I plan to dance every day, but look back over a week to find I’ve missed out 2 or even 3 days. Sleepiness sometimes gets in the way. I unnecessarily sleep at 2 am. so naturally there are sleepy-as-hell patches during the day. if i make the mistake of getting a little horizontal, that’s it. It’s then tough to muster up the initiative to get up and plunge into a long exercise and dance routine. Sooo much easier to stay in bed and eat popcorn!
On some days, of coruse, I end up going somehwere or having someone come over. That too does it. I can’t dance before because it’s just after I get back from work and I can’t dance after because 11 pm or so seems to late to start exercising. Sigh.
But I’ve also realized that some percentage of the inertia comes from the fact that I have so much stuff to prepare before I dance.
First, i have to find my flippy-floppy yoga pant like things to dance in. And the top I usually wear with it. But of course it has to be missing. It’s in the wash or relocated by my maid, or thrown into my closet or maybe exactly where I left it only I didn’t know that.
Then, I have to go find my knee pads because i’ve convinced myself they’re really helping keep my knees somewhat protected from all the lunges and drops and other moves I do. I don’t know why, but i’ll always find one and not the other.
Then i have to go put on selected lights in the dance room. And roll out the yoga mat. And make sure the curtains are drawn so that no neighbors keel over in shock.
I have to unplug my laptop and replug it in the dance room, connect it to the speakers and launch iTunes. Then I suddenly remember I have to get my external hard disk so i go back to the other room and look for it in my bag, bring it back and connect it.
When i’m about to choose my hipscarf, i’ll suddenly feel i need to drink some tea to wake me up. So i haul myself over to the kitchen and make some tea. i wait for it to cool down enough. Sip it. Take another sip or two, and then decide i don’t need it after all. i go back to the dance room. I look for Asharah to start warming up — and then realize I’ll get thirsty and I haven’t put any water in the room. So I go get that. I think I better hurry up and rush to the room, trip over my feet a bit, spill the water, and curse myself roundly and soundy. I scold myself into beginning my routine — and then I realize i haven’t brought my phones into the dance room. And of course someone will call right when I happen to be in some position I can’t get out of. As i’m about to begin, I think i must have a bracelet becuase that changes the very way i move. I go get one.
I come back, tie on my hip scarf… and feel oh so tired! I wonder whether to go back to bed…
LOL mala I recognize myself from what you are telling
Especially the tea, water, and my cellphone has a tendency to ring during my warm up and frequently it s someone i have not spoken to for a long time :-s
I cruelly turn it silent lately, one can always call back right?
Here’s what I would do.
Put your yoga pants, knee pads, bracelets, hip scarves and other dancewear accessories in the same place; maybe dedicate a drawer for that.
Start a habit of making the tea before you start turning on the dance room lights and getting the hardware ready. That way, it’ll have cooled down by the time you want to drink it. When you’re making the tea, get the jug of water and then put in the room. If you streamline your routine you might find it easier.
If you can, keep a separate flash drive for dancing purposes and put it with your phones.
Basically, when you say to yourself, I want to dance, make a list of things you have to do, or find yourself doing usually, in preparation, and do them.
That sounds familiar! I find that if I don’t practice in the morning, it doesn’t happen at all. (Outside of classes, that is.) And between being an unabashed sleepyhead, occasional insomniac, and having a full-time job, I never get in quite as much practice as I’d like.
Here are a few things that make my practice sessions more likely to happen:
- make sure that everything is ready before I go to bed: dance floor cleared, DVDs or CDs located, dance clothes laid out.
- Sometimes I also make little bargains with myself: if I get up on the first alarm and dance for at least 10 minutes, I can go back to bed for a little more sleep if I really want to. Once I get moving, though, I don’t want to stop.
- Even if I do oversleep, I try to get a tiny bit of practice in, even if it’s just a 10 minute shimmy or arms drill in my pajamas. (And if I’ve been having a particularly tough week, I’ll sleep in my more comfortable exercise clothes, so I can jump right out of bed and go up to my studio room.)
- I sneak in a little practice here and there: a bit of shimmying while doing the dishes, a couple of belly rolls while sitting at my desk, glute squeezes on the escalator (only when wearing a loose coat!), wrist circles and hand undulations as a break from typing, etc. It can’t replace a missed session, but it still helps.
- I take regular days off. Regardless of what else happens during the week, I don’t have to dance on Saturdays and Sundays. I *can* dance if I am irresistibly called to the studio, but I am under no obligation to do so, and doing it on a weekend doesn’t let me out of my weekday sessions. Taking a break gives me a rest, and being unashamed about it relieves a lot of the pressure. So when I go into the studio on Monday morning, instead of feeling like a lazy, bad dancer with a lot of catching up to do, I feel like I’ve taken good care of myself and look forward to dancing again. Give it a try sometime! It doesn’t have to be weekends, two days in a row, or two days a week; any regularly-scheduled rest will go a long way.
Nadira, I’ve just recently decided i’ll take Monday off and not worry at all about sitting around and not dancing. On most days i hate missing out on the dancing – and more so the exercise because i have this big obsession with wanting to be thin. just like many people. So, the other day I sneaked an entire half an hour at work and did the Bellydance Rhythms routine! I had to live with being a bit sweaty at work after that for the rest of the day.
But I’m wary of short dance sessions. it usually means no warm up and i don’t want to hurt anything at my age. Nevertheless, i glute-isolate or belly-silate all the way to work in the car.
How long are your proper practice sessions?
mala
“How long are your proper practice sessions?”
It varies, and by a lot! I don’t really have a standard practice session. It really depends on how early I woke up, what I want to work on, etc. And, of course, with the injury, everything is off-kilter.
I’ve been trying (in many areas of my life, not just dancing) to focus on a minimum level of compliance*. i.e., set a reasonable, achievable goal, try to make it a habit, and not stress about doing anything beyond that. I often end up doing more than that, but I’m not obligated to, and I don’t get any bonus points for doing it (and no get-out-of-jail-free cards to use on another day). The only reason to do more is because I really want to.
For dancing, my minimum level of compliance is 15 minutes of active moving time. About half the time, I am running late, and that’s all I can spare, but about half the time, I do more: 10 or 15 minutes more is usually the most extra I can spare on a normal day (if I don’t want to be late for work), but when I’m having a really good time, I’ve been known to go an extra two hours on an evening or day off.
It took a while to make peace with such a low number, but over time, I accepted that I get more practice in if I do at least the minimum every day than if I lame out several days a week because I can’t face the 90-minute session I think I should be doing (but would never expect of anyone else). Once I got over that, having a trivial-seeming minimum helps take away the “shoulds” and the guilt that make me more likely to procrastinate, just like days off do.
All that said, class is where I do most of my work. I take two to three hours of class a week, and teach for two hours. I lead my beginners through plenty of basics drilling, and get more advanced drilling and topical instruction in the advanced/pro class I take. So my practice time is mostly the equivalent of spot-toning: working on little things that I want to clean up or develop, or exploring new styles/ideas, etc. If I weren’t in class so regularly, I’d have to block out evening time to do longer practice sessions.
* the idea of a minimum levels of compliance is from Reinhard Engels of everydaysystems.com