I touched on my practice habits a bit back in this post about the mind-body connection, but I’ll tell you a secret: I don’t go home after work and practice for hours every day. And I don’t get up before work and do an hour of yoga and then an hour of drills. Frankly, I just don’t have time. And I suspect most of you don’t have that sort of time, either.

Here’s how I practice: I hardly ever stop thinking about dance.

By this, I mean that during my work day I stretch my shoulders and arms, my hips, and back. I take a moment here, a moment there to reconnect with my body. I circle my wrists, ankles, and neck when they’re stiff.

I’m a big fan of the incremental practice. I don’t have a dance studio at home, and therefore, I don’t have a dedicated practice space. (Surprise!) Most of my practice is spent in the moments waiting for the elevator, sitting in my car on my way to and from work (excellent for glute squeezes), and in my seat at work as I listen to my performance music on my iPod over and over again. I also try to take advantage of my workplace’s exercise policy – we are allowed several hours of excused leave a week to exercise in the office building’s gym. We’re lucky enough to have an aerobics room with full-length mirrors, so I spend some time practicing there when I can get away from my desk.

And of course, I imagine myself dancing quite often. The brain is amazingly powerful in this regard, so even when I’m tired or feeling sick, I can still run through movements in my head. Mental practice, however, only really works when you know how to properly execute the physical movement. You can’t imagine yourself doing a particular movement if you don’t know how to actually DO the movement.

Also, I try to get to yoga regularly to keep up my strength, flexibility, stamina, and overall well-being.

What makes a successful practice? I’m not sure. I feel as though my practice is ongoing, perpetual, neverending. I don’t feel like there’s any end to my practice. I don’t go into the studio, practice for an hour or two, call it a day and go home.

Basically, I never forget that I am a dancer and that I need to keep in my mind in touch with my body and muscles all the time.

I recently started reading The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee. There’s SO much good stuff in this book about how the brain perceives the body and the immediate world around it, and much of it can apply to learning dance. The authors also explain how visualizing body movements can help you execute the actual body movements better than if you had never visualized that movement before.

One of the most striking findings presented in the book is this (my notes in brackets):

Pascual-Leone [a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School] found that the level of performance after five days of motor imagery [visualizing the movement] was equivalent to three days of physical practice. But when he added one day of physical practice to five days of motor imagery, his subjects were as good as those who practiced only physically for five full days. This means motor imagery can give you a distinct advantage in your training. You can be better with less rather than more physical practice.

I’ve totally found this to be true in my own practice of dance. I urge you to try it too.

Several of my students and friends have asked me why I’m so dedicated to the format and why I think they should try it too.  In the words of Renee Drellishak, here is one perspective on the Suhaila Salimpour format and why we the students are so dedicated to it.

Link to the original article…. or just keep reading…

My first encounter with Suhaila was via her Stretch & Tone video, which I purchased way back when the interview bits were still spliced between the workout sections. I appreciated the conditioning focus, but had no idea how it related to her technique, or even that she had a technique. Years later she came to Seattle to do a series of 1-day workshops. I had reached a point in my dancing where I didn’t really understand how to improve, in that mysterious “intermediate” level in my class where I could see distinctions between myself and beginning dancers but couldn’t have necessarily explained what they were. Suhaila’s workshop was a revelation. It was road map with clear and precise directions, which I was elated to have.

I attended my first weeklong workshop in September 2001, shortly after 9/11. A number of the workshop participants had canceled, afraid or unable to fly, so there were about a dozen attendees, 5 TAs and Suhaila. With that much personal attention there was no slacking, no hanging out. I worked harder than I ever had in my life, sweated so much my dance clothes were soaked through, raged and cried at my body’s inability to do the things that my brain was telling it to do. My calves were so sore by day 3 that I couldn’t walk upright and while getting up from the toilet I lost my balance, fell against the towel bar, and gave myself a black eye. It was the best dance week of my life.

I certified Level I in June 2002, Level II the following October. I figured if I averaged a Level a year I’d be done with the format in 5 years. Hah! I had not realized that the difficulty of the levels increased exponentially, nor did I fully understand how deep this rabbit hole went.

In 2003 I attended the first Level III weeklong and got a peek down that rabbit hole. Holy shit! All of the drilling in Levels I and II did not prepare me for the emotional work in Level III. On the first day I could tell the girls from the studio were nervous about something and came to find it was about the emotional work. “Yeah, whatever, ” I thought. I was more concerned with the drills and choreography. I had my emotional baggage all packed up, nice and neat. Little did I know that Suhaila knew just how to pop the clasp so that it would explode all over the room. Mind you, this wasn’t gratuitous emotional torture. She didn’t try to make us fall apart, rather her goal was to help us delve into our psyches and present authentic emotion instead of “acting sad” or “acting happy.” [Note to the uninitiated, there are no "happy" songs.] On the second day I sat in my rental car, sobbing and blindsided by my own emotions, for 20 minutes before I could get on the freeway and drive back to my cousin’s house where I was staying. I had called before I left the studio and she met me at the door with a glass of scotch and a bubble bath running in the bathroom, and she did this every day for the rest of the week. I went back to Seattle spent and amazed. It was 3 years before another Level III workshop was scheduled. I was scared because I knew what was coming, but I threw myself into the work, had a great time, and when Suhaila announced she would start holding the workshops every six months I was thrilled.

In August of 2008, after 8 years of studying the format, I tested for Level III. Along with the other testers, I had to submit a number of projects before the workshop—papers, a choreography, a documentary about my dance world. The physical portion of the test began the moment we set foot in the studio on Monday morning, 5 of us being graded while the other workshop participants worked alongside us, witnessing our process and supporting our efforts. We had to dance the two test choreographies in front of the whole group, not just do them, but truly dance them. No one held back an ounce of energy or emotion. Suhaila made it very clear that we had to bring it, and it was a tour de force. On Friday at the culmination of the workshop, Suhaila had us all stand up, and, in tears herself, told us how proud she was and that we had all passed. It was a long road, and afterward I was stunned that I had been able to accomplish so much—more than I had ever expected.

As I write this I have just returned from the inaugural Level IV workshop. I was gratified that on the second day when we had to bring our emotional perspective with maybe a minute of preparation, I was able to do so. That when asked to absorb a choreography a day (and not just any choreographies, some of Suhaila’s most advanced choreographies. With finger cymbals!) I was able to at least muddle through. This is not to say the workshop wasn’t hard. On Tuesday I had a moment, that moment that we all have, again and again, where I wondered what the hell I was thinking and whether I even belonged there. Some of the other women in the workshop, women I have known for years, who have seen me lay my soul bare and who have laid theirs bare in return, talked me down, reassured me, in that way we do for each other. We commiserated throughout the week, reminding ourselves that we were not actually expected to master Yanna Yanna in one afternoon, that this was merely the overview so that we could take these choreographies home and work on the over the next year or two (or five, or ten.) The experience really highlighted for me that I am a totally different dancer than I was 8 years ago. I am a different person.

The naïve reader might read this and think, “My god, all that sounds awful! Why would you do that to yourself? This Suhaila person sounds like the Marquis de Sade!” First, nothing could be further than the truth about Suhaila. Yes, she demands that we work hard, in most cases harder than we’ve ever been asked to work. But she asks this because she knows we can. She sees the potential in every dancer and will do whatever she can to help that dancer realize it. I have seen her give, time and time again, exactly what each dancer needs, from compassion and support to tough love. I have seen her spend 10 minutes trying to get a dancer to articulate what a particular song means to them. I have seen her watch a dancer walk in late to a Level III workshop and demand that that dancer go and write a letter explaining why she would be allowed to stay in the workshop. I have seen her down on her belly on the floor, nose to nose with a dancer too terrified to move and unable to speak, and watched as she has looked in their eyes and whispered words of strength and compassion. At the end of every day of a Level III workshop, she leaves carrying the emotional burden of every dancer in the workshop. She carries our secrets and our fears for us, to free us to dance.

Anyone who thinks this format is about being able to squeeze your glutes has missed the point.

This format is about becoming the most fully developed artist you can be. Yes, it demands precise technique, but that technique is a means not an end. That technique enables you to express your artistic vision without technical limitation. But it is the artistry, the statement of the artist, the ability of each dancer to put herself on stage and say, “Here. This is who I am and what I feel,” that this format is truly about. And that is why I do it.

Renee Drellishak

Here’s a laundry list of things that I learned as a skater that I still use as a dancer.

• Always practice the basics.  You can’t land a double Axel without being able to land a clean single Axel.  (Just as you won’t be able to layer chest locks over alternating glute squeezes if your glute squeezes aren’t clean.)
• Your costume should reflect your music and the mood of your performance.
• Know where the judges and the audience are sitting.  Play to them.
• Respect your coaches’ knowledge, wisdom, and experience.
• You will have good practice sessions and terrible ones.  Both are par for the course.
• SMILE!  (We would yell this out to whoever was taking the ice at a competition, and inevitably, doing so would make them smile.)
• Wear more make-up for a performance/competition than you think is necessary.
• Make sure your hair is secured before taking the ice (or the stage).
• Always warm-up and stretch.  In that order.
• Quality equipment is expensive and worth the money.
• Don’t be afraid to fall (literally and metaphorically).
• Be an example for new and younger skaters.
• Choreography and improvisation are equally valuable.
• Be patient with your progress.  You won’t be able to accomplish every move right away; some things will take longer to achieve than others.
• Be aware of your personal space lest you run down a fellow skater (or dancer in the studio).
• Never become complacent with your progress.
• Buy and watch the videos of your performances.  The camera doesn’t lie.
• Gimmicks may get you a medal, but technique and skill are far more valuable.
• Be nice to your fellow skaters.  Cattiness and backstabbing will only bring you a bad reputation.
• Bend your knees and tuck your pelvis.
• Remember to have fun.

Do any of you have “past lives” that help you as a belly dancer?  What about those experiences do you use today?