I've decided to track the total number days I get in a good practice. I saw that after 21 days of practicing the riq a few minutes a day, I was able to do a decent job of playing the maqsoum rhythm. I've been practicing bellydance, voice, and piano for far longer than that. Now, I won't be practicing 365 days in a row - I intend to take off at least one day, and mostly two days a week. So here goes.
I begin my practice with four physio exercises - side leg raises, clamshells, glute bridges, and figure four stretches. I did the kathak warmup consisting of the namaskar, tatkar footwork, mobilizers, and stretches. I intend to work on just this the rest of this week, and add on more material gradually.
I finally completed the last 36 minutes of “Datura Style Fundamentals”. The Cherry Moon combination is a genuinely advanced movement which made me understand why the Datura Style Focus program was recommended for intermediate to advanced dancers. After lunch I did a cardio bellydance class by Kamrah from YouTube.
I watched several videos from the Versatile Musician to give myself material to practice on the piano this week. I watched Lesson 3: The Blues from the Piano Improvisation course. I reviewed the Tonic Triad lesson from the solfege course. I watched the lesson on minor 7th b5 chords from Piano Skills For Singers Level 2. And I watched the Week 3 lessons from Piano Technique and Ear Training exercises.
For the first time in a while I practiced harmonica for five minutes, working on the C major scale. I think I'm getting better at playing the B before high C.
I practiced maqsoum rhythm with fills for 10 minutes on riq. Tomorrow I might start working again on the malfuf rhythm.
I practiced the gallop - LRL - on the zils for five minutes. I'm thinking that tomorrow I might start practicing the 3-1-3-1-3 pattern, because I've learned that before.
I studied the body percussion tutorial from Salvo Russo, and finally figured out what I needed to do in the third exercise.
And I remembered to practice the flower mudra - I was in the bathtub at the time, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.
Tonight I had the first class of the online song poetry course, Every Day Is A Love Song. Anjalica Solomon was kind enough to gift me a scholarship. I did some free writing for five minutes on a prompt she gave from a lovely pop song.
I thought doing Ashley Lopez's “Low Back Love” from Month 2, Week 1 of Datura Style Focus after all this would be too much for me, but it was actually highly restorative.