firecat

Saturday
Spent the night at J's and went to somewhat more than half of the Big Moves Day of Dance for fat women.

It all reminded me of how crotchety I am. How I demand my comfort and familiarity. As in: I can't sleep in a different bed, or with the wrong cover configuration, or with the wrong pillow, and I can't do without coffee, and I can't do more than 2 hours of dance classes without feeling exhausted.

(On the other hand, given how inactive I am, I am f'ing amazed that I can do 2 hours of dance classes.)

It was quite nice to do some Haitian dance again. I love the snake dance...

In the belly dance class, I just wanted to stand there and practice the basic figure 8 over and over again, but the instructor was told to offer us some instant gratification, so we ended up moving all over the room trying to do walks and shimmies and arms all at once. Too confusing.

Current Mood: exercised

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

tsamm.livejournal.com

I am crochety in some of those very same ways. There's something so valuable and *grounded* in one's own home, own bed, etc., and it's very hard to switch to different things, even if only for a night. I usually can't sleep well in hotels or at other people's houses, and without coffee (and cigarettes), I'm but a shadow of my normal self!

From:

firecat

So tell me: when you go to a restaurant, do you usually order something new, or something you have had before?

From:

tsamm.livejournal.com

99% of the time, something I've had before and *know* is good. Have even been laughed (deservedly) at for this tendency.

From:

firecat

I do that about 80% of the time, I think.

On a community where I hang out we have been calling this "neophile" vs. "neophobe" orientation.

(No reference to The Matrix is intended.)

From:

jenett

I've been doing belly dance video tapes for a few months (intermittently, and far more so than I'd like, and that reminds me, I should tonight..) and it took me ages to get the figure 8 thing right.

And I *still* can't do shimmies. (I can mostly do hip shimmies, but shoulder ones just completely puzzle me.) I also can't make one bit of my body do one thing and another do another thing, if I'm thinking about both.

But that's ok. This happened when I was riding, too, and since I eventually nearly got to the point of tell-horse-where-to-put-each-foot with that (which involves juggling independent action with both legs, both seat bones, and both arms much of the time, as well as avoiding crashing into walls and stuff) I figure I will eventually figure it out if I spend enough time with it.

But I really love the *feeling* of doing the stuff. I had forgotten how lousy I am at relating to space with my body, most of the time. (product of having had weird body image stuff, and ... well, I'm just weird on this one.)

So. Cool that you did it :) If you'd like my opinions on a bunch of the videos out there, I'm glad to offer them. I've found it'll actually get me doing exercise moderately often, which I really like.

From:

firecat

I heard that the figure 8 was more or less advanced, although this instructor told us it was the "foundation" of belly dance, and I can see that.

I sort of learned how to do shoulder shimmies in Haitian dance many moons ago.

The experience of a kind of movement getting absorbed into my body's knowledge is really cool...

I'd love your opinions about videos.