Blogtastic
One of the VT Shooting Victims was a dancer.
This has been circling around on Tribe. It saddens me and makes it even harder to here about the shooting when you learn of the previous lives of the victims. This girl was a fellow dancer and human being. Please keep her and her loved one's in your prayers.I copied this from the link on tribe.
people.tribe.net/dancersdr...edfe952df2
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Dancing Through Life
Tagged from Ocalee's Blog | main
Love and Hugs for Reema's Loss
Wed, April 18, 2007 - 5:40 PM
Reema was a member of the Hill and Veil bellydance group at Virgina Tech. She was one of the victims of the recent shooting.
Her bio from the website reads, "Reema has been dancing since she was 2 years old. She has been classically trained in ballet, jazz, modern, hip hop and has had experience in many other styles. Her love for belly dance came from her Lebanese heritage and she has been exposed to it from a young age. She has taken classes, attended workshops and has performed for her Church's Middle Eastern Food Festival and in front of her high school. She won best individual performance in her school's talent show her senior year. She is very excited to be part of Hill and Veil and looks forward to learning and choreographing with her fellow members."
As a community of bellydancers, we all grieve this loss. Many have expressed wishes to send condolences to Reema's fellow dancers and family.
I have sent an email to the group at VT to see if we can send a card via VT to the bellydance troupe and another through the troupe on to Reema's family. I anxiously await their response.
In the meantime, please feel free to post messages here that you would like shared with those grieving Reema. I will print this blog and put with a card to send to the BD group at VT and another copy to send with a seperate card to Reema's family.
Love and light,
Ikiwiki
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Here is a link to her Dance Troupe if you wish to send your condolences.
www.hillandveil.org.vt.edu/members.html
Vegas!
I'm leaving for Vegas for a week! Go me! I'll be in touch as soon as I return!No I'm not dead yet....
Well...It's been ages since I've been on tribe.... I'm sure all the new friends I made through Tribal Fusion Faire must think I died or something. I think I did..... J/KTribal Fusion Faire ended up being SUPER DEPRESSING for me. I had been out of classes for a couple of months when I got there and I had a pulled hamstring. I sucked miserably..... I mean, I was bad before, but I actually got a lot worse. I couldn't keep up in Rachel Brice's or John Compton's class.... It caused me to take a bit of a hiatus from bellydance and Tribe. On top of that I started a new job a week later. And I've been working 9-6 every weekday for the last month. I start school next week and will be dropping to part time then.
I think I will start taking dance classes again when school starts again.
I'm really sorry I've been so out of touch everyone. I hope no one is offended. I'm on Tribe a little more regularly than I have been for the last few months. So drop me a line....
Dance Initiative
Well...since I've joined Tribe I've spent as much time as possible pouring through the various Tribes and posts about bellydance to learn as much as I possibly can...In fact. For the first 3 weeks that I've really used Tribe I've spent about 3 hours a day just going through posts... They've been absolutely informative.
I've also talked to some of the more practiced dancers I've met and received all sorts of advice from them. The main themes were 1.) Seek out another instructor. 2.) Just do it. 3.) Seek out another instructor. (They emphasized that a lot.)
I've been thinking a lot over the last few weeks and I realized something. I spend HOURS a day online pouring through LiveJournal, Myspace, and Tribe.net for information about bellydance.
I realized that it's as if I'm trying to learn to dance vicariously through the information and experiences of other dancers. I realize now that I've been wasting precious time. I shouldn't be sitting on my ass reading about dancing in hopes that it will help me to improve. (Although there is a lot of knowledge to be acquired about bellydance that does not involve dancing directly.) I should be busting ass and practicing. I'm not really sure what I've been waiting for... I guess I'm just scared of not succeeding as a dancer. In the last 9 months of classes I really don't feel like I've improved much. What is success as a dancer for me??? I guess just improving. Maybe moving up to intermediate classes... Hopefully performing one day... Getting payed to do it would be cool too....
Meh... I know this seems like a silly post... It should be obvious to me that this is the answer. I guess it seems like every time I take an initiative to do something it ends in failure. And it's not always my fault. It's rather discouraging. It seems as if I have dreadful luck. Sometimes I just feel sorry for myself. But what the hell??? It's better to try at something and fail rather than do nothing at all. Right???
So here are my current dance goals:
1) Find a new instructor.
2) Take classes with this instructor.
3) Practice for at least 30 minutes 3 times a week. (School/work keeps me really busy.) (Hopefully I'll spend less time on Tribe. I'm addicted to it like CRACK!!! That will free up more time.)
4) Move up to an intermediate level by the end of next year. (We're really at the end of this year, that gives me a whole 13 months to improve.)
5) Has nothing directly to do with dancing, but I want to get my Crochet Tassel Belt website up and running. The belts provide the money for the classes.) (I only pull in a measly $90/MONTH from my job.)
Any thoughts or advice??? What do you guys do to stay motivated when you feel like you suck??? Any words of wisdom???