Do you have a hard time watching video of yourself dancing flamenco?
You’re not alone.
While we may not choose to publicly share video of ourselves dancing, it can be a great tool to use for personal growth.
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Life Lessons
Ever find yourself getting stuck in your head during class?
I know how you feel.
Today I will share with you four things you can do when you find yourself in this situation and I’ll show you a video you’ll LOVE of Beatríz Morales.
But first, a story.
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This week's letra made me think of an experience I had years ago which has nothing to do with flamenco. It has to do with dishonesty and fear. It started with a question, which led to a lie, which in turn led to facing a fear. The facing fear part actually helped prepare me for flamenco where I'm forced to confront my fears over and over again. To my surprise, all of the practice meeting my fears in flamenco has only made it easier to do so in life outside of the dance.
More on that in a minute, but first let's take a look at the letra and watch a video of Mercedes Ruíz, our teacher on the Flamenco Tour to Jerez, dancing caña, all in red, with bata and mantón.
Caña
Popular
Subí a la alta montaña
buscando leña pa’ el fuego
como no la encontraba
al valle bajé de nuevo
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Thinking about that first trip to Spain in 1998 has reminded me that I need to step it up in the doing things that scare the *#%~&> out of me category. Read on for a lesson around that idea and more of my story from that first trip. Also, find out why it's essential to listen to flamenco music, read a letra about Sevilla, then see a video of Juana la del Revuelo, Aurora Vargas, and Remedios Amaya ...
During my time in Sevilla I saw these women perform. During my time in Sevilla I saw these women perform live. As you'll see from the video below, it was wonderful. Their CDs were among some of the first I purchased once I accepted the fact that I needed to start listening to flamenco music. You see, in the beginning I wasn't very interested in listening to the music, especially cante, unless I was dancing, but Chris convinced me to start listening. He said I needed to do this to understand and internalize the compás.
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![Why You Shouldn't Call It Quits [My First Flamenco Dance Experience in Spain]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/568079e7bfe873f15c115eee/1497863268662-WXHKPVB6FCMAZCUITFKF/Abanicos+b%26+W.jpg)
My plan was simple (and not very well thought out):
Travel around Spain, settle somewhere in Andalucía, find flamenco classes, find work.
I had no contacts in Spain, no leads on where to study or work. I didn’t even know what city I was going to live in.
I just knew that if I wanted to learn flamenco I needed to go to Spain.
Today I'll tell you about finding flamenco in Sevilla, what it taught me about perseverance, and how it can help you.
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Mistakes are an inevitable part of learning and provide us with opportunities to grow. An absence of mistakes means we are not trying. However, repeating the same mistake means we are choosing not to improve.
Today we’ll look at how to learn from a mistake.
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During last weekend's Flamenco Retreat at the Oregon Coast (which I'm still on a high from by the way and which you can see pictures of below) we all agreed that flamenco teaches us about life and about ourselves.
So, today I share with you fifty life lessons I've gleaned from flamenco.
Fifty Lessons:
(This list is full of links in case you'd like to dive deeper into some of the lessons.)
- Listen to your intuition, and trust your instincts.
- Express your true feelings.
- Be present.
- Stand beautifully in your power.
- Prepare. (Really prepare.)
- Take risks.
- Focus.
- Act with intention.
- The answers are in the mirror, so look.
- Show up.
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Every time I return home from the Flamenco Tour to Jerez I feel stronger. (It’s impossible not to after all of that time in class with Mercedes Ruíz.) I've learned how to turn the physical strength gained through dancing flamenco into mental strength to help me face challenges in my life. At the end of this post, I'll lead you through an activity to help you do the same.
Let’s begin with an excerpt from my journal a few years ago upon returning home from The Flamenco Tour:
I am home, and I feel it,
The strength.
I feel it in my body, and I feel it in my being. (I always forget how this happens.)
The thing I wasn’t strong enough to do before I left. I can now do it. The thing I tried so many times to do before but couldn’t. The thing I kept trying to do but told myself I wasn’t strong enough to do.
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There's going to class. And then there's going to class and getting the most out of it. Today I'm going to talk about the latter, about how to get the most out of your flamenco class (or workshop) experience.
Ricardo López is constantly giving us tips when he comes in town for workshops. Perhaps just as helpful are little phrases I hear him say over and over again in class. He doesn't really intend them as tips. They are reactions, spoken in the moment. But, oh, these little comments have a lot to tell us.
So, here you go, four comments from Ricardo and four pieces of advice gleaned from them:
ONE
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![Day 10 : What to do When You Think You Can't [Flamenco Home Challenge]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/568079e7bfe873f15c115eee/1471132827611-QLP2EFPRZTAOCGUOH8QK/Intenta.jpg)
It’s the final day of the challenge. Olé, you made it!
How did yesterday's activity go? Did it feel good to just put the music on and dance not worrying about all of the other stuff? For me, letting go and dancing in this way is a great form of therapy.
Let's get on with the final challenge.
Day 10
Today’s exercise is designed to help you keep the challenge going in class or in your home practice.
I remember when I first studied with Mercedes. I felt so overwhelmed with all of the classes I was taking, coming in toward the end of the year, perhaps trying to do too much. So many things felt impossibly hard. ‘I can’t,’ ‘No way,’ ‘Impossible,’ Thoughts like this were constantly running through my head. I even declared them out loud. “No puedo,” I would tell Mercedes. Or, I would just stop dancing.
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I want to share a story with you about how I messed up dancing bulerías last weekend, how it left me feeling not so happy about my dancing, eight important lessons about flamenco (and life) I learned in the process, and how those lessons served me when I applied them to a sticky situation in my life.
So last weekend I took a workshop with Alfonso Cid. He shared bunches of bulerías letras with us (you'll find one below) and gave a very informative introduction to flamenco, with a focus on cante. He had us all singing and doing palmas and even got some of us up dancing.
Toward the end of the workshop someone asked Alfonso to address how to dance bulerías por fiesta, how to dance to the cante. (As you know, this is one of my favorite things.)
Yay! (and Olé).
Some people got up to dance, mess up or not mess up, and learn along the way.
I was one of those people.
And here is what I learned:
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Today I want to share a bulerías dancing tip with you along with a letra.
When I'm in Jerez on the Flamenco Tours, Ani offers all kinds of quick and dirty tips.
Here's one
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I've got two flamenco learning tips to share with you today. One from Mercedes and one from Ani. We're on day two of Flamenco Tour classes, and the classes have been going like this:
Technique with Mercedes in the morning. Bulerías with Ani right after. Then choreography and castanets with Mercedes after lunch and siesta.
Everybody loves Mercedes. Everybody loves Ani. All is well.
Class with Mercedes
The ladies go in and out of concentrating on the steps and being mesmerized by Mercedes and her magnificence.
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Woo-hoo, you’ve made it to day three of the Dancing with David Even Though We’re Not With David Challenge! Today's task won't take long, so read on to find a new exercise to help you become a better dancer from home . . .
Learning by observation is one of my favorite ways to learn, and I've learned quite a bit from observing David Romero, noticing both how he dances and how he approaches dancing and teaching.
Today we're going to focus on the approach.
Presence
David gives 100% (if not more) when teaching.
He, the teacher, is there with you, the student, completely.
Which inspires you to be there with him. And to give all that you have to give during those moments.
Sooooo, when you’re in the studio,
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Today I'm going to share with you a fun exercise (one of my personal favorites) that will help you to become a better dancer from the comfort of your own home. Yesterday we addressed the idea of looking in the mirror and how we need to look at what’s being reflected back to us in order to know what to change.
Today we’re going to go deeper,
Today we’re going micro,
Today we’re going to talk details
But before we do, I want you to take a moment to remember your why.
Got it in your cabeza?
Good.
Now, no matter what your purpose,
Details matter.
Flamenco has a certain aesthetic, and although there is plenty of room for personal style and preference, we must strive to remain true to the aesthetic of this art form.
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It's time to begin the Dancing With David Even Though We're Not With David Mini-Challenge, yahoo! Read on to discover today's strategy for improving your dancing from home . . .
Now I know you may not want to, but please, look in the mirror.
Por favor.
This is essential.
Especially when you're at home with no teacher there to correct you, other than the David (for the purposes of this mini-challenge) inside your head.
You must look in the mirror
Allow the mirror to become your imaginary teacher, and listen to his corrections.
Once you’re finished reading this, I want you to get up, go the the closest mirror, do a move, and notice,
How do you look?
If something doesn’t look right, consider your basic technique,
How are you holding your elbows?
Do you need to move your arms farther away from your body, or closer perhaps?
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This week I learned about daylilies. And as it turns out the process I went through in learning about this flower led me to a mini-formula that is perfect for learning to dance por fiesta palos like bulerías. (I'll share that with you in a moment.)
But first, my lesson on daylilies
On Monday morning Stefani and I were on a walk when we happened upon bunches and bunches of bright golden daylilies. I’ve been noticing them everywhere this summer, including in my garden. I did not know what these flowers were called, and I’d never bothered to find out. I didn’t even bother to notice that their petals and shape look very much like ‘regular’ lilies. I guess because their colors, golden, yellow, red, orange, peach . . . are so distinct.
“I have those flowers in my garden,” I said to Stefani, “I cut some and put them in a vase, and the next day they were dead.”
“Well yeah, those are daylilies,” she responded. “They only live for a day.”
And this is how I came to learn why the ones in my vase at home had lasted, well, one day.
She proceeded to tell me more about the flower, information I won’t bother sharing with you because learning about flowers is not the point of this story.
(I’m getting to the point.)
Before I became aware of their name and the whole one day of life thing, I had already decided that I was not going to go around cutting more of these flowers and putting them in vases inside my house. Before Stefani told me about their life span, I had discovered on my own through trial and error that these flowers would be better enjoyed in the garden.
For the time being at least . . .
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This is a story about how doing less in bulerías can serve us well. It's the follow up to the previous post on observation. Read on, and find out how to simplify your bulerías and perhaps even your life a bit too.November 2013, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
She said she was going to show them how to dance on a losa.
Pequeña,
Y por fiesta.
Small,
And party style.
It was Ani who said that. Ana María López. She said it on a Monday morning in Jerez.
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A story on the value of observation from a past Flamenco Tour (followed by four bulerías take-aways):
Sunday night I was writing
About flamenco and Jerez and what I'm doing here and what I want to learn here.
And I set some intentions for the week.
I had a few.
One was to Observe
To observe people dancing bulerías. Especially people whose dancing I liked. In class and out. Anywhere and everywhere.
To watch them, really watch them. And to notice what was happening.
To notice how they responded to the cante.
To notice how they danced with the compás.
To notice when they did what they did.
To notice the things I liked.
To notice the things that worked.
Maybe even to notice the things I didn't like.
And to notice the things that didn't work.
On Monday morning I went to bulerías class
That was the day Ani taught the ladies about dancing on a floor tile. I'll tell you about that in the next post.
It was also the day she read my mind.
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I have some more bulerías advice from Ani for you about feeling good today. But first,
Let's talk briefly about steps
Because you learn a lot of steps in in bulerías class.
You could say they are just steps.
To play with.
To practice.
To try out.
To hold on to. (Or to let go of.)
They can even be thought of as tools for understanding how the conversation works.
But going back to the liking them thing...
One day in Jerez