Marinating

So, I've been doing this dance thing for almost a year now. It's had some ups and downs, but for the most part, it's been a blast.

Last night at class, I had a really cool epiphany. I've struggled with the shimmy, been terrified of leading, and gotten confused in formations. But for some reason, it all clicked as we worked on the Turkish Shimmy 1/4 turn with a fade.

We'd done it a few weeks ago, to much confusion, and reviewed it again last night, and for some reason, all of the elements just clicked for me. Shimmy, cool. My hips were like YES YES WE WANT TO SHAKE ROKEDET ALL OVER THE CLASSROOM! My arms waned to be elegant, and my feet actually knew where they were going!

I'd never quite had this type of learning experience. I was The Smart Weirdo growing up, so a lot of the concepts we were being taught, my brain snapped up pretty quickly. A lot of the things that were challenging for me, well... I never had the greatest frustration tolerance (neurodiversity, yay) so I'd learn just enough to skate by and then never speak of the ugly incident again. I don't know why I decided to stick it out with bellydance, even though my body just didn't get it at first, but I'm certainly glad I did, because I'm feeling the payoff now.

It helps that Grace likes to throw a bunch of stuff at us, let it marinate, and then go in and refine it. That's really helpful to me at least... I can think about the new moves, play with them a little at home, get a feel for them, and then get feedback on it. I'm a fan.

Zill, baby, zill!

Ahh, zilling.  The terror of many a bellydance student, the bane of many a professional dancer.

And I effing LOVE IT.

We started talking about zilling in November, and in January, my class started zilling for realsies. Of course, the first several sessions, my hands could not get the rhythm down for more than a couple measures, and then I'd end up thinking about what I was doing, and the second your brain interferes with a movement like that, it all comes crashing down.  But, then I committed myself to practice. I'd zill two or three songs a day, whatever I had saved on my phone. And then I'd screw it up, get annoyed, and remind myself, "Just two more songs, you can hold pee for two songs when you're driving. If you need to cry, cry and cut."

It would always be more than just two more songs, though, because DAMN IT I want to be the best zill player in the universe. But, by the times my fingertips turned blue (the international signal for "You want I should stop, maybe?") I'd take off the headphones, and feel accomplished. I might have fallen off the rhythm eight times, I maybe zilled only eight bars total that night, but I was trying.

This past week has been a realization for me in terms of zilling. We were working on fast moves with zills in class (Arabic and Egyptian), and I realized as we were drilling the movement, my brain wasn't shitting itself with too much math to keep track of. It was pretty comfortable, actually.

Then, on Sunday, just to be different, I was talking to my folks about dance (The Gentleman and I went to hang with them). I mentioned playing "the finger cymbals", and they wanted me to demonstrate.  So I did... and even with three people looking at me, I didn't fall off the rhythm.  Then, in class today, we did the fun drill of walking around the studio in time with the beat, zilling while we went back and forth across the floor. And... I CAN ZILL!

The big thing is... practice and troubleshoot. When something weird happened with the zills (for example, that delightfully awkward quacking noise they make when you clap the whole thing together), I'd speak up, to try and find out how not to do that. And zilling for even fifteen minutes a night made a huge difference, both in my confidence and in my ability.

...Now to get through those damn taksim drills!