30 days of DO – Sophia Ravenna

Week 4 of DO Challenge/Recap

June 29, 2015Sophia Ravenna

This was the week where I gave up on the idea of doing DO every day, since I missed so many days already. But it’s also the week where I decided to start the Shimmy Mania! program. I made this decision at 2pm in the afternoon after an hour-long Skype lesson, when realistically I should have been hopping into a shower or pouring myself a cold drink.

Shimmy Mania! is 3 days a week for 4 weeks and much like its predecessor Shimmy Power Up, it features a collection of lessons that have a warm-up, a couple different shimmies, and then a cool down. This first week ranged from 30something minutes to 50something minutes, so each one was a decent amount of practice but not as hard to squeeze in as some of the 1.5-2 hour workshops on the site. Week 1 has been knee-driven shimmies (often called Egyptian shimmies) and some 3/4 variations. Teachers have included Rachel Brice, Ashley Lopez, Sedona Soulfire and Tamalyn Dallal, so basically all of my DO favorites (not to say that the other DO teachers aren’t great, but I’m especially fond of those 4).

This program is working out really well for me so far because I’ve actually been needing to work on my knee shimmies and 3/4 shimmies. I get a lot more practice out of doing a video with a teacher telling me what to do than I do drilling on my own, where I’m prone to get bored and work on something else. Plus I enjoy seeing each teacher’s approach to different shimmy styles and what they like to layer over them. It definitely helps me break out of my usual arm patterns and layering combinations.

Since there’s only today and tomorrow left in June, I’ll go ahead and use this post to share my final thoughts on this challenge, too. I feel like I didn’t make as good of us of my DO subscription as I had planned to this month. Instead of checking out some of the exciting newish long videos, I stuck mostly to short yoga and zill practice videos. My good intentions were not enough to overcome the fact that it’s been incredibly hot this month. That said, I definitely feel like the zill videos are really helping me to get ready for Cultivation, so it was good that I discovered them through this challenge.

Week 3 of DO Challenge

June 22, 2015Sophia Ravenna

I missed a couple of days again this week — In my defense, one of those days was due to having to take the dog to the Vet ER because she stepped on a wasp! She’s fine now, but that ate up my practice time that evening.

On the days that I did hit DO, I rotated through a collection of zill practice videos by Colette Todorov. I need to work on my zill skills for Cultivation, and Colette’s videos make it really easy because they’re all under 10 minutes long. On a busy day it’s nice to just put on my zills, play for around 8 minutes, and be done. In fact, because there’s no dancing, just playing finger cymbals, I don’t even need to be wearing workout clothes, and I don’t need to warm up or cool down.

Each spotlight video covers three zill patterns, starting with triplets/Longa and then exploring some combination of 337, 31313, 355 and alternating. After breaking down each pattern individually, Colette leads you through a repeating combination so you can drill them all one after another.

If you’re of the opinion that you should never stand still while playing your zills, you may not like these videos, as that’s just what you do here. But then again, you can easily walk around the room or do an Arabic or some other simple movement while following Colette’s zill instructions if you prefer.

I’m going to continue to make these videos part of my regular rotation, as they’re an easy way to make sure I practice zills daily no matter what else I’m practicing.

DO Challenge Week 2

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015Sophia Ravenna

I didn’t do very good on my challenge this week. Due to a combination of laziness and laptop problems, I only used Datura Online 4 out of 7 days. Of those days, two days were yoga practices, one was jamming along with my favorite zill video, and one was ATS(R) Fast 1, which is a highlight from one of Colette Todorov’s American Tribal Style (R) lessons.

I’m working on my ATS basics for reasons which I will get into sometime in the future, so having these Datura Online videos available is very helpful, since my other options would be to buy the DVDs or drive about 3-4 hours round trip for classes in Phoenix. This video covers the Arabic, Shimmy, Egyptian and Choo-Choo, starting with the footwork and then adding the arm movements and discussing how the arms serve as the cue. After you learn and drill these four foundational moves, you get a brief explanation of zills, a quick talk-through of playing the triplet, and then you get to drill the moves again with zills. Colette Todorov teaches the class with two of her students (troupe members?) to help demonstrate, which gives the feeling of being in an intimate class.

I like the fact that this video comes pretty close to giving you an authentic ATS experience, as you get to follow the teacher as she cues between the different moves after you’ve drilled them individually. I also like that the zills are included in the video, as I was looking to practice my ATS -and- my zills, so I got to do both in one lesson. The other dancers in the video seem to know what they’re doing as well, so they don’t distract you from the teacher or throw off your attempts to follow along.

What I don’t like is that I don’t feel the moves were broken down very well. Egyptian arms especially can be tricky to get right without making them too crazy, so I felt like a little more time explaining the components of the moves would benefit a newbie. I mean, me personally, I’ve been dancing tribal style for years now, I know what I’m supposed to do and am using these videos to make sure I know the proper ATS versions of moves. They’re more of a refresher/stylistic guide for me. But if I was an inexperienced dancer curious about ATS, I might feel like I needed more instruction. I suspect this video serves better as a companion for the ATS dancer looking to practice between classes than as a lesson for a dancer without access to an ATS teacher.

DO Practice Challenge Week 1

June 8, 2015June 8, 2015Sophia Ravenna

The first week of my Datura Online challenge is done! I used at least one DO video a day. For 6 of those days, I used only one video, and it was always a nice short yoga cool down. I rotated through a variety of cool downs instead of defaulting to my favorite Waves Practice (which I only did on the first day). But on Saturday I built myself a little hour-long Ashley Lopez class! I did a warmup, belly flutters, drill bits and a cool down. This review will focus on the Drill Bits: Twist It! video.

Twist It! is about 26 minutes of hip twist based drilling. You pretty much jump right in, and then you don’t stop until it’s done! As such, you’ll definitely want to do a little warm-up before you start, because doing that many twists with cold abs is a recipe for a cramp. I really liked the fact that this was more of a “follow along” format than a teaching format, because it allowed me to feel like I got a good practice and a good sweat in a short amount of time.

Topics covered included sharp twisting locks, twisting shimmies of various speeds, and variations on the ATS Egyptian. Layers and arm patterns add an extra challenge. I quickly found that I can do a twisting shimmy for 26 minutes, sure, but ask me to layer any sort of chest isolation on top and my muscle memory says “Silly dancer, you want a knee shimmy for this, let us help you!” Personally, I always find it both frustrating and exciting when I find something that my body doesn’t want to do (even though I know I can do all of the component parts of the layering combo!), so I will definitely be revisiting this video the next time I have 26 minutes and want to break my brain.

Because this was such a good challenge in the perfect amount of time, and because I like Ashley Lopez (she always sounds like she’s about to laugh), I’m sure I will hit the other two Drill Bit videos (Bump It! and Shake It!) before the month is done.

My 30 Day Datura Online Challenge

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015Sophia Ravenna

Lately I’ve been slacking off a bit on the dance practice, only doing this one daily challenge I’m part of, and then my hour at the studio each week. It’s not really a lack of interest in practicing, so much as a difficulty in straightening my schedule out ever since I got back from Tribal Fest. Of course, I kind of did this to myself by scheduling a bunch of appointments for the two weeks following TF, but that’s beside the point. The point is that I want to practice more, and there’s a lot of cool new videos, so for the month of June I’m going to do at least one Datura Online video a day, and try at least one new-to-me video per week. I’m really excited to try out some of the new full-length, hour plus classes from teachers like Sadie and Ashley Lopez, that’s for sure.

Check back every Monday for a brief rundown of which videos I did, and a review of one of my favorite new classes that I tried. Comment below if you have favorite DO videos that you think I should check out this month!