These are all movements that come naturally in the first year of life, including this little baby called Liv:
To read my other related posts, click on the label Feldenkrais.
Showing posts with label my learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my learning. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Learning from Baby Liv
I want to share this amazing video with you. My teacher Merav first shared it with us students whilst we were in the middle of a classic series of Feldenkrais lessons that focused on relearning developmental movements like rolling.
These are all movements that come naturally in the first year of life, including this little baby called Liv:
To read my other related posts, click on the label Feldenkrais.
These are all movements that come naturally in the first year of life, including this little baby called Liv:
To read my other related posts, click on the label Feldenkrais.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Feldenkrais classes in Edinburgh
I talked a little in my previous post about how much I've got out of learning Feldenkrais and I thought it would be good to share some information on local classes, for anyone interested to learn more.
There are currently 3 teachers of Feldenkrais that I know of who offer classes in Edinburgh.
Firstly, there is Jackie Adkins. She is a teacher based in Moray, who comes to Edinburgh every month or so to teach a workshop. Her next event is this weekend, 6th April, on the theme of 'Freeing the Shoulders' (see flyer). Jackie also teaches workshops in Glasgow and regular classes in the North East in the Moray area (Forres). I first started learning through Jackie's workshops and found them a great introduction to the method. I also liked that she provided us with useful handouts and was great at signposting where to learn more. To find out more, go to her website.
My current teacher in Edinburgh is Merav Israel. She teaches regular classes (Awareness Through Movement), offers one to one lessons (Functional Integration), and offers the occasional workshop. I have gained a great deal from her classes, particularly the private sessions. Merav has a gentle style of teaching and a rich empathy driven approach as a practitioner. For details of her group classes, individual sessions, and next workshop - 4th May, on the topic of 'breathing' - visit her website.
Another teacher based in Edinburgh is Jae Gruenke. I have not had the opportunity to take her classes. She teaches a weekly class and also practises privately. Her strong interest is in working with runners and athletes and she previously ran a specialist practice in New York. For more, visit her website.
Have you tried Feldenkrais method? Do you know of any other local teachers? I'd love to hear from you.
Firstly, there is Jackie Adkins. She is a teacher based in Moray, who comes to Edinburgh every month or so to teach a workshop. Her next event is this weekend, 6th April, on the theme of 'Freeing the Shoulders' (see flyer). Jackie also teaches workshops in Glasgow and regular classes in the North East in the Moray area (Forres). I first started learning through Jackie's workshops and found them a great introduction to the method. I also liked that she provided us with useful handouts and was great at signposting where to learn more. To find out more, go to her website.
My current teacher in Edinburgh is Merav Israel. She teaches regular classes (Awareness Through Movement), offers one to one lessons (Functional Integration), and offers the occasional workshop. I have gained a great deal from her classes, particularly the private sessions. Merav has a gentle style of teaching and a rich empathy driven approach as a practitioner. For details of her group classes, individual sessions, and next workshop - 4th May, on the topic of 'breathing' - visit her website.
Another teacher based in Edinburgh is Jae Gruenke. I have not had the opportunity to take her classes. She teaches a weekly class and also practises privately. Her strong interest is in working with runners and athletes and she previously ran a specialist practice in New York. For more, visit her website.
Have you tried Feldenkrais method? Do you know of any other local teachers? I'd love to hear from you.
Monday, 25 March 2013
Discovering Feldenkrais
I started learning Feldenkrais method a little over a year ago. I first heard of it when one of my Egyptian Dance teachers started the teacher training course and started a share a little of what she learned.
I first attended some workshops, then weekly classes and eventually moved on to private lessons. Bit by bit, Feldenkrais lessons are starting to change the way I move, the way I think, and challenging my own assumptions about dance, bodywork and movement.
There are 2 ways in which Feldenkrais is taught. The first is 'Awareness Through Movement'. This is a group class, where the teacher talks the students through a series of movements, starting small and building up gradually into bigger things, helping the student to discover new possibilities. The talking through, rather than 'watch and copy' is really important as it has the effect of stripping away any ideas of what a movement should 'look' like, leaving behind the opportunity to explore and observe, and allow real understanding and learning to take place. There is play, there are 'a-ha' moments, there are new discoveries...
The second method is called Functional Integration. These are one on one classes with a practitioner, as a kind of hands on physical therapy. Classes focus on the individual needs of a student. The movements are subtle, gentle and gradually bring the different components of the body together into an integrated whole.
Here is a short video about Awareness Through Movement. I particularly like this film because it beautifully illustrates a spiral, something which also appears in the movement vocabulary for my studies in Hilal Dance:
Here is another clip, showing more of the class environment, interspersed with interviews with the students themselves:
To read more, find resources, or a teacher in your area you can try the Feldenkrais Guild UK or the International Feldenkrais Federation.
Main photo by Mary Beth Smith, from here.
There are 2 ways in which Feldenkrais is taught. The first is 'Awareness Through Movement'. This is a group class, where the teacher talks the students through a series of movements, starting small and building up gradually into bigger things, helping the student to discover new possibilities. The talking through, rather than 'watch and copy' is really important as it has the effect of stripping away any ideas of what a movement should 'look' like, leaving behind the opportunity to explore and observe, and allow real understanding and learning to take place. There is play, there are 'a-ha' moments, there are new discoveries...
The second method is called Functional Integration. These are one on one classes with a practitioner, as a kind of hands on physical therapy. Classes focus on the individual needs of a student. The movements are subtle, gentle and gradually bring the different components of the body together into an integrated whole.
Here is a short video about Awareness Through Movement. I particularly like this film because it beautifully illustrates a spiral, something which also appears in the movement vocabulary for my studies in Hilal Dance:
Here is another clip, showing more of the class environment, interspersed with interviews with the students themselves:
To read more, find resources, or a teacher in your area you can try the Feldenkrais Guild UK or the International Feldenkrais Federation.
Main photo by Mary Beth Smith, from here.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Dancing at the NADA AGM and my new Baladi dress
Here are some fabulous photos by Philip Welsby of my performance at the NADA AGM with the Baladi Blues Ensemble, in Lancashire last week.
The pictures also show off my new Baladi dress by costumier Wendy Holyer. I love how it turned out, especially the sleeves. The main fabric is from my recent trip to Goldhawk Road. And the blue trim is fabric I bought back form Cairo a few years back.
I performed a solo Baladi progression to Amint Billah, which I chose as I knew Sheik Taha would be playing the accordion, who was instrumental in his contribution to the Ashra Baladi structure. Although I'd practised to various versions of this song beforehand, the music on the night turned out completely different and so my performance was entirely improvised. I truly love how with Baladi music, the combination of musicians and dancer brings out a completely different result every time. It was also a lovely and welcoming crowd of fellow dancers and the whole evening was a joy.
It was an amazing night and a fantastic privilege to dance to such wonderful musicians. A big thank you to NADA for the opportunity.
 |
| Dancing at the NADA AGM, Lancashire |
 |
| Performing with the Baladi Blues Ensemble |
 |
| New Baladi dress |
 |
| With Sheik Taha and Ahmed El Saidi |
 |
| Dancing with the Baladi Blues Band |
It was an amazing night and a fantastic privilege to dance to such wonderful musicians. A big thank you to NADA for the opportunity.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Resources for zills and sagat - doing it like the drummers do
Here is my second post about resources I've used for teaching myself zills. My previous post talked about learning from online videos. This time, some information about the stuff I've been doing to learn to play Arabic rhythms.
A while back, I took some drumming workshops with the very talented Tim Garside. Tim is an incredibly talented musician who plays many different percussion and musical Arabic instruments. Tim teaches around London, and these classes were on offer at Raqs Sharqi Society events. He's a great teacher with a mild manner and dry sense of humour. Alongside the workshops, he gave us a couple of photocopies of handwritten notes on Egyptian rhythms. This covered all the basics, each with a core rhythm - including Maqsoum, Saaidi, Masmoudi, Malfuf, Zaar and Fellahi - transcribed in simple form, and then followed by one or more additional versions with elaborations.
I've been learning and practising all these rhythm variations straight off the handouts. My current technique has followed on from this study and relies on using the same hands to play my zills as I would if I was drumming. The general rule of this method is for my right hand to play all the "dums" and "taks", and then my left to play the filler "ka"s. I also differentiate these groups of notes with different sounds. For dums, I select an open ring sound, and for taks a slight muted tone. I seem to remember drummer Chas Whitaker, suggesting this to a group of dancers once. I also add in the left handed ka, again with a softer mute tone. This interpretation is perhaps where I feel I'm on uncertain territory. From the you tube videos and recordings so far, there seems to be quite a lot of variation in how the different sounds are expressed. In their drills, Ansuya and Mahin played a consistent ring across all the notes. However, I've seen and heard other dancers use more texture in their sounds including Artermis and Sophie Armoza.
I've also been drilling the same rhythms with a dampened zills tone, although trying to maintain some tonal differentiation between dum and tek. I think the benefits of sticking to the drumming fingering (the term perhaps could better be described as handedness, although I'm not sure) is that my learning would transfer better, if I had the opportunity to learn more drumming.
Consistent with this approach, I found a short series of YouTube darabuka tutorials from RexSoli. He additionally covers the split hand technique, for playing faster rhythms like Malfuf (where dums are played with the dominant hand, and taks with the other hand). This is easy to replicate on zills, and makes some rhythms a lot easier to play. Here is Rex in action:
The approach of following the drummers' language for rhythms (what Artemis calls "drum speak" - including the dums, taks and kas - makes sense to my brain. I found this easier than counting variations (e.g. 123- or 1-&-a-2-) or using "RLR" type transcriptions. The consequences of this approach also means opening up countless resources that transcribe rhythms and their variants. In fact, there are heaps of free online resources written in this format. There are far too many to list here, although one favourite I really liked for quantity of information ease of use is the info on the website Khafif.
A while back, I took some drumming workshops with the very talented Tim Garside. Tim is an incredibly talented musician who plays many different percussion and musical Arabic instruments. Tim teaches around London, and these classes were on offer at Raqs Sharqi Society events. He's a great teacher with a mild manner and dry sense of humour. Alongside the workshops, he gave us a couple of photocopies of handwritten notes on Egyptian rhythms. This covered all the basics, each with a core rhythm - including Maqsoum, Saaidi, Masmoudi, Malfuf, Zaar and Fellahi - transcribed in simple form, and then followed by one or more additional versions with elaborations.
I've been learning and practising all these rhythm variations straight off the handouts. My current technique has followed on from this study and relies on using the same hands to play my zills as I would if I was drumming. The general rule of this method is for my right hand to play all the "dums" and "taks", and then my left to play the filler "ka"s. I also differentiate these groups of notes with different sounds. For dums, I select an open ring sound, and for taks a slight muted tone. I seem to remember drummer Chas Whitaker, suggesting this to a group of dancers once. I also add in the left handed ka, again with a softer mute tone. This interpretation is perhaps where I feel I'm on uncertain territory. From the you tube videos and recordings so far, there seems to be quite a lot of variation in how the different sounds are expressed. In their drills, Ansuya and Mahin played a consistent ring across all the notes. However, I've seen and heard other dancers use more texture in their sounds including Artermis and Sophie Armoza.
I've also been drilling the same rhythms with a dampened zills tone, although trying to maintain some tonal differentiation between dum and tek. I think the benefits of sticking to the drumming fingering (the term perhaps could better be described as handedness, although I'm not sure) is that my learning would transfer better, if I had the opportunity to learn more drumming.
Consistent with this approach, I found a short series of YouTube darabuka tutorials from RexSoli. He additionally covers the split hand technique, for playing faster rhythms like Malfuf (where dums are played with the dominant hand, and taks with the other hand). This is easy to replicate on zills, and makes some rhythms a lot easier to play. Here is Rex in action:
The approach of following the drummers' language for rhythms (what Artemis calls "drum speak" - including the dums, taks and kas - makes sense to my brain. I found this easier than counting variations (e.g. 123- or 1-&-a-2-) or using "RLR" type transcriptions. The consequences of this approach also means opening up countless resources that transcribe rhythms and their variants. In fact, there are heaps of free online resources written in this format. There are far too many to list here, although one favourite I really liked for quantity of information ease of use is the info on the website Khafif.
Friday, 15 June 2012
Zilling in the rain...
In response to my question about playing zills in the rain, I received this reply from "A fellow walking zill practiser who agrees that muffling interferes":
I love the idea of a second pair of zills sized to fit over glove liners. Although if I manage to achieve some sort of musical competency before the onset of this year's winter that would also eliminate this sort of hazard.
Thank you, my fellow zills walker, I zaghareet you! Enjoy the summery zills days while they last!
Living on the sixtieth parallel, rain, cold, walking, and zills have challenged me. Foggy rain, I simply play as I walk. Soaking rain, I wear a gortex hooded poncho over my warm-weather gear. I do not know what brands of glove liners you have available, but should you run into the "numbing cold zill effect" then I recommend getting a second pair of zills and sizing the elastic to a pair of wind-breaker, water-proof glove liners to wear under your poncho. Hope that this helps!Wow, I have to say it's really nice to know I'm not alone, and that there are even greater challenges for outdoor zillers than the Scottish weather. When I started this practise regime about 6 weeks ago we were experiencing an unseasonal cold spell. Indoors, I had my heating on. Outdoors, after about 10 minutes my hands would start to feel bitter cold as the metal of the zills plunged with the outside temperature.
I love the idea of a second pair of zills sized to fit over glove liners. Although if I manage to achieve some sort of musical competency before the onset of this year's winter that would also eliminate this sort of hazard.
Thank you, my fellow zills walker, I zaghareet you! Enjoy the summery zills days while they last!
Friday, 8 June 2012
If you hear me walking down the street...
The finger cymbal playing is coming along, thanks to my new practise regime.
The zills I recently purchased are of the professional variety. They are big and loud and the sound will cut through noisy bars and open air fetes. But loud also has a downside, when practising for any sustained period of time.
My "studio" at home is the kitchen in my tenement flat, breakfast table pushed to the side. It's got a laminate floor and I try to tell myself this offers some kind of sound insulation for my poor neighbours. Well they haven't yet complained... My poor ears, however, are ringing along with my fingers - they are now starting to suffer.
I needed to find a solution to my problem. What's that I *struggle to* hear other dancers shout? Zill mufflers? Baby socks? I say no crochet. I want to hear what I am doing, to work on the difference between dums and taks, clicks and claps.
I had to think out of the apartment, and move my practise to the great outdoors. Well, the streets of Edinburgh to be more precise. So I've taken to walking home at night, zills in hand, through the old town, up the royal mile, across the meadows. And it works. I can practise my drills, rhythms, variations, slowing down, speeding up, tones, trills and tricks. All the while, I am walking home to a constant beat, thinking about my tea, looking at the Edinburgh skyline, and browsing in shop windows. And it's the same kind of brain multi-tasking skill, that I can then apply to my dancing.
I do pass plenty of people every day. But there are lots of other city noises all around, sometimes so much that even my zills are drowned out. And no one's really exposed to the sound for more than a moment. If anyone notices, I have mostly just been politely ignored.
And the result? Well, I think it's starting to work... In just a few weeks of practising a little bit every day, my fingers are getting used to playing. And when I put on some music and start dancing zills in hand, I think I'm finally getting it!
Have you got a great practise trick for learning finger cymbals, zills or sagat? I would love to hear it.
In the meantime, here's a shot of that Edinburgh's skyline. I hope this provides some nice distraction from playing the 200th repetition of Beledi rhythm.
Oh, by the way has anyone any advice for protecting zills from the rain...?
The zills I recently purchased are of the professional variety. They are big and loud and the sound will cut through noisy bars and open air fetes. But loud also has a downside, when practising for any sustained period of time.
My "studio" at home is the kitchen in my tenement flat, breakfast table pushed to the side. It's got a laminate floor and I try to tell myself this offers some kind of sound insulation for my poor neighbours. Well they haven't yet complained... My poor ears, however, are ringing along with my fingers - they are now starting to suffer.
I needed to find a solution to my problem. What's that I *struggle to* hear other dancers shout? Zill mufflers? Baby socks? I say no crochet. I want to hear what I am doing, to work on the difference between dums and taks, clicks and claps.
I had to think out of the apartment, and move my practise to the great outdoors. Well, the streets of Edinburgh to be more precise. So I've taken to walking home at night, zills in hand, through the old town, up the royal mile, across the meadows. And it works. I can practise my drills, rhythms, variations, slowing down, speeding up, tones, trills and tricks. All the while, I am walking home to a constant beat, thinking about my tea, looking at the Edinburgh skyline, and browsing in shop windows. And it's the same kind of brain multi-tasking skill, that I can then apply to my dancing.
I do pass plenty of people every day. But there are lots of other city noises all around, sometimes so much that even my zills are drowned out. And no one's really exposed to the sound for more than a moment. If anyone notices, I have mostly just been politely ignored.
And the result? Well, I think it's starting to work... In just a few weeks of practising a little bit every day, my fingers are getting used to playing. And when I put on some music and start dancing zills in hand, I think I'm finally getting it!
Have you got a great practise trick for learning finger cymbals, zills or sagat? I would love to hear it.
In the meantime, here's a shot of that Edinburgh's skyline. I hope this provides some nice distraction from playing the 200th repetition of Beledi rhythm.
Oh, by the way has anyone any advice for protecting zills from the rain...?
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Resources for zills and sagat - some great online videos
Free videos
YouTube is as good a place to start as any, when looking for some top up online tuition. A quick search for "zills" plus "lesson", "learn" etc. will throw up a range of clips of varying quality together with a few trailers for video resources that can be purchased. I found this a good way to cover a few basics and find some interesting play along material too. Some of the videos that are for sale also look good, although I haven't invested as yet. Here are 2 teachers that recommend.
Firstly, Anthea Kawakib, a master ziller from the States. She has an online course on her YouTube channel with 7 classes, suitable for both students and teachers who want ideas for teaching zills in class. This short course, felt like an opportunity to follow the classes I never had. The best thing about them is that from the outset, playing at the same time as dancing and moving about is absolutely essential. By stop starting the clips and doing the same lessons over and over, there are maybe a few hours worth of free training here. Here is an example of Anthea breaking the technique down into manageable doses, from her second lesson:
The second teacher is Mahin Sciacca, author of the "Daily Bellydance Quickies". She has posted a huge amount of free online material on belly dance and body conditioning. This includes over 40 great zills videos, again aimed at familiarization, practise, and getting you moving and playing at the same time. It helps to already have some experience of zill playing beforehand though, as does having some familiarity with American names for basic Arabic rhythms. Here is Mahin teaching a combination with zills to Leylet Hob:
Subscription videos
The other set of videos I found useful, were Ansuya's online classes. Former bellydance superstar Ansuya is famous for performing high energy belly dance, zills always in hand. Just when I needed it, I came across a tweet from Ansuya granting a 24 hour free trial of Ansuya Online. This is a subscription service that offers 4 new videos every month, together with the previous few months worth in an archive. There is a basics class, a workout, a choreography and an "entertainment" section featuring extras type titbits. I followed I think 3 different zills classes from the archive. Lessons were 40 minutes long and I found the teaching to be excellent, clear and precise. Rhythms were broken down into small pieces, built up again, speeded up and combined with moves. I got a lot out of the learning, which even stuck with me for several days afterwards.
Although I am very grateful for the trial, I found the American belly dance posture and style quite alien to my own Egyptian Dance training. But I would still recommend this series to an experienced dancer who can't easily access classes/workshop, especially if you're already a fan or interested in learning a variety of different props in addition to zills.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Related Posts
