Popping and locking class
OMG popping and locking class was so much fun! :D cybress and I headed out to the Fantastic Poppers drop-in class. They were super-friendly and helped us start learning some of the basic movements like wrist pops, arm waves, etc. We stayed there for the whole session (around 3 1/2 hrs (ETA: actually it was 3 hrs)) and when we got too tired to continue practicing we just watched other people dance.
In one of his interviews Ronnie Boy talks about how bboying is the most free form of dance because there's a foundation but beyond that you can do whatever you want and there's always room for innovation. Although bboying is different than popping & locking, I got a sense of what he was talking about while watching the other dancers today; everybody had their own style and own way of moving and own spontaneous combinations and there was a much wider vocabulary of movements than what I'm used to with bellydance.
Speaking of bellydance, I found that my ingrained muscle memory was actually working against me. For example, I'm used to doing arms from the shoulders out to the fingertips, but when doing an arm wave it starts at the fingertips and moves in to the shoulders. Raising my heels and seriously bending my knees (and moving the knees from one side to the other) while doing a hip circle feels really weird to me, since I'm used to being flatfooted and using the hips alone. With every move my mind is struggling to put it into bellydance terms that I can relate to, but the movements are VERY different between the two styles.
cybress and I will be going back in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to it! Our goal is to be able to do a simultaneous hand movement and foot movement by the time we go to the next class. (Hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere...)
In one of his interviews Ronnie Boy talks about how bboying is the most free form of dance because there's a foundation but beyond that you can do whatever you want and there's always room for innovation. Although bboying is different than popping & locking, I got a sense of what he was talking about while watching the other dancers today; everybody had their own style and own way of moving and own spontaneous combinations and there was a much wider vocabulary of movements than what I'm used to with bellydance.
Speaking of bellydance, I found that my ingrained muscle memory was actually working against me. For example, I'm used to doing arms from the shoulders out to the fingertips, but when doing an arm wave it starts at the fingertips and moves in to the shoulders. Raising my heels and seriously bending my knees (and moving the knees from one side to the other) while doing a hip circle feels really weird to me, since I'm used to being flatfooted and using the hips alone. With every move my mind is struggling to put it into bellydance terms that I can relate to, but the movements are VERY different between the two styles.
cybress and I will be going back in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to it! Our goal is to be able to do a simultaneous hand movement and foot movement by the time we go to the next class. (Hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere...)