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Musings on Sadie's Raqs Flow
Jun. 7th, 2016 08:27 pmIt's been a while but I got back on the bellydance workshop horse. With two days of Sadie's Raqs Flow, travelling to Breda (a city to the East, about an hour away by car and two hours by train).
Regardless of the workshops, I am patting my back for having the guts and making an effort in going. Eliza is still waking up a couple of times each night and I am still breastfeeding. being tired and pumping milk on lunchbreaks, then walking to the employees kitchen and store the mill in their utterly gross fridge adds an extra dimension to the whole experience.
But let's talk about the workshops! Sadie was relaxed and happy to explain why she developed her program. I did not ask her many of the questions that went through my head, like why create a certification program when there are so many out there, what do you think of other certification programs, what are the requierements to stay certified, and why isn't this information online if you've been teaching Raqs Flow for three years now. Somewhere along the way I turned into the critical thinker party pooper and it's not good to be that person when the rest of the people in the room are gushing over how much they adore Sadie.
I like Sadie. She is a technically strong dancer and this program showed how she is starting to develop more as an emotional and expressive dancer, which is good. I wouldn't call her my mentor though.
The program itself has a solid foundation in bellydance techniques: hip up/down, hip forward/back, and hiprolls which is a different way to say camel and reversed camel. All of this combined with five basic arm positions and working with weighted/unweighted leg. That kept us busy for 3/4 of the time. The pther quarter was filled with her husband coming over and playing and explaining the beledi, saaidi and maqsum rhythm. Coincidently I covered that in class last Monday so I was on top of my game.
Then Sadie talked us through the written questions on the exam, which were from the top of my head:
What would you call our danceform and why, what are some common terms to refer to our dance?
In what century did the Romani travel from India towards the Middle East?
Are Flamenco and bellydance connected, and if so, how?
What are the names of bellydancers in Turkey, male and female?
Write down one of the rhythms we talked about, in name and with dums and teks
How did the word bellydance evolve?
We finished with a short and rather cute choreography to a classic version of Habeena. It incorporated all the material of the past two days, which was nice. I really liked how she took her time to explain background details.
I also had a flashback to Suhaila's level 1 program with all the drills. We drilled a lot with Sadie as well in pretty much the same way. Part of what I didn't like was the emphasis on some ballet technique (she had us do tendu's without a barre and chainee turns across the floor) while she admitted to not being qualified to teach ballet. For the people who never had ballet, this is possibly harmful and most certainly out of context. Let me add that after taking classes for six years I still suck at ballet. But if I wanted to learn ballet I rather go to ballet class.
The second thing I didn't like was the amount of general strengthening and pilates exercises. I have to minds about this: I do these exercises in my regular exercise program and I believe core strengthening is essential for improving technique and training the muscles. But once more: of I wanted to plank, I could do so on my own.
It's good that she put it in the program. I didn't stay for certification because I had a bus to catch and I wanted to be home before 20.30 so I could have dinner with E and my mum, and see Eliza. Certification was between 18.15-19.15 and was moved to that time last minute. Had I known this before, I might have reconsidered and stay for the certification. That would have meant being home after 22.00 and I don't think I could have stayed awake for so long. Honestly, I was totally knackered for the next three days. Not being able to have a full nights rest is killing for recouperation. Plus my student recital was this Sunday, no rest for the wicked but it sure was a lot of fun!
Regardless of the workshops, I am patting my back for having the guts and making an effort in going. Eliza is still waking up a couple of times each night and I am still breastfeeding. being tired and pumping milk on lunchbreaks, then walking to the employees kitchen and store the mill in their utterly gross fridge adds an extra dimension to the whole experience.
But let's talk about the workshops! Sadie was relaxed and happy to explain why she developed her program. I did not ask her many of the questions that went through my head, like why create a certification program when there are so many out there, what do you think of other certification programs, what are the requierements to stay certified, and why isn't this information online if you've been teaching Raqs Flow for three years now. Somewhere along the way I turned into the critical thinker party pooper and it's not good to be that person when the rest of the people in the room are gushing over how much they adore Sadie.
I like Sadie. She is a technically strong dancer and this program showed how she is starting to develop more as an emotional and expressive dancer, which is good. I wouldn't call her my mentor though.
The program itself has a solid foundation in bellydance techniques: hip up/down, hip forward/back, and hiprolls which is a different way to say camel and reversed camel. All of this combined with five basic arm positions and working with weighted/unweighted leg. That kept us busy for 3/4 of the time. The pther quarter was filled with her husband coming over and playing and explaining the beledi, saaidi and maqsum rhythm. Coincidently I covered that in class last Monday so I was on top of my game.
Then Sadie talked us through the written questions on the exam, which were from the top of my head:
What would you call our danceform and why, what are some common terms to refer to our dance?
In what century did the Romani travel from India towards the Middle East?
Are Flamenco and bellydance connected, and if so, how?
What are the names of bellydancers in Turkey, male and female?
Write down one of the rhythms we talked about, in name and with dums and teks
How did the word bellydance evolve?
We finished with a short and rather cute choreography to a classic version of Habeena. It incorporated all the material of the past two days, which was nice. I really liked how she took her time to explain background details.
I also had a flashback to Suhaila's level 1 program with all the drills. We drilled a lot with Sadie as well in pretty much the same way. Part of what I didn't like was the emphasis on some ballet technique (she had us do tendu's without a barre and chainee turns across the floor) while she admitted to not being qualified to teach ballet. For the people who never had ballet, this is possibly harmful and most certainly out of context. Let me add that after taking classes for six years I still suck at ballet. But if I wanted to learn ballet I rather go to ballet class.
The second thing I didn't like was the amount of general strengthening and pilates exercises. I have to minds about this: I do these exercises in my regular exercise program and I believe core strengthening is essential for improving technique and training the muscles. But once more: of I wanted to plank, I could do so on my own.
It's good that she put it in the program. I didn't stay for certification because I had a bus to catch and I wanted to be home before 20.30 so I could have dinner with E and my mum, and see Eliza. Certification was between 18.15-19.15 and was moved to that time last minute. Had I known this before, I might have reconsidered and stay for the certification. That would have meant being home after 22.00 and I don't think I could have stayed awake for so long. Honestly, I was totally knackered for the next three days. Not being able to have a full nights rest is killing for recouperation. Plus my student recital was this Sunday, no rest for the wicked but it sure was a lot of fun!
