#bellydance practice

[bd-z]

What the hell I might as week show you how things are looking. The baby is will be two this year and it's taken a lot to drop the extras belly flab. I still have more to go but at least I can do my rolls now. 

 I still need to regain control of the lower muscles. You can see where my pudge remains and under that pudge is a muscle who hates me. It just won't fucking work. But I'm getting there. 

 Bellydance = Time + Practice + Passion

[dailydosebellydance]

xs and ts rib cage drill

A vertical "X" with your rib cage:

Squeeze left upper back to send rib cage up and to the R. Come back to center (make sure your center is good posture with both pelvis and rib cage... and while we're at it, where are your arms and hands? ;) )

Squeeze right upper back to send rib cage up and to the L. Come back to center.

Squeeze right upper abs to send rib cage down and to the L. Come back to center.

Squeeze left upper abs to send rib cage down and to the R. Come back to center. 

You can lock to these branches of the "x" and then lock back to center, or pop and relax back to center.

Now for the vertical rib cage "t" (it's like a lowercase t with no tail):

Squeeze upper back for a rib cage lift. Come back to center (posture check!!!)

Squeeze right serratus (under your arm pit) for rib cage slide to the L. Come back to center.

Squeeze upper abs for rib cage drop. Come back to center.

Squeeze left serratus for rib cage slide to the R. Come back to center.

Lock these, or pop them, as with the x.

Now try to the x followed by the t. Pop one and lock the other. Alternate.

Add more spokes by combining the x and t so you're hitting 8 branches as you go around. Can you keep them all sharp and clear?

[dailydosebellydance]

Dance Your Colors

Credit to Sera Solstice http://www.boldbellydance.com/bio for this creativity drill:

Put on a nice, low-key drumming song: just something that gives you a background to dance to and a rhythm to follow.

Pick a color (we did white, and then red in Sera's class) and visualize it in your mind as strongly as you can. Let the color suggest moods, pictures, feelings, and images to you. Now dance it - and keep visualizing. After a few minutes, switch to your other color. 

Notice how the quality of your movements changes. Try to be as "out of the box" as you can during your dancing - let yourself move an which way - don't keep yourself to "bellydance" vocab for this drill.

[dailydosebellydance]

Tornado Turn Bellydance Drill

To do a tornado turn:

Bend your right knee a little extra, imagine gathering your core muscles to your spine and lowering your center of gravity. Cross your left foot as far behind and around your right as possible, put the ball of your left foot on the ground, and then turn counterclockwise by unwinding your feet (letting your weight shift from heel to toe and toe to heel) until you are facing front again.

You can tornado turn by crossing the unweighted leg in front or back. Of course: try this on both sides. (Crossing in back is often called a hook turn).

You can get a bit of a headstart by swinging your unweighted leg around a bit before it hits the ground. To do this: imagine your are going to try to turn around *without* putting that foot down, ever. You'd swing your yaround and use its momentum to turn. Use that idea (but do let your foot hit the ground, eventually!) to give your tornado turn a boost.

Try this fast and slow and smooth. How well can you stick your landing? What if you try several in a row? Several using different directions?

[dailydosebellydance]

Layer Reversal Bellydance Drill

The next time you’re practicing a layer, turn it on its head! Are you doing a slower, softer, lyrical movement with your rib cage or arms, and keeping the beat or drum line with your hips or feet? Try it the other way around!

For instance: rib cage drops on the beat with a soft hip figure 8, or omi. 

[dailydosebellydance]

About Face Bellydance Drill

Take a choreography or combination (or a song you improv to) and do it four times - once facing each wall in your normal practice room.

As you do this, you'll at the very least be strengthening your memory and sense of which direction relative to you each piece of the material says you should face. 

You might also be inspired to use more direction changes (i.e. - hey this part is REALLY cute facing the back if I just add a look over the shoulder) when you do it "for real"!

[dailydosebellydance]

Morphing Undulations

Lean forward into the balls of your feet. Imagine your up to down undulation as peeling yourself off a wall that is right in front of you, from the top of your body downwards. Your rib cage lifts, then tilts back, abs contract from upper abs to lower abs, pelvis pulls back slightly to end up right underneath your rib cage. You should now feel your weight is centered in your feet or even more toward your heels (whereas you started with your weight forward in the balls of your feet).

You can reverse this idea for a down to up undulation – imagine gluing yourself back onto that wall in front of you (or peeling yourself off a wall behind you) from pelvis upwards.

Now play with turning your body a quarter turn in the middle of your undulation, (the wall doesn’t move – whether it’s imaginary or not! J ) but continuing your peeling/gluing direction. That means your undulation is going to become a sidewinder or side undulation.

Can you make your undulation morph into a sidewinder halfway through but still feel like one cohesive action? What about sidewinders morphing into undulations? What about one undulation that morphs multiple times? 

[dailydosebellydance]

Tornado

Do a head circle starting in the back - back, right, front, left, back.

Do a rib cage circle starting in the back - back, right, front, left, back.

Do an omi starting in the back - lower back, right hip, lower abs, left hip, lower back.

Ideas:

Work on completely stopping each circle before starting the next.

Work on making them slooooow and gooey.

Work on making the circles look like they are spiraling down your body.

Work on speed.

Work on rolling the energy back up your body with a down to up undulation and then circling each body part the other direction.

What are you arms doing during these circles? Make sure whatever it is, it's intentional.