Things got serious when I started to figure out that my isolations still had a long way to go. They needed depth and control. And luckily, a series of new tribal fusion videos began to be released.

East Coast Tribal
With this wonderful video, I think I moved to another level. I saw with the sinuous snaky combinaitons done by Sera and her troop that isolaitons need to be worked on more than I ever imagined. I really looked more like a confused earthworm than a snake, so it was obvious there was much to do.

I really stuck with the 35-minute workout led by the gorgeous Sera. Sera’s method of exaggerating the isolation and then reining it to a controlled amplitude, works well for beginners.

Arabian Spices
This video by the beautiful Sahira is the one that really, really taught me how to learn a choreography. The choreography itself is beautiful too — and so is the music it’s set to. DJ Kambo’s Arabian Spices or Istanbul Dream.

I learnt this choreography by getting downright obsessed with it. First, I did nothing but watch it several zillion times. That must have helped. And then, I jumped into the first combination. I always learn the first combination of any choreo very quickly.Then I got down to work properly.

First, I learnt the movements and their sequence for the first chunk of combinations. At this point, I didn’t look at how well I was doing the moves (not well at all) but just focused on “getting them”. If I bumped into a basic component I couldn’t do, I drilled that. For example the “roll up” or interior reverse undulation.

When I’d got the moves, I began to focus on the counts for each. I no longer just did a move but made sure I counted it out till it was perfect. I also practiced bits of the choreo whenever I got a chance; for a moment in the loo, for a little while in my office room if no one was looking… All dancers, I think, have been through that sort of thing.

Then, I began to fit the moves with counts to the music. Now, one big flaw of this video is that when Sahira teaches each combination, she just has the music start from the beginning of the piece. She doesn’t use the actual parts of the music that the combination is intended to go with. That’s shocking, considering the video is otherwise made so well. I listened to this piece of music endlessly on my iPod, doing the choregraphy mentally.

Finally, when I could dance it rhough to the music, in sequence, witht he right moves, I started to work on finessing. I may have been doing a maya but was it a good maya? I drilled many of the components and paid attention to details like the level of arms in a move, whether the elbows were turned up or not, where to look during a move, the “amplitude” of each move, etc. I also worked on the floreo, specially. It’s not taught on this video, so I found a breakdown of it on a flamenco instructional video and practiced with that.

I did run throughs of Arabian Spices every day for several rounds. Finally, I performed it for a small informal audience. And for friends who would come over. Their reactions told me I was doing something right. “It’s like a prayer! It’s so difficult! It’s so beautiful! It takes me into another world!” etc. I even performed it at an office party. This was years ago and people still remember. A handful keep asking me to “do that same dance” again. Finally, I “oil” the choreography every now and then because the moves will now only look better with improved isolaitons. Each time I take it up after a gap, I’m able to correct or improve something. Recnetly, I added a set of moves to the end, because the choreography actually does have a serious tone and changes the atomsphere in a room completely. Sometimes, I might want to lift out of that atmosphere and go back into a party mood — so I added a little optional chunk to it.

Learning the Arabian Spices choreography may sound like hard work, but thereafter it helped with learning all subsequent ones. I’m now aware of the process and don’t have to break it down so much. I enjoyed it thoroughly.