Lightbulb Moments

onela

New member
I've had a billion of them, but none so funny as when I was doing my certificate IV in Lab Skills. I never understood chemistry. It was just fail fail fail the entire time. Nothing ever made sense, no matter how hard I tried. So after what was my fourth go at basic chemistry (thrice at uni) I was listening to the lecturer and writing notes when suddenly it stopped being swahili and suddenly congealed into English. I stood up in the middle of the lecture and said 'Oh finally. This all makes sense now. Thanks' and sat down with a very smug smile on my face.

Just think, I was a stupid English-speaking kid taking Chemistry in *French* for French Immersion in high school :( I never had any lightbulb moments in chemistry...

Dance-wise, I had a real a-ha moment when Nath Keo came to town. I finally "get" hip shimmies and the differences between them (even though I'm still not great at them). Also, the same day I did Nath's workshop? A lady- a total stranger!, upon hearing that I study belly dance, made a crack about how now "all you need now is a belly!". I've struggled with my appearance all my god damned life so that really hurt. But when I saw Nath dance at the hafla that evening, I really saw that you don't need to have tits and hips to belly dance. It was very validating for me.
 

teela

New member
I have had several ah ha moments that I am still working on utilizing in my dance.
1. Everything does not have to be symmetrical when you dance. (I work on this constantly).
2. You have to really listen to the music for inspiration rather than trying to fit pre done combinations to the music.
3. More is not always better.

As far as dance, I ended up with a lady who taught Egyptian style as a substitute and fell in love with it's subtleness.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
I had a lightbulb moment after a midterm in organic chemistry which went something like, "No matter how hard I study I am never going to get this." I quit studying, went to class, sat in the back row and drew pictures in my notebook. I got exactly the same grade on the final I didn't study for as the midterm I studied like crazy for.

Dancewise, my lightbulb moment came when my first teacher asked me to stay after class. I was almost sick to my stomach- thought she was going to tell me I was hopeless. After class she told me was she was moving me into the intermediate class (this was maybe my fourth lesson) because I was picking it up faster than the other students could go. Bing! Lightbulb: no more being one of the worst students in Madame Kim's adult ballet class when I could be the star pupil in Jacquie's belly dance class.:D
 

Ariadne

Well-known member
Maybe you could start with a DVD? That would be something you could keep for a long time, using it over and over, then put away for a while and later get it back out for a refresher.

That's actually my plan now that I've looked into it. I'm investing my money in my wish list of instruction DVD's first, I already have Nadira's 1st improvisation toolkit video and the podcasts and Artemis's DVD is on the wish list for purchasing too (if anyone has a used one for sell please speak up). Once I've caught up with that list I'll have more finances free and can move on to the online lessons. DVD's can only get me so far after all. ;)

Thanks for the suggestion though, it's nice to have confirmation that I'm on the right track.
 

Shara

New member
I have aha moments a lot whenever a student is having problems with a move and I have to figure out yet another way to explain it! I found that TEACHING made ME learn more, get more creative, and to think about moves that I had never had to think about doing (most of it came naturally to me). Having to think about it so that I could explain it to others also made me realize that this dance is very difficult for most people! I also realized that I love teaching much more than performing!!!! Wow!
 

Amanda (was Aziyade)

Well-known member
I just had a weekend workshop with Elena Lentini.

I had so many lightbulb moments in that weekend that my retinas are still burned and I'm seeing afterimages.

Just wow... (!!!)
 

AndreaSTL

New member
I was in a workshop with Vashti of Dallas when someone asked about the choreography and being on the wrong foot. Vashti passed along a gem she got from Farida Fahmy: you only have two feet, so if you are on the wrong one it must be the other one. :) Such a simple concept, right? Before that, though, there would be times where I wasn't ending up on the correct foot and couldn't figure it out. Rather than concentrating on what I was doing I started to concentrate on where I wanted to be.

Another big moment was in Yousry's weeklong. I had taken a few workshops with him before I did the weeklong, but there was a lot of his basic dance vocabulary that I was missing. Then it hit me! As involved as his choreography can be, it always makes sense. The right foot always follows the left or vice versa. There are no "whoop de doos" to try to start out with one foot or the other on the next phrase. Sometimes the weight shift is a quick shift-release, and sometimes it's an actual step but there's never a little hop to get to a specific foot. Many of the choreos I learned locally were subject to the whoop de doo. I always hated and struggled with them as they seemed to upset the flow of the dance, but I couldn't pinpoint why until I was in his class.
 

Darshiva

Moderator
I want to rep Vashti for that concept! I told the girls doing my workshop that I didn't care which direction they did my choreo, so long as they followed their feet and did the right moves it didn't matter. On stage one person going in the "wrong" direction looks like an accent if they're confident. I read the comment from Vashti's workshop the same way - that it's better to follow your feet with confidence than to worry about trying to get onto the correct foot.
 

jenc

New member
I was given the advice to follow the flow of the movement in a workshop, make sure that you are going in the same direction. then once you have it in your mind what you are trying to do - your feet will be right
 

astro_girl

New member
I can relate to this, and am still (internally) struggling with it, too! :)

My light-bulb moments weren't a technique epiphany, but I'll share anyway.

The first time I ever saw someone dancing in Egyptian style. I thought to myself, "That doesn't look like what I'm learning in my belly dance class. I wonder why?" Such was life before the internet. Incidentally, it was A'isha Azar at Azar's restaurant.

My second light-bulb moment was kind of a self revelation. I was thinking about my dancing and I asked myself, "What's Middle Eastern about this?" It was then that I decided I wanted to quit studying American Oriental, Pan Arabic and Tribal stuff and concentrate on native styles instead.
 

Fencai

New member
the darned 3/4 shimmy!!!!! I semi zoned out for a second as we started it, and part way, I realized that I was doing it! LOL I had been thinking about it too hard. Then I got too amused watching myself in the mirror and started giggling at myself :)
 

Manuela

New member
Well, let's see about lightbulb moments...!

In a workshop about spins and turns, the teacher told us a trick how to hold the balance during turns - by activating the latissimus muscles at the side of the upper body. That made a huuuuge difference, suddenly I was able to stay upright after most kinds of turns. Yay!

Then just last weekend, we had a workshop on sword dance. The teacher told us to consider the sword as an actual dance partner instead of a lifeless object, and had us explore our "relationship" to our dance partner...
At first it was kind of strange, but then I felt that the way that we students moved with the sword was changing completely!

:)
 

Fencai

New member
had another one last night while in class. When I realized I should be incorporating somethings that I learned from being in the Drama guilds in school and college....
Don't be afraid to make it big so the audience can see it.

DUH... this made doing a couple of moves so much easier, and I could see it in my body that it had "clicked". I wanted to smack myself in the forehead... lol
 

teela

New member
I had a lightbulb moment when I read about the 5 min workout. I use it on the nights that I am not feeling like doing anything. I tell myself I will work out for 5 mins and pretty soon, I discover I've gone 20 or 30 mins. 5 mins can easily multiply.
 
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