Tami gets back to dancing
Tami took a leave of absence from her dancing and like many of us who do that from time to time, she’s not sure where to take it up from. Just taking up where you left off doesn’t always wor, and even less so for beginner or savvy beginners. Having focused so much on exercise lately, I’m almost in the same boat. The difference is I didn’t give dancing up completely and have become well clued in about how to “re-enter” and what to do.
So, I decided to put together some suggestions for Tami – and invite additions from others — and see if these can help her. And this is on the blog with her permission. She keeps thinking she’s not good enough and lets this get in the way of her learning, so this is an additional challenge. She’s wondering right now whether she should just start off with five minutes a day. And my answer to that is no.
Five minutes a day won’t help because:
1. it would take more than that time to even warm up and you can’t skip that phase if you’re rusty.
2. It would typically be unplanned and by the time she gets somewhere, she’d stop.
3. It would be so little time that nothing motivating or inspirational would happen to lead on to the next day – other than just getting it done somehow.
So, I think she should give it half an hour. Feel free to chip in, other people.
First of all, I think Tami should organize her dance space or corner. Put some pretty stuff around. Some dance wear maybe, some pretty colors she likes.
Second, she should put away the mirror. It’s tough to look good or think you look good after a long gap, so we don’t want to short circuit re-dancing with any negative thoughts of that sort.
Third, Tami should choose the music that she loves and keep it ready.
And fourth, she should make sure there are no interruptions.
When she has all this in place, it’ll be easier to sustain the session.
Now, we must have a warm up. Absolutely essential. Skipping this only means leaving yourself vulnerable to injury. And one can get injured most unexpectedly even in parts not thought to be weak. I don’t know if any of you have ever just stepped and suddenly felt a sharp pain in a toe or some other part of the foot. I have and it’s always taken me completely by surprise. I immediately rest the foot and just soften up on it completely and it recovers. But it’s scary. Unless Tami has a favorite warm up already, I’d recommend East Coast’s warm up. Not the whole thing yet: just the first two segments, stopping at the point where the Solstice Ensemble descends to the floor for seated moves. If the warm up feels inadequate and there’s the feeling of kinks or bits of pain, repeat it twice the next day. Not if there’s an injury, of course.
This much of the warm up is about 10 minutes and is enough for now.
Time to dance now. But let’s not get stuck on isolations, because that’s a long hard battle even for those who have been dancing. Leave the isolations be for now. Instead, Tami should take up some of the moves she likes a lot. She loves circles, undulations and shimmies. And that’s plenty to work withy. Circles are in fact, somewhat safer.
For the first day, just do a whole lot of circles of different types with much loved music. You have 20 minutes – cuttable to 10 or 15 if really needed. So just play with the circles you know and combine them. Slow them down and speed them up. Change level a very tiny bit. This format will be a bt like Nadira’s Toolkit – except it’s just circles. Other moves are mot banmed, but they mustn’t hijack the circle session – and must’nt be strongly percussive and sharp because you need to be in good form for those. Change leg positions, like in Drills x3.
Use the same format the next day but add undulations (very very gentle ones) to the mix of circles. The next day, introduce horizontal eights. Tami doesn’t have too many combinaitons in her muscle memory, so this is the time to get them in, really. A nice opportuity, in a way. So, what she could do is to is to pick up Luscious and Love Potion and use the “combinationlets” sprinkled all over it, sticking to the ones that are in the same category of moves. And there are plenty of these moves. Pick up not more than 3 moves or mini combinaitons to play with. Trying to do a whole segment may not work for her.
Stick with the selected combinations for a few days rather than add to them each day. This is because she hasn’t yet stuck hard to a routine. Trying too many will just make them get very lightly done but not perfected.
Somewhere after one week of sticking to it, introduce isolaitons, without getting too demanding. Give it 5 minutes. Start with the ones that are partly okay to begin with.
And now introduce shimmies. Tami is good at shimmies. She’s quite the shimmy queen, in fact. So, she could quite easily add them on to the small combinations from the two videos (selected because she particularly loves them).
Add on more combinations, gradually. And then tackle one whole segment. And so on! As she gets good at a section, she’ll feel it. And step up warm up, isolaitons, eventually getting into a full-fledged session of at least an hour every day
After that, she can get into killer exercises like the ones I do. 
Strengthening, cardio, conditioning, tribal isolaitons – working more witht he two videos to finish them up. She can also make the combinations bigger by combining the combinations!
And she’ll be dancing again.
Mala, I love you! Thank you so much. I knew you could help me with really great advice. I already do the East Coast Tribal warmup and I love it. I am very careful on the descent and certainly not so graceful about getting to floor..lol! Shall I give progress reports here? I think that would be very helpful. Or I could do that on my blog?
I was a bit shy about asking for advice but I knew you, Mala, another self-learner would get me.
You can give your progress reports in both places! That way we’ll help you stick to it!
After looking at your advice, I think I’ll start practicing for my concert by skipping my Love Potion dvd, tempting as it is, and getting back on track with my Beautiful Technique dvd. I have a show on the 24th – hey, are you on Facebook? I’d like to add you so I can share videos if I can get someone to film them. I’ll start with my physio exercises, go on to Autumn’s warmup and arms sections, and work on section 1 of the dance for a few days.
A show? Nice! What will you be doing? Yes I’m on Facebook. You’ll find me easily by looking for Mala Bhargava. You’ll recognize my pic.
I worked with Beautiful Technique for quite a bit. I was getting ready to tackle the choreography. Oh dear if only so many videos weren’t competing for attention!
I’ll be singing and dancing to songs I’ve written – songs that are available on myspace.com/sajiasultana. Inshallah I’ll have someone playing guitar and glockenspiel with me.
hehe in Mala’s friends list you can find me too guys, feel free to add me
lovely blog entry mala will need to look at it in depth!
Mala, I love this entry! It really addresses something all of us amateur dancers face from time to time.
I’ve also been trying to get back to dancing, but I’m taking a slightly different tack. The thing is, I really want to lose some weight (or at least stop the gain of weight!), and I find I’m not motivated to start doing a video if I think at all that I’ll be bored. So, in the past few weeks, I’ve found myself really enjoying dance/cardio workouts. The four I’ve used recently are:
Rania’s Belly Abs
MaDonna Grimes’ Urban Street Heat
Marie Forleo’s Cardio Dance Blast
Quenia Ribeiro’s Samba Reggae Workout
As you can tell, these range from pretty cheesy and fake dancing done for cardio purposes (Forleo and Grimes), to a fusion of dance moves and workout moves (Rania), to just all-out intense dancing (Ribeiro). Still, I’ve found I enjoy the cheesy videos too, and they’ve helped me get my endurance up to the point where I could keep going through all 53 minutes of the Samba Reggae workout. (Which, by the way, is some kind of intense.)
Since I’m not necessarily light on my feet or good at really quick movements, I find these videos help me with that aspect of dancing. I certainly plan to go back to more traditional bellydance DVDs (and in-class instruction!), but for now, these videos have the double motivation working for them — my desire to dance and my desire to keep fit. And, since the styling is really secondary, I find that I’m not as self-critical when I do them.
Hey Irina!
You won’t believe this but i’m also exploring cardio DVDs! And this is because a) I want to get thin and b) I want to have better strength for a lot of the bellydance work, like floorwork, dropping to the knees, turning without losing my balance and so on. With some pilates, I’m finding all these are being positively impacted and I’m really keen on taking that forward. I’ve got hold of a few cardio videos and am going to ease into those too!
I have Samba Reggea as well, but haven’t looked at it. Actually, I don’t like samba – or rather, the stuff they wear for it. That includes the headgear and everything. But I must check it out. I can probably now also tackle the Shakra workout. Do you have that?
I need to design a program for myself!
I’m trying to attack things on so many fronts, it’s confusing.
1. I want to do yoga for flexibility (but am the least motivated for this)
2. I want to continue pilates and take it up to some more challenging moves, including light weights because the motivation after seeing initial results is very high. I love the strength in the core!
3. I want to do cardio because that’s really the only way I’ll lose actual pounds. And this will give me stamina to do the other things.
4. I want to exercise with the stability ball because even a little of that makes a difference and the exercises are amazing and relaxing at the same time. Plus I have two whole fitness balls! One too big for me and one a bit small for me. At least i find it too small though it’s the recommended size. I love the fitness ball!
5. I want to continue with the elementary ballet conditioning I’ve begun. I’m working with a lovely lovely video called Element Ballet Conditioning and have half reviewed it. I love the stretching and the grace and everything.
6. I want to bellydance and have so many videos i want to get to! All very different from one another! Anasma, Sarah Skinner, Autumn Ward, more Sadie!
Life is tough.
Oh dear. Irina, I just located my Samba Reggae. Woke the neighbors up in the process. Not that I’m sorry.
It’s 2 am and I went looking for this video, dropping a few and generally making a noise.
So, I just had a look at it. Unfortunately I don’t like it one bit! I’m not thrilled with the instructor and the constant shouting, but other than that, I think I just intensely dislike this dance. Phew!
In the process though, i discover that it’s about as intense than the other cardio DVDs going around. Maybe a bit less, actually. There are also non dance cardio and aerobics ones and I’ll be getting into one of those soonish. I actually almost got hold of the MaDonna Grimes one. Is that loud and screechy?
Mala, did you *try* the Samba Reggae? It’s definitely more intense than anything else I’ve tried…. especially if you’re trying to do the steps too.
Grimes is not loud and screechy, not at all. She’s sassy rather than perky. Actually, I just put up a review of it on Amazon — check it out there.
Hey Tami!
Put away that mirror, rack up your favorite tunes and just dance, sister, dance!
Tami don’t you EVER feel that you aren’t “good enough” because that simply isn’t so. The “powers that be” don’t pass judgement on our skills, they just celebrate the fact that we’re dancing.
Don’t limit yourself to five minutes of dance time (I HATE to use the word “practice” – it sounds too much like work!!). It’s really not enough time to get into what you’re doing. Clock watching will also interfere with your ability to relax and enjoy the dance. Turn the clock to the wall and you’ll be surprised at how fast time flies – especially when you’re not trying to achieve a specific “dance goal”.
I’ve finally given up concentrating solely on trying to master isolations since all that got me was frustrated and feeling like I should probably give up bellydance altogether. Doing combos has done more for my isolations than only working on one specific move for 30 minutes at a time ever did. Luscious and Love Potion are loaded with excellent combos. I adore both of those dvds.
I agree with Mala’s suggestion to create a special dance space – even if it is only a tiny corner of your world. Fill it anything and everything that inspires you. I find that my little “oasis in the basment” makes dance time something special.
I hope that helps a little!
Irina…. I have to admit fair and square that I didn’t actually try the samba reggae video at all. I have a plain irrational dislike of the dance style. But since you’re recommending it so highly, I must try it! Currently I’m completely floored and amazed at the ballet workout I did! I have to go review that!! It’s incredible!
Mala, I think we have a deal in the making: you try the samba reggae video, and I’ll try the ballet conditioning workout.
How funny is it that we’re both such dance video fiends that we had these lying around and unused?
Joy, thanks for the support! I am currently working on blogging about this and when I have a post up, I will place a link here.
It’s gonna take some time, life gets in the way, and I am not great at updating my blog, but here’s a link to my blog. Once I can actually get around to dancing, I’ll post about it http://tamisspace.blogspot.com
Tami! You still haven’t begun a tiny bit of dancing? Then do some other exercise that you don’t have to think about at all. Anyone can and should take out at least half an hour for exercise – dance or otherwise.
Unless, ofcourse, something extremely serious is on.