Weekly Challenge for June 18, 2012

You may have noticed that there was no challenge last week (and this one is a day late).  So some stuff came up.  But that’s what inspired this week’s challenge.

Fitting dance into your schedule

In order to improve your belly dancing skills, you must practice.  In order to practice, you need time.  Usually lots of time, because you need to warm-up, and then practice, and then cool down and stretch.  Right?  And if you want to reach a higher skill level, your practice time gets longer, and you practice more often.  You cannot gain in skill if you only practice once a week (or worse yet, once a year at your favorite workshop event!)

But putting that much belly dance into your life might be hard.

So what’s the challenge?  Work belly dance into your daily life.  Think small.

Waiting for an elevator?  Start some glute squeezes.

Waiting for your lunch to microwave?  Work on a little bit of layering.

Walking down a (hopefully deserted) hallway?  Try a 3/4 shimmy.

Got your headphones and a really dull mindless job?  Listen to an Arabic drum rhythm track.

It may sound silly, but every little bit of practice helps.  I mastered glute squeezes by practicing them nearly constantly…waiting for elevators, waiting for my lunch to microwave, riding elevators, standing in line at the grocery store….  Try it for a week and see what you think.  Yeah, I got some weird looks.  But now my glute squeezes are awesome, so who cares?

If you have a desk job, this type of exercise is perfect.  You should be getting up at least once an hour anyway, so why not get up and dance a little bit?

Just be sure you aren’t going to bust a move and injure yourself.  If you try these, make sure you walk around a little bit to warm up, or that you’re trying something that isn’t going to put too much strain on your body.  Think small, and keep it small.

Happy dancing!