bellydance blah blah
Jun. 19th, 2008 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
parasitegirlI’ve been a good girl, at least as good as I get, and have been faithfully working on my drum solos. Sure, it’s almost 2 months since I originally set that as a goal but…I’ll cling to the fact that I’ve been good about the zills. I’ve been absent from class this month, but it’s been one of my busier months for practice and application.
I’ve been creating, and forgetting, choreography for Ritm Solo 2 from the white Asena album. If I retain some tiny islands of combinations within the whole song, little places to climb up on if things get wet and sloppy, and I get a greater feel for the music as a whole, I’ll be happy.
Part of prep has been the investing in a few more instructional DVDs. I’m only halfway through the Sadie drum solo dvd. There are tiny things that annoy me about the execution of the instruction:
When she faces the screen she doesn’t flip the choreography so that we can mirror her. This wouldn’t be a big annoyance if all the sections featured a good balance of her running through the choreography with her back to us…but some sections do and some sections don’t. The first two sections allow us to run through all that we’ve learned so far, front and back, and then with music. For some reason the 3rd section features no running through the section (or the whole) with her back to us…nor does it feature running through with music. I think there needs to be more consistency.
She seems to alternate calling out “right, left” to refer to hip upward movements or to the glute movements that help lock the hip movements (a right glute contraction being part of a left hip up)…but she doesn’t always make it clear if she’s talking about the hip or the glute contraction…and thus I wished she would stick to one or the other.
I’d never use her choreography as a whole even if that were how I use instructional DVDs…which it isn’t. Some of the choreography feels too busy for me and I tend toward a more earthy Turkish style. Some of my feelings on drum solos may also be because my own teacher isn’t a big fan of doing complicated drum solos .
The DVD is helping me figure out some combinations I can use with my music and it’s showing me where my muscle work has gotten weak. I’ve been drilling more. My upper back muscles are a little sore. I’ve noticed that my chest lifts are almost exclusively abdominal driven and have been trying to drill myself to share duty with my upper back. My lower ab-locks/peliv tucks are near opposite, in that they seem to be relying on my glutes and getting sloppy in the actual lower abs.
The DVD promised some thoughts and theory on how to put together a drum solo, but it seems to be limited to: Things should drop on duns and lift on teks…and that’s about it.
I haven’t finished with Michelle Joyce’s DVD yet either, but it seems more drill/combo oriented and better for helping me find ways and combos to drill once I’ve identified my weaknesses…the work I need to continue to do to create better muscle memory, muscle control…and thus seems like a more of a long-time useful DVD. I’ve found her Drill and Practice DVD (real name…escaping me) to be very helpful in my weekly practices. I didn’t find her Secrets of the Stage #1 to be of much use to me, but it might be because stage presence, comfort on stage, emoting, and dealing with stage nerves aren’t issues in which I feel myself to be particularly weak.
I have nothing but good things to say about how Michelle Joyce puts together an instructional DVD. At least one drill explanation featured a slow-mo cam…and who isn’t a sucker for slow-mo ab moves?
She’ll be in Japan this weekend. I can’t make her show on Friday because of the restaurant, but I will be going to two workshops on Saturday morning, one drum-solo oriented and with zill focus…and opting out on sword. Sword is just one of those props I can’t get myself excited about, and I don’t have one.
I’ve been creating, and forgetting, choreography for Ritm Solo 2 from the white Asena album. If I retain some tiny islands of combinations within the whole song, little places to climb up on if things get wet and sloppy, and I get a greater feel for the music as a whole, I’ll be happy.
Part of prep has been the investing in a few more instructional DVDs. I’m only halfway through the Sadie drum solo dvd. There are tiny things that annoy me about the execution of the instruction:
When she faces the screen she doesn’t flip the choreography so that we can mirror her. This wouldn’t be a big annoyance if all the sections featured a good balance of her running through the choreography with her back to us…but some sections do and some sections don’t. The first two sections allow us to run through all that we’ve learned so far, front and back, and then with music. For some reason the 3rd section features no running through the section (or the whole) with her back to us…nor does it feature running through with music. I think there needs to be more consistency.
She seems to alternate calling out “right, left” to refer to hip upward movements or to the glute movements that help lock the hip movements (a right glute contraction being part of a left hip up)…but she doesn’t always make it clear if she’s talking about the hip or the glute contraction…and thus I wished she would stick to one or the other.
I’d never use her choreography as a whole even if that were how I use instructional DVDs…which it isn’t. Some of the choreography feels too busy for me and I tend toward a more earthy Turkish style. Some of my feelings on drum solos may also be because my own teacher isn’t a big fan of doing complicated drum solos .
The DVD is helping me figure out some combinations I can use with my music and it’s showing me where my muscle work has gotten weak. I’ve been drilling more. My upper back muscles are a little sore. I’ve noticed that my chest lifts are almost exclusively abdominal driven and have been trying to drill myself to share duty with my upper back. My lower ab-locks/peliv tucks are near opposite, in that they seem to be relying on my glutes and getting sloppy in the actual lower abs.
The DVD promised some thoughts and theory on how to put together a drum solo, but it seems to be limited to: Things should drop on duns and lift on teks…and that’s about it.
I haven’t finished with Michelle Joyce’s DVD yet either, but it seems more drill/combo oriented and better for helping me find ways and combos to drill once I’ve identified my weaknesses…the work I need to continue to do to create better muscle memory, muscle control…and thus seems like a more of a long-time useful DVD. I’ve found her Drill and Practice DVD (real name…escaping me) to be very helpful in my weekly practices. I didn’t find her Secrets of the Stage #1 to be of much use to me, but it might be because stage presence, comfort on stage, emoting, and dealing with stage nerves aren’t issues in which I feel myself to be particularly weak.
I have nothing but good things to say about how Michelle Joyce puts together an instructional DVD. At least one drill explanation featured a slow-mo cam…and who isn’t a sucker for slow-mo ab moves?
She’ll be in Japan this weekend. I can’t make her show on Friday because of the restaurant, but I will be going to two workshops on Saturday morning, one drum-solo oriented and with zill focus…and opting out on sword. Sword is just one of those props I can’t get myself excited about, and I don’t have one.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-19 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-19 02:28 pm (UTC)