, both main beat and riffs, into your head. If none of this is news to you, use the music-only option to go through the 20 combinations as a workout or drill. It makes a great drill, in fact! If you’re an advancing dancer, use the music-only part to start making variations as the drum pattern is repeated. I find this part very useful, in fact!

The intermediate combinations move faster and are obviously more complex. They’re still not long though. This iothncreases their drill-worthiness. If you’ve been dancing already, try both flows consecutively for a longer drill.

The obligatory performance on this DVD is missing!

Everyone on the DVD looks as if they’re having fun. I think learners will too!

Tags: Belly dance videos, Dance Diary by Mala
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My bestest friend in the world, who knows exactly what I like, got me a bottle of Dooley’s toffee liqueur. Oh my god. It is lovely! Silky and milky — the only way I’d ever accept milk. It’s very much like Baileys except that the taste of toffee rolls over your tongue. It’s got a bite, which comes from the vodka in it. I headed straight over to the Dooley website to look up cocktails that use this lovely liqueur and found many recipes. But I’m afraid I might just finish off the bottle before I can make the first cocktail!

Tags: General by Mala
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Well, I don’t know of too many DVDs where belly work is broken down. Sure, many dancers (Sadie, Princess Farhana, Delilah and others) put in some pointers on stomach work. But remember Johanna ‘Xenobia’ Krynytzky? The one who had all those folkloric steps on ExpertVillage? Well, she has a series out on belly work. She explains with safety tips and gives you a little drill. To see the instruction in little bits makes it quite a lot more doable, frankly.

Videos on ExpertVillage are a little slow, so you can see the titles there but watch on youtube. Or use RealPlayer or “keepvid” or anything else to download it and use it to make up a stomach routine after your daily warm up.

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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Blanca’s visit here is nearly over.  I miss her already. She so turns out to be what I imagined. Fun to be with, beautiful, spontaneous and wholehearted in her enjoyment of things, sensitive, sweet – and a powerful dancer even when not doing a whole performance. Even when she’s showing me a move or two, she acquires a presence that’s hard to describe. I can just say that it goes beyond the everyday person.

During her visit here, we’ve managed to squeeze in a few classes. First thing I can’t get over is her total endorsement of the work I’ve been putting in these past few years. I’ve never really sought an opinion from anyone who knows (except for one little clip of me doing a camel) and I haven’t put up any videos. I kind of don’t like them. So I haven’t really known for sure whether my basics are sound or full of bad dance habits, whether my learning of choreographies has any substance or is it just loosely following the moves, and whether I have any grace at all. Incredibly, she says she’s fairly impressed and that the hard work I’ve been doing shows. I can’t say just how good that feels!

We started by my showing her two choreographies. Jillina’s drum solo. She watched it through and then helped make some corrections. For instance, I am lowering my heel a bit when I do a big hip drop. She said to keep it up for better isolation. There are some points in that choreography that I don’t do well but that is just a sheer matter of drilling – I haven’t worked on it yet. For instance, there’s layering stomach pops on a hip shimmy. Sorry. I just haven’t worked on it.

I also danced Blanca’s own choreography for her. She liked it very much and said it sat very well on me. She thinks I should make a video clip of it.

Blanca feels that teaching is totally the best way to learn so she felt she should give me classes on how to teach. But I kept wanting to learn more chiftitelli moves instead. J I’m not sure I’ll be teaching much because you need a lot of time that a hobbyist like me may not have. Getting a studio, organizing material, keeping classes up all the time – I don’t think I’m up to it. I’d have to give up my job!

So we ended up doing some chifttelli combinations. We followed a nice format of me starting something – which means it’s a move coming to me naturally – and then she would add to it and make it a little combination. That’s what I wanted – lots of little combinations to play with. I do like to have an occasional shot at improvising to chiftitelli, so I was grateful to her for showing me how to work out combinations.

We also did a bit of the material from her drum solo workshop. We haven’t taken pictures dancing… but should.

This was so much fun. I’m also thrilled that I now own some of the hip scarves from the DVDs… because in addition to everything else, Blanca is so generous.

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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Look at her go! That pretty Christabel Zamor with her wonderful figure! She looks so sexy and joyous with that hoop!

Hooping looks so much fun and so liberating! Christabel says 80 year old women have been able to do it. Oh well. So anyway, I got myself two hoops and tried it out. I couldn’t keep the thing up for even a second. Christabel has actually come out with a hoopdance video, which I have, so I wanted to see if I too could burn a ton of calories with her workout. The warm up itself is a great workout. But nope, no way could I keep the thing up. I wondered whether to get the hoops made by Hoopgirl but didn’t know whether to spend money on it and then find I was one of those people who would never ever get it.

A few days ago though, a friend of mine got me a Hoopgirl hoop. And hey, they were right! Those are different! The hoop is heavier and bigger and that m akes it easier rather than more difficult. it also has some friction tapes which help to keep the hoop up. That’s cool with me. I tried it out and it’s beginning to stay up longer. I whack myself on the foot or arm every so often because it falls, but it’s beginning to happen. Christabel says it took her two weeks to start hooping. So I’m hooping it’ll happen for me too…

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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Even as someone learning to belly dance, I was never prepared for the level of detail Ava Fleming goes into on this instructional video. Take the posture section, for instance. She spends a whole ten minutes explaining every bit of the posture you should be in. she gives you reasons, shows you errors, and tips you off on safety. This is in a section titled Theory. She also explains diaphragm breathing. I have not seen posture covered more thoroughly on any of the videos I own.

But settle down because you’re going to be doing a lot of listening. This program has a lot of valuable information you won’t find anywhere, but the focus is more on giving you that information on having a blast. So you will be standing still and listening to Ava, and trying movements with her too, but not breaking into dance too much. And I think the focus would definitely be quite lost if the program were to be lightened with dance sessions in the middle.

Now comes a Fundamentals and Basics section in which Ava takes up the isolations we all know and love. But, she breaks them down into three levels each indicating an increasing degree of control. She explains extremely thoroughly. She tells you how the breath helps shapes your advanced torso moves. She takes up how not to dump into your lower spine or hyperextend. She shows you how to keep the shoulders relaxed without bearing down with them to keep them still. Ava takes up upper body slides, lifts and drops, outs and ins, twists, several figure eights including the torso maya, squares and circles, exploring each in three different levels and showing you how to get to the advanced level of each move. She also shows you how to work a move so that it’s only on one side of the torso. She tells you how to use your spine in these moves. Moves which are precise and clear  She shows you how to connect arm movements to the isolations explored and gives you some not-so-typical arm patterns as well. Ava says she has learnt some of these from her second instructor, Sahra Saida.

There’s a drill section next. There’s horrible faint music in the background. But the drills are good. They could have been pattered better, using a better do-along  In this case, she just calls it out as she’s doing it. Still, advanced dancers will know what to do. She adds arm patterns from the start.

Combinations follow next, starting with the corkscrew. These are not separately accessible from the menu. A second combination section, aptly called More Combinations, gives longer combinations. Lots of sinuous twisty torso material here, all of it fairly “juicy”. Slow versions of these are even more mesmerizing. There are arm patters all through. Very useful for taqsim, I should think. She does mix lower and full body moves to these combinationsa, though the focus is the torso.

Phew! Tough challenging stuff, meant for the advancing dancer. Very good content. Don’t tell me I’m becoming an IAMED fan now…?

And oh, there’s a lovely performance.

Tags: Belly dance videos, Dance Diary by Mala
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