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anysiaAmazed.. simply amazed... we started teaching our new class today, and were blown out of the water. I guess the best way to describe two the ladies are "former disgruntled cabaret" students, that felt they had their time wasted, and they hadn't gotten anything from the classes they had taken. Two had dance experience, two didn't have any what so ever, and one was a yoga student too.
These ladies had a fire in their guts, and when we did the introductions all around (including us asking all of them if they had any sort of injury -bad knees, bad back, neck, rotator cuff etc etc) we gave them the "what tribal is about". (And I capped it at the end of the class with fake german accent "You vill haff fun, laughink is permmited! Dat is an order!")
Warm ups and stretches, 10+ minutes. Sore muscles from work out, ok.. Sore muscles from tearing, not ok. Good warm up.
Then started off with showing proper tribal dance posture and describing basic moves. 1st one, clicking right off.. all of them are doing the basic taxeem smoothly. This is good.
2nd, tribal arms. Showed them the difference between cabaret snake arms, and tribal arms, and yowsa, they got it right off. Spent on and off time with that, as when you first do that particular motion, it's very tiring.
Ok, two slow ones.. let's do a few faster basic moves. 3/4 shimmy.. after a few minutes of instruction and showing, they were all doing it as if they had been doing it for years. Holy crow.. we are onto something. Lets speed it up.. and we did, and they still had it going, smooth and in time with the music! Ok, lets walk it around in a circle. and they still did it!
Move onto another (actually two moves, but one meshes perfectly with the other) .. the choo choo into pivot bump.. and again, they pegged it. Ok.. we raised the bar, explained cues and transitions with this particular two moves. And for 10 minutes, it was 6 butts in perfect time, with transitions as smooth as cream.
The arabic basic.... only one had a problem, and it was a holdover from cabaret class.. showed her what she was doing vs the arabic, and voila! the basic arabic was being done in perfect unison by all.
Ok, raise the bar again, and showed them the Egyptian basic. Be damned if they didn't get that one too. (The arms are still needing work, but we both told them all that the hands and arms are the last thing we get right, so don't worry)
Time to cool down with stretches and bends.... chit chat while doing it, Q&A and commentary time: To sum it up.. hooked and landed. They love it, and are looking forward to the next session. they were told that they learn the basic moves, then are drilled with them, until muscle memory has it down pat. Then we demonstrated cues to them. I held my hands out towards one lady who had borrowed hip scarf, without turning my head, and she tossed it to me. I told the class I just demonstrated how cues work, I cued to her I was ready to put the scarf away, and she tossed it to me. Then Meegan and I briefly showed how certain cues are done.
These women were energised, and are so looking foward to next week... so am I. :)
These ladies had a fire in their guts, and when we did the introductions all around (including us asking all of them if they had any sort of injury -bad knees, bad back, neck, rotator cuff etc etc) we gave them the "what tribal is about". (And I capped it at the end of the class with fake german accent "You vill haff fun, laughink is permmited! Dat is an order!")
Warm ups and stretches, 10+ minutes. Sore muscles from work out, ok.. Sore muscles from tearing, not ok. Good warm up.
Then started off with showing proper tribal dance posture and describing basic moves. 1st one, clicking right off.. all of them are doing the basic taxeem smoothly. This is good.
2nd, tribal arms. Showed them the difference between cabaret snake arms, and tribal arms, and yowsa, they got it right off. Spent on and off time with that, as when you first do that particular motion, it's very tiring.
Ok, two slow ones.. let's do a few faster basic moves. 3/4 shimmy.. after a few minutes of instruction and showing, they were all doing it as if they had been doing it for years. Holy crow.. we are onto something. Lets speed it up.. and we did, and they still had it going, smooth and in time with the music! Ok, lets walk it around in a circle. and they still did it!
Move onto another (actually two moves, but one meshes perfectly with the other) .. the choo choo into pivot bump.. and again, they pegged it. Ok.. we raised the bar, explained cues and transitions with this particular two moves. And for 10 minutes, it was 6 butts in perfect time, with transitions as smooth as cream.
The arabic basic.... only one had a problem, and it was a holdover from cabaret class.. showed her what she was doing vs the arabic, and voila! the basic arabic was being done in perfect unison by all.
Ok, raise the bar again, and showed them the Egyptian basic. Be damned if they didn't get that one too. (The arms are still needing work, but we both told them all that the hands and arms are the last thing we get right, so don't worry)
Time to cool down with stretches and bends.... chit chat while doing it, Q&A and commentary time: To sum it up.. hooked and landed. They love it, and are looking forward to the next session. they were told that they learn the basic moves, then are drilled with them, until muscle memory has it down pat. Then we demonstrated cues to them. I held my hands out towards one lady who had borrowed hip scarf, without turning my head, and she tossed it to me. I told the class I just demonstrated how cues work, I cued to her I was ready to put the scarf away, and she tossed it to me. Then Meegan and I briefly showed how certain cues are done.
These women were energised, and are so looking foward to next week... so am I. :)
