Sunday, June 12, 2011

Homework Saturday 11 JUne

Things to practice this week:
Posture and alignment.
Drills from previous weeks.
Hand floreos
Body waves

Shimmy drills:
Part 1: Begin with single-time, relaxed/soft shimmies using modern Egyptian knee driven technique. Increase to double-time.
Part 2: Progress to a loose jelly like wobble. These are shimmies in which your knees are working double-time, but your quads, gluts, and torso are relaxed and soft — allow them to jiggle like jelly. It takes a while to embrace the extreme movement, but once you do, you’ll own the move. Remember to maintain the abdominal support and pelvic lift and to lift your ribs/upper body.
Part 3: Now, maintaining that wobble shimmy, shift your weight onto the balls of your feet. You’ll probably notice that your shimmy changes, becoming smaller, a little tighter and sharper. Do you feel it in your thighs? Now shift your weight back to center and then shift the weight back to your heels. The shimmy becomes earthier, more bottom-centered, even bigger. Come back to center. Play with texture and music interpretation. Work out where your weight needs to be to get a particular level of reverb.
Part 4: Center your weight, sliding your hips to the right, then left. Keep the shimmy going. From the center, push forward, now back, side to side. Push forward, side, back, side. Smooth it off into a circle. KEEP SHIMMYING!
Part 5: Mastered that? Now shimmy through a horizontal figure 8. Still want more? Add a an undulation, or a belly roll. Can you shimmy an omi? Can you shimmy a vertical 8? Can you walk with a shimmy? Can you shimmy one leg?