Kill it!
(Source: fitnss, via fitnfitter)
Atlanta Open Dancesport Spectacular: May 2012 -
This link opens to a gallery of super-short snippets of dances. To see my partner and I in the Bronze Pro-am championship, scroll down to the categories Pro-Am Standard B Bronze Final and Qtr. In Final, numbers 2, 5 & 8. In Qtr, number 18. Look for the red dress!
Friday-Monday, May 25-28, 2012
Friday
Some movement involved, but pretty sure club dancing doesn’t quite qualify as a fitness activity… I haven’t done this in a loooooong time. Kind of fun, with the right person, but not really fantastic, being bumped into by drunks who do remember the lyrics to “Sweet Home Alabama” but can’t find the beat to save their lives. Well, I can’t do anything too intricate on 5-inch heels, but I’ve still got rhythm!
Saturday
*Ballroom dance practice: 1 hour. Ooof, takes a crazed kind of discipline to get up super early, after only four hours sleep, and go practice alone. Yes, crazed. Yes, me.
*Ballroom dance lesson with M.S. 2 hours. Teacher had a slot open up today, which was good because Friday’s usual lesson didn’t work out. Big concentration on types of sway in Standard. Teacher’s metaphor for depth of sway: the curves in various types of crockery. Deep sway like the sides of a coffee mug. Medium sway like the sides of a bowl. Slight sway like the sides of a pasta dish. At times, partners match direction of sway, sometimes there’s and over-and-under quality to hip connection. Hmmm, kind of hard to describe— I can be in a deep sway, moving backwards, at the end of a pattern like running finish, and my hip is still tucked upward under his, but in the next step my hips need to level out. Too soon with leveling= problem. Too late with leveling = problem. Then some Latin and the key word was “contain.” Contain energy, stride. Inward pressure with all leg muscles. Got a massive bruise on my instep by banging it with the side of the heel cup of the other shoe from being so in. Ouchie! Still, everything looks much more controlled and balanced, and, by contrast, the softness of hip settling stands out a lot and the elaborate arm movements of a rumba look fab-u-lous.
Sunday
*Ballroom dance practice: 1 hour and 30 minutes. Breaking in new practice shoes and new Latin sandals. Good focus today.
Monday, Memorial Day
*Ballroom dance practice: 1 hour. Used shoulder rack for some of this practice so I could isolate my focus onto lower body. It’s actually a pretty heavy piece of equipment, so didn’t use it the whole time. Also, sometimes you just gotta express yourself with arms and hands for Smooth and Latin!
*P90X: Arms & Shoulders. 1 hour. Killin’ it! Yes, my triceps are “diamonds of gold,” in the words of the inimitable Tony Horton.
[video]
“Age is not important unless you’re a cheese.” — Helen Hayes (via pyrrhic-victoria)
(via uruviel)
Time to bellydance. Even without a massive mane of hair to toss about, it’s fun!
(via uruviel)
Work it. There’s no other way.
via muffintop-less:
<3
Wednesday-Thursday, May 23-24, 2012
Wednesday used to be my Rest Day, but I hereby declare it Fun Day. A day to keep moving and try new things, maybe not as strenuous as ballroom practices and regular cardio, but engaging and active. Keeping too quiet and still makes me nutty!
*Hip Hop: 35 minutes. “Pussycat Dolls Dancer’s Body Workout.” Actually highly rated in a reputable fitness magazine. I have never done hip hop before, so early attempts were more comical than anything. Had to make use of the pause and back functions on the dvd player over and over to begin to learn a small section of the choreography for “When I Grow Up.” Finally got it down, but not quite to time. Yes, a bit slow but very loosened up and having a blast. It seemed to start to come together when I paused the dvd and put on some dark red lip stain and gloss. Hmmmm, attitude counts!
*Bellydance: 35 minutes. “Bellydance for Beginners” with Leila of Egypt. Sections on basic hip shimmies, basic camels and part of working with arms. So much easier to shimmy legs than my top … d’oh! The undulating movement of camel is fun and feels like a small piece of the hip hop body roll in the dvd I used earlier today.
I’m hoping all the sinuousness and body isolations and sexy attitude of hip hop and bellydance will translate into better movement in the more posture-oriented style of Latin dance. Fingers crossed!
Thursday
*Ballroom dance practice: 45 minutes. Smooth: Waltz & Tango. Latin: Rumba & Samba. (Abbreviated because I had to go do intern hours at the gym to complete certification for personal fitness training.)
*P90X: 1 hour. Chest & Back. Yikes! I am not a push-up machine any more… chest muscles significantly weaker. Back still pretty darn strong from dancing. Gotta keep muscles balanced. As for strength, yes, you must move it or lose it.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
*Ballroom dance lesson with M.S. 2 hours. American Smooth Bronze & Latin. Day of epiphanies. So many, my head is reeling trying to remember them all. Except the one about Smooth Foxtrot’s grapevine being like a playground swing — my body simply refuses to believe it. Will work to jot down the other highlights tomorrow when I’m not so tired. A wee bit hard to concentrate in the lesson, as my teacher’s wife is due to have a baby quite soon. I think he focused better than I did!
*Yoga: 20 minutes. Ultimate Power Yoga with Rodney Yee dvd. Power restoration section. This routine flies by. Nice end to a very busy day.
Salvatore Todaro and Violeta Yaneva, Bulgarian amateur, Standard couple.
(Source: latin-fever, via frenchgirls-rule)