Class was fantastic last night! It may have been a small turnout, but we worked hard. Our focus of the night? Shimmy drills! 3/4 shimmy drills to be exact!
When turnout is small I particularly like to work on what my students are struggling with the most. In this case we decided to talk about the 3/4 shimmy. It's a challenging move, especially for someone who may have little or no belly dance experience, and it's no surprise why! There's a lot going on with the 3/4 shimmy, especially since most people seem to like using it on the go!
Tonight we focused on a very plain Jane 3/4 shimmy. The idea was to get a smooth 3/4 with no fancy accents, pauses, or stiffness. We did some stationary work, then took it on the move, at a very slow pace. Once we'd spent some time with it slow, we sped it up, and then took it up again. Wouldn't you know it, we spent the entire class session working on that shimmy!
What was the result of all this work? My students said they really felt much more confident about their 3/4 shimmy, and felt like it was really coming along. They understood the mechanics of the move, and we talked about their particular challenges with the movements. The biggest challenge my students keep coming back to? Getting their head out of the movement and just going with the flow of the move, especially with a move as challenging as this. Thankfully, the cure for that is drilling until the movement becomes second nature.
At the end of the class I got to do my new favorite thing, assign homework! We talked through the different drills I wanted them to work on during the next week, and they're excited to get to it. When have you ever heard of students being excited to get homework? Well, I guess that's the best part of belly dance, even the homework is fun!
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