One YouTuber I follow is Kelsey Rodriguez, who has become successful as a business coach for visual artists. In one of her videos she discusses a concept called the Energy Menu, which is especially relevant to chronically ill creatives, disabled creatives, and any creatives dealing with low energy issues. 

I haven't followed the details outlined in that video exactly, but I found the concept of an Energy Menu useful for dealing with the fluctuations of my energy. I have a habit of writing overly aspirational to-do lists, and it's taken me years to come to terms with the fact that some days I will be super-productive and be able to chop produce, clean my bedroom, clean the bathroom, do college homework, practice dance and conditioning, AND work on my music, all in the same day. And some days it's all I can do to watch the 27-second “Drumline” choreography performance talk by Ebony on Datura Online to keep up my 365 Day Streak to qualify for a year's free subscription to the online dance classes. Using the Energy Menu, each day I choose which tasks on my to-do list I feel up to doing. And my morning decision might change after a refreshing nap after lunch, or on the other hand if we've decided to run errands in our neighbourhood. 

In the morning I did Colleena Shakti's 15 minute plank workout, the third and fourth section of Heather Louise's Qanun Over Cairo choreography, the Club Belly Dance: Sonic Jam 4 drill video by Morgan Fay, and a yoga cooldown by Rachel Brice.  I've decided to begin working out at the gym on Monday afternoons before class. Today I did:

1 set of 20 leg scissors

Warm up sets for each exercise

Wide lat pulldowns - 40 lbs, 3 x 6

DB rows - 10 lbs, 3 x 6

DB bench press - 8 lbs, 3 x 6

DB RDLs - 10 lbs, 3 x 6

DB overhead press - 5 lbs, 3 x 6

Treadmill - 10 minutes.

I used 2 minutes rest between each set with my goal of body recomposition. I added the cardio at the end because I still had some juice in me and wanted to pass the time before class. Next time I will do 8 reps for the working sets. I hope to go up in weights the week after. 

I had a good year. I took a college course in public speaking in the winter semester. I was hoping it would prepare me for a career in keynote concerts. As it turned out, my public speaking skills weren't as strong as I hoped, although I did end up giving two speeches for the non-profit that I work for. I gave a speech about my experience living with disability and a second speech about my experience working as a grant writer, and was well compensated for both. As my instructor said, “Success is a poor teacher.” Since I have three college courses with good grades so far, I'm planning to complete my Certificate in Communications at Douglas College, inshallah by April 2025.

I completed a job prep certificate called Skills For Life, and certificates in WHMIS, SuperHost, and FoodSafe. I completed an office assistant certificate with courses in Word, Excel, Outlook, office administrative procedures, and telephone skills. 

My piano skills have improved a lot over the past year. I started by working with the Alfred Basic Piano book, but didn't like it. Then I started working with the RCM Level 1 syllabus material. Eventually I discovered Brenda Earle Stokes'  online membership The Versatile Musician. I can now play major triads, minor triads, and diminished triads in root position and inversions; seventh chords; and sus chords. I sketched out chord progressions for several of my original songs and started to learn several western pop songs on piano. Unfortunately, I've been playing the piano so much, my wrist started hurting, and I've had to take a break over the last few weeks and do physio exercises most days. But it's getting better. I helped my mother with her ukulele practice, teaching her music theory rudiments. I began practicing harmonica, tambourine, finger cymbals, and body percussion and enjoyed it, although I'll have to take a break from it for a while because of college, work, and volunteering.

I've started doing teacher training sessions in Indian classical music with my vocal coach Neeraja Aptikar. I recently began working on an Indian fusion cover version of U2's “I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.”

I was hoping to learn the Rachel Brice and Colette Todorov material on Datura Online and do the 365 Day Challenge, which I had succeeded at last year. I wasn't able to do that - I sprained my tendon and eventually had to see my physiotherapist. It took me a long time to get back into practice. But I took my first ever live Improv Team Sync class with Jessica Roh, who said positive things about my video for Lizzo's “Special.” I'd made a few dance videos on YouTube at the beginning of the year but had given up at the lack of response. This December I started making dance videos again on TikTok. I'm not aiming to go viral, I'm aiming to record my progress as a dancer and as a musician - I'm eventually planning to upload voice and piano covers. I'm aiming to build a body of work, a portfolio.

In June I flew for the first time since 2005. I went to Sarnia, Ontario for my sister's wedding. I had a wonderful time, I wore pretty clothes and ate delicious food. As I previously wrote, I think I like travel, as long as it involves luxurious accommodations. 

All in all, it was an excellent year. I could have done without the ongoing wars and the surge in COVID. Here's hoping for peace and well-being in 2024.

I started my day doing the 5 minute warmup, Caroline Girvan's 10 Min BRACED CORE AND ABS workout, and EPIC Heat Day 2, which focuses on the shoulders. I feel that my core has weakened since my gallbladder surgery in 2016 - I used to be able to do plough pose easily, but not anymore. I'm not terribly interested in visible abs, although a flat belly would be nice. But I like the challenge of Caroline's abs workouts, and I think core work is important for posture and back health. I definitely find it easier to engage my abs during other exercises after doing a core-focused workout. I tried a couple of time to do the shoulder workout with 5 lb weights, but 2 lb weights were hard enough. The movements themselves were easy.

I did 20 minutes of vocal riyaz. Today I played threes on the finger cymbals for five minutes while performing different arm and leg positions, and managed to toss in a few hip circles in the process. I played maqsoum and malfuf on riq for five minutes each from memory, which is progress from before. I practiced the C major scale on harmonica for five minutes - I'm hoping to progress to playing the chromatic scale, and then play tunes reading tabs. I practiced the first body percussion routine from Salvo Russo's playlist from memory three times.

I started studying Class 3 in Guru Pali Chandra's YouTube kathak lessons, Padhant - How to say the bols (recitation). This class is about reciting the rhythm syllables while dancing. I'm familiar with the basic teentaal rhythm cycle she began with, because I've learned it at the beginning of my studies in Hindustani classical voice. Next time I'm going to do the kathak warmup I've devised first before practicing with the lessons, so that I can do the footwork fast enough while following along. 

I was feeling tired, so I didn't practice any of the piano exercises. My knees were feeling sore, so I did Ashley Lopez's “Knee Stabilization - Mat Exercises.”

I've discovered a new thing on YouTube, videos of kathak dancers minus their upper bodies performing percussive footwork with ankle-bells to popular Indian songs. I told Anjalica Solomon about this when we were having our second song poetry course. The theme of this week was grief. I talked about how although I know Tori Amos's “Spark” is about her miscarriages, it resonates with me as a song grieving the death of a homeland due to ecocide and climate change. During class I wrote one song about grief and came up with a song idea for the object writing exercise from Pat Pattison's “Write Better Lyrics.”

I got an extra hour of sleep due to the Daylight Savings Time change, which was nice. I was pleasantly surprised that my abs weren't screaming due to DOMS after last night's core workout. 
We went to Walmart to exchange the Saskatoon berry jam we'd bought by mistake for blueberry jam. When we came home Ma made us spiced chai. I usually don't have a second caffeinated drink in the day after my cup of coffee at breakfast, but it was cold and I wanted some nice black tea.

I chopped shallots and garlic for a noodle dish and peeled prawns for an acorn squash dish that Ma cooked. I wrote the previous post on kathak - I had asked a friend for feedback on my blog, and she suggested, among other things, that I go into greater depth into my practice. Slowly, slowly.

I decided against studying diminished 7th chords for the time being - I like my dissonance in moderate amounts. I watched the tutorial on sus 4 chords from Piano Skills for Singers Level 2. The sus 4 chord apparently shows up in a lot of pop and musical theatre, and substitutes the 4th for the 3rd in the major triad. It resolves to the major triad frequently in compositions. When I had viewed this tutorial previously I had noticed that it was easy to play, although Brenda cunningly has you play left hand block chords with right hand broken chords extending to the octave above at the end of the tutorial.

I watched the Week 4 tutorials from Piano Technique and Ear Training Exercises. It goes into A major. Here Brenda does something different, she has you play the chord progressions first singing the bass notes with scale degrees and solfege note names, and then doing the same with the top notes. This week's ear training focuses on singing the tonic triad in solfege, which is what I've been doing this past week as part of studying the Crash Course in Solfege. 

After dinner, for the first time this year, I lifted weights. I completed Day 1 of EPIC Heat, Uncomplicated Complexes, first doing the five minute warmup and the hip/knee/ankle mobility routine I had found on YouTube, and wearing my new supportive shoes. My knees still felt a little sensitive, but in several sections less so than when I had previously attempted this workout. I've learned how to do micro-adjustments to make things easier on myself. By the end I was dripping with sweat, even though it was a cold fall night in Vancouver.

I've made a practice plan for the next couple of weeks - I have a flu shot on Wednesday, so I'm taking a little more time to work on stuff:

1. kathak - learn how to speak the bols or Indian rhythm names while doing the basic footwork;
2. Bengali dance - practice the flower, bird, and fish mudras;
3. fusion bellydance - continue studying the Datura Style Focus program and practicing freestyle dance;
4. weightlifting - work on the EPIC Heat program, skipping the HIIT workouts;
5. body percussion - study the second tutorial and revise the first tutorial from Salvo Russo's YouTube playlist;
6. riq - practice the maqsoum and malfuf rhythms, hopefully in the same sessions so as to keep them fresh;
7. finger cymbals - practice the gallop and Masmoudi Saghir pattern, using the tips from Shira's article and eventually playing them with an Arabic song;
8. harmonica - practice the C major scale;
9. piano - practice singing moving notes to rest notes with solfege note names and hand signals. Practice the Week 4 Piano Technique and Ear Training exercises. Practice improvising the mini blues scale over the blues progression. Practice major 7th, dominant 7th, minor 7th, and sus 4 chords. Clap the beat of songs in ¾ time.
10. voice - practice vocal riyaz. Listen to the ragas that my teacher suggested.

I'm mostly resting on the weekends. Although I did chop up onion and garlic for Ma's basa steak dish, one of my favourites. I watched and sang along to Lesson 4 of the solfege course in The Versatile Musician, which focused on transitioning from moving notes to rest notes using the solfege note names and hand signals. I started creating a body percussion routine for one of my songs, “The Return of Shyama Mojumdar.” I learned the fish mudra from Riya's Dance Tutorials.

The trailer for “Hadestown” had kept showing up as an ad in my social media - they're touring in Vancouver right now. I'd been interested in learning “Our Lady of the Underground” as a song when I was considering auditioning for the Douglas College Music Diploma. I decided to check the songs out on YouTube. I was blown away by the performance of “Wait For Me” at the 2019 Tonys. I would have loved to see the show, but two tickets cost upwards of 230 dollars.  I remember when I was doing the Basic Musicianship program at Douglas I got to see “Rigoletto”, “Eugene Onegin”, and “Sleeping Beauty.” 

Today I watched the first 38 minutes of the American Ballet Theatre's staging of “Swan Lake” on YouTube. Ma told me she had watched it performed by the Russian Ballet in Dhaka with my brother when we were young. I hadn't gone to a lot of live performances back then, but I did see “Amadeus” and “Tasher Desh” performed by the drama troupe of my school Scholastica.

My glutes were sore today, probably from doing two sessions of dance yesterday, one with leg extensions that I haven't used in a long time. So I decided to work on my core with Ashley Lopez's “Powerhouse” from Datura Online after dinner. It still had its difficult parts, but a lot of it was easier than the previous times I had worked with it. My left thigh, however, cramped up at one point.

Today has been an exhausting day. I practiced the second tutorial from Salvo Russo's body percussion playlist, “Rock - Pop - Funky”. It was challenging, but I think I'm learning how to actually snap my fingers. I did the kathak warmup, two physio exercises, and “Maya, Jewel, and Arcs”, completing Week 2 of the second month of the Datura Style Focus program - I noticed details in Rachel Brice's video that I hadn't picked up before, such as how to transition the foot placement while doing the Arc. I practiced the malfuf rhythm on riq for five minutes. I practiced the 3-5-1-3 pattern (mostly) correctly on zils for five minutes. I practiced the C major scale on harmonica for five minutes. I chopped a bunch of aromatics and vegetables for Ma's cooking.

I had a good teacher training class with Neeraja Aptikar. She gave some information and raga examples of the last four thaats in Hindustani music, Poorvi, Asavari, Bhairavi, and Tori. She talked about how Hindustani ragas have to have a minimum of five notes, including Sa and at least Ma or Pa, and how ragas by definition must evoke feelings. She talked about how raga names derive from place and season.

I practiced singing the solfege scale up and down starting on low C, D, E, F, G, A, and B, and on middle C, D, and E flat - I tried going up to E natural, but my voice cracked on the high E. I practiced the solfege tonic triad with Do Mi Sol and hand signals in C and D. I practiced five note scales on the piano and technique exercises in D major. I tried improvising on the mini blues scale over shell voicings in a blues progression in C.

I was planning to start Rachel Brice's “Rib Up Study” today, but didn't feel up to it. I tried doing Heather Stants' “Dance Flow Yoga: Spiral & Fly” from Datura Online before dinner. I had trouble doing a pose in the opening floor sequence. But I could do Fallen Triangle, which I couldn't do the last time I tried this class. I tried practicing the sequence on my own without looking at the screen. So I was able to do the first 30 minutes, but didn't feel up to the challenge of learning the standing sequence, which I had never worked on before.

I'm trying to exercise after each main meal of the day to regulate my blood sugar. Yesterday after lunch we went to Metrotown - and yes, I totally count mall walking as exercise, especially when carrying a bunch of toiletries from Walmart and several pounds of groceries from TnT. After dinner I did Rachel Brice's “Daily Dose: Arabic Shimmy #1”. It made sense why “Low Back Love” was included in Month 2, Week 1 of Datura Style Focus, because the yoga warmup worked the low back a lot. I've done this video a few times before - I'm not fond of it, but I'm improving. I tried to fake out the last drill by alternating the bodywaves with the three quarter shimmies, since doing them simultaneously was beyond my capabilities.

I still have trouble doing the body percussion routine with the music at the end of Salvo Russo's tutorial. I did four physio exercises and lower body foam rolling this morning, followed by the kathak warmup and “Daily Dose: Pinball #1”. My grasp of the shimmy drills is improving. Because of my knee sensitivities I have trouble doing even slight level changes. I practiced the flower and bird mudras.

I chopped an onion, garlic, and Chinese greens, and helped Ma on the ukelele. I did 35 minutes of vocal riyaz - I'm going to progress to the more difficult exercises in my notebook, some of which I have never tried on my own. I played harmonica for five minutes - for some reason I get a more distinct tone playing the B before high C than playing the B before middle C.

I played the pattern 3-5-1-3 on my zils for five minutes, but kept fumbling. I'm going to work on this further. I played malfuf with fills on riq for five minutes. I'm getting better at playing the different sounds in the correct order, but I still need to work on this rhythm.

I spent an hour finally finishing reading “Grant Writing for Dummies.” I was feeling tired, so I didn't get much of a piano practice done - I did practice five note scales, technique exercises in D major, blue shell voicings, solfege scales up and down in E, F, G, A, B,C, and D, and the solfege tonic triad in C and D.

After dinner I worked with Ashley Lopez's “Kick Butt”. It's an excellent no-impact Pilates strengthening routine for the legs, which is useful for those with knee sensitivities like myself. I intend to return to it in the future.

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.

So, it's been a while since I updated my blog. I was taking online classes in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook, and office administrative procedures and telephone skills five hours a day Monday, Wednesday, and Friday over August and September. I got my office admin certificate from the school with excellent grades.  

I learned that I need a total of 15 recent transferable credits to transfer from Douglas College to Vancouver Community College, if I want to take the Music Diploma there. Of the three college courses I did at Douglas last year, only Academic Writing transfers to VCC. But all three do count towards the Certificate in Communications at Douglas, and I only need 21 more credits to obtain that credential. So I'm planning to take the courses I need for the certificate and hopefully graduate from Douglas finally by the summer of 2025. At least this way I have more time to build my songwriting chops and music theory knowledge by the time I audition for the September 2025 intake at VCC.

I managed to keep up a minimalist piano practice while doing my office admin courses. I recently started four note chords - I'm working on major 7th, dominant 7th, and minor 7th chords on the piano. I'm working on building hand strength and flexibility to do the four note chords by doing them broken first, and once my hands stretch out, to try doing them solid. Although it might be easier to do them in inversions, because the 1st and the 7th are then next to each other.

I've started to learn how to play the riq. I bought one in 2012 but struggled to play the ka/tk on the jingle until last year. I buckled down last month and decided to aim to practice playing the riq for at least 100 days. So far I'm up to day 17. I've been practicing the maqsoum and malfuf rhythms, which I've been learning from Ken Shorley's videos on YouTube. Once I've gotten some chops down, I'd like to start studying the late Faisal Zeidan's videos from Datura Online, and then begin studying Karim Nagi's DVD, which I'd bought when I bought the riq in the first place.

A week ago I started Hot Pot Improvisation Team Sync classes with Jessica Roh. It was wonderful. She was very encouraging and said I did an amazing job of picking up the cues and the ground zeros for Hip Figure Eights (the corrected term for Taxeem), Floreo Poses, and Upper Undulations. 

Last year my vocal teacher Neeraja Aptikar had given me her blessing to teach singing. I had hesitated, but finally I decided to undergo teacher training with her when Jessica said she would be interested in trading dance classes in exchange for lessons in Indian singing. So far I've done two teacher training classes. I'd told Neeraja that I was interested in learning sound healing, because I thought it would be easier. Hah! Neeraja started by having me sing dhrupad with her in the first class. I'm proud of myself that after all these years I was able to follow along with her with ease. She suggested I listen to dhrupad performances by Uday Bhawalkar in Yaman and Bhairav on YouTube. In the second class she focused more on music theory and history, started with information about three ragas in thaat Bilawal, Durga, Bihag, and Alhaiya Bilawal, and suggested I listen to kheyals and bandishes in Alhaiya Bilawal. 

I recently started studying the Datura Style Focus program. I probably won't be able to take Initiation because it's either in March or September and I will be in college at that time for a few years. But I still want to learn Rachel Brice's material. I've finished most of Month One, except for “Shoulder Love”, and I've completed the first hour of the “Datura Style Fundamentals” video.

I finally got stabilization shoes from SportChek yesterday. A lovely salesclerk steered me away from the ASCIS shoes, which my physiotherapist had recommended, to the Saucony brand. He said that because my feet were very flat I need a lot of support, and I need wide shoes in a size 7.5 or 8. He's only completed high school but has run lots of marathons. I hope they pay him well, because he's so knowledgable and helpful.

I'm surprised by how much I got done in the past few days. I wrote, practiced, and submitted to my teacher and class meeting chair the outline for my mini voice lesson, which I'll be presenting as the second speech for my college course next Wednesday - it's supposed to be a demonstration speech. I do have to create a document with the visual aids, that is the vocal exercises and song lyrics. I submitted my reading response video and the self evaluation for last week's workshop presentation. Yesterday I rewrote my song “Naive” using western style chord progressions in D minor at a practice session with my friend Tracey. Afterwards we went to a live band karaoke benefit for the Vancouver Tenants' Union. It started late, so after singing “You Oughta Know” Tracey drove me home. 

Over the last three days I filmed seven full-length dance videos for my YouTube channel - unfortunately one of them was struck down right away due to a copyright claim, sigh. But I'm hoping to keep making dance videos for my YouTube channel over the coming weeks. A video that I filmed for an Arabic pop song yesterday has already got 122 views. I was just listening to an old podcast from over two years ago that talked about the many benefits of doing a 30 day/50 day/100 day/365 day creativity challenge - getting better at one's craft, pushing past perfectionism, putting oneself out there, building a community around one's art, creating a body of work. I hope I can keep it up.

This was a challenging workout, but soothing for my knees. It began with intention-setting - I sat in hero pose instead of half-lotus, which I find difficult due to my tight hips. It went into some vinyasa flow sequences incorporating plank, downward dog, and chatarunga dandasana. These were difficult for me but got slightly easier along the way. There were some crescent lunges, side bends on the floor, and supine hero pose, ending with corpse pose. I wasn't able to do dancer pose at all, which I used to be able to do in the past.

I managed to squeeze in my dance practice between breakfast and my online grant-writing meeting at 10 AM. Class 2 focused on the Rib Up movements in Datura Style - rib cage lifts, chest lifts, bodywaves, undulations, Wave Step (formerly Arabic), and Inverted Wave Step. It was good to go over these movements and distinguish between the rib cage lift and the chest lift. When I first started studying bellydance many years ago undulations came easily to me, so I didn't practice them as diligently as I should have, and now they're rusty. I'd like to do the 90  x 90 practice with bodywaves as Rachel Brice recommended, especially in order to prepare for deep backbends. I was doing that at one point but I fell off the wagon. No matter how hard I try, the timing for the Inverted Wave Step just doesn't seem to click in place for me.

I'd been dreading today's grant writing meeting because I had been working on a challenging grant writing application, and instead of emailing my coworker to help me out, I emailed my boss over the weekend and never heard back from her. Today she told me she never read my email, and as it turned out the application required complicated documents that my coworker would probably not have been able to help me with.

We went out afterwards to run some errands. My mother picked up an activity guide from the local seniors' centre. I went to the library to pick up my USB drive, which I had left there a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of self-help books - as I told the librarian, I didn't have the bandwidth to read “real” books. I met up with my mother at Shoppers Drug Mart in the mall. We discussed whether we should pick up milk and eggs from there - Ma gets a seniors' discount on Thursdays which makes them cheaper than from the supermarket. We decided to go to the Shoppers at the skytrain station to pick up some other items that weren't at this location. We had lunch in the food court. I had Italian hash and Ma had grilled boneless chicken thighs with potatoes and vegetables. The restuarant was run by a single Asian man who was nice enough to give me free green onions and cheese sauce. Ma was wavering over which soft drink to get. I steared her away from the Crush cream soda, which I knew would be too sweet for her tastes, and suggested she get the Fresca. She liked it. She picked up a few things from Walmart, and then we took the bus to the skytrain station. I waited at a bench while she shopped at the drugstore. Someone had left a blank passport application on the bench. A woman came up to me and asked if the bags on the bench were empty and if she could have one. When I replied no, she apologized for being scattered and repeatedly said she was having a terrible day. She took the envelope and said she would drop it off at the police station nearby. At first I was suspicious, but I realized that she just wanted to be a good citizen, and who was I to deny her that. Ma and I took the bus home.

I've done Ashley Lopez's Beginner Fusion Series Class 1 a few times before. She begins with a brief Pilates-based warmup, which I found excruciating, but got the job done - I was able to maintain good bellydance posture, and even managed to do a deep level change with the snake arms at the end of class. She broke down a basic travelling footwork pattern, glute locks, hip lifts with one foot up and oblique contractions, shoulder and chest isolations, and snake arms. I've learned the majority of these movements a long time ago, but it's always good to go over the foundations.

Today I presented a workshop on body language in my Public Speaking class at college. I thought I did a better job this time than on my first speech, but I got a smaller percentage grade for this assignment. My instructor was very nice about it and said he didn't place much emphasis on grades as a measure of education, and that what was important was the feedback you got and what you learned in the end. He said none of his instructors ever asked for his GPA and that it was only important when applying to grad school. I still felt sad, but I felt better after writing my second speech, a demonstration speech. I will be teaching a mini voice lesson on how to sing Indian songs, using vocal exercises, and "Kehna Hi Kya" as an example.

I did "Pilates Conditioning and Warm Up", rested a little, and decided to do "Basic Full Body Pilates Workout." I've done it several times before, and this time found it mostly easy. It started with a brief talk about the movement arts creator Joseph Pilates and the benefits of Pilates for bellydancers. It consisted mainly of core exercises, and ended with a few exercises from the sideline series aimed at strengthening the glutes, and a few gentle stretches as a cooldown. I've alway found it challenging to keep my legs up during core exercises, but it got easier this time.

Today I worked again on the intro, chorus, and first verse of "Kehna Hi Kya" on voice and keyboard. I learned that I got accepted into one of the four online artist development workshops offered by the Tiny Lights festival, Shruti Ramani's "The Art of Vocal Practice." I was disappointed that I didn't get into the other three, but they were very nice about it and encouraged everybody to apply again. On the downside, I learned that the guest speaker scheduled to appear at our college class next week would be appearing on March 8th instead, so I have to present my second speech next week instead of after reading break.

Recently I watched a couple of videos:
The Secret is to Train Your Body All Day Long

You Can And SHOULD Train Every Day!

This has inspired me to change the way I approach my movement practice. Note that neither of them are talking about training intensely all seven days a week. Ashley Lopez recommends doing stabilization exercises regularly for everybody, so I'll try to fit them into my rest days. Today I did her "Pilates Conditioning and Warm Up" from Datura Online. I got a good burn in my glutes and my knee felt better. Later on I did one round of side leg raises, leg circles, and clamshells, and an hour later a round of side leg raises and clamshells.

I find it hard to focus on playing difficult parts on keyboard for extended periods of time due to my bipolar/ADHD. Today I first practiced the intro and part of the chorus of "Kehna Hi Kya" on voice and keyboard. I took a break and practiced the rest of the chorus. After a second break I practiced the first verse of the song.

I submitted my workshop outline to my teacher and the classmate who'll be chairing the next in-class meeting. I downloaded an e-book, "How to Grow A Blog in 2023", from Ultimate Bundles. I'm a quarter of a way through - I'm not sure how much I'll be able to apply to my own blogging right away, but I like free education.

I wasn't able to work on "Kehna Hi Kya" on voice and keyboard as much as I would have liked to. I had a good class on Wednesday and three assignments - a peer speech evaluation, preparing for presenting next class's workshop, and creating a reading response video. The peer speech evaluation was relatively easy because my classmate had presented an excellent speech. Critiquing polished students is easier than critiquing struggling students. I needed to expand my workshop, which when I ran it through in front of my mother was only 8 minutes, to between 20 and 30 minutes. Luckily one of my classmates came to my rescue and advised me to include clips from relevant videos during the workshop. I had to write down the notes for the reading response video today to make sure it was between 1 to 2 minutes long. 

On Thursday I had a grant-writing meeting and a meeting with an accessibility specialist. She suggested I speak to my student success advisor about applying for student funding and encouraged me to undertake lifelong learning at college even if I didn't intend to obtain a credential. In the afternoon I went to the local mental health clinic to meet with my case worker and a new community living support worker from a different organization to set up independent living goals as part of my contract for obtaining a rent subsidy. We decided that she would be my accountability partner for me trying to get out of the house more often, getting a job, and creating a bunch of voice and keyboard covers for my YouTube channel.

On Saturday we went to New West Skytrain station to pick up my mother's medications. We went to River Market, where a crafts fair was taking place, which took me by surprise. Apparently it's happening every weekend or once every two weeks. I met an author of self-published books who sold their own jewellery along with their paperbacks. I saw a book continuing the story of Alice in Wonderland, so I asked them if they had started out with fan fiction. I learned that they used to write Gimli/Legolas stories based off of Lord of The Rings. I had a lava cake and a Mexican juice at a cafe in the food court, while Ma had a three layer cake. She bought a herbal tea, but burnt her throat trying to drink it. We had a pleasant walk down the river. She took a photo of the sun in the sky.

This week I did the first two days of the Datura Online program Intro to Fusion Belly Dance and the first two days of the conditioning program Fusion Fit 1. I was tired today after doing four loads of laundry with Ma, so I did Nikki Mae's knee/hip rehab video.

Today's workout session began with Colette Todorov's "Warm Up For The Lower Body". It consisted mainly of some gentle stretches, balance work, plies, and quad stretches. It was a good warm up for Ashley Lopez's "Built: Lower Body Strengthening" - Ashley's workout is supposed to be a warm up in itself, but it was strenuous, and it was nice to have some prep work because of my knee issues. "Built: Lower Body Strengthening" consisted of half sun salutations, lunges, balance work, warrior pose, chair pose squats, and downward dogs. At one point I used blocks as she suggested to modify the poses. During the knee to elbow section of the downward dogs I kept my opposing knee on the floor to support myself. The session ended with Ashley's "Cool Down For The Lower Body And Spine", which was a relaxing cool down from a rigorous workout. I find balance work challenging, but I like having it included in workouts in order to improve on it.

Today I did my first dance class of February - Week 1, Day 2 of Datura Online's program Intro to Fusion Belly Dance, Zoe Jakes's "Old School Moves". I did a warm up using Ashley Lopez's "Pilates Conditioning and Warm Up" video. My left knee had started feeling wonky again, but it felt better after the conditioning video.

In "Old School Moves" Zoe Jakes teaches traditional bellydance movements she had learned from Katarina Burda, Jamila Salimpour, John Compton, and Jill Parker (the Campfire Step). These are foundation movements for her format DanceCraft. She teaches Egyptian, Heel Toe Toe, Twist Step, Stomp Step, Choo Choo, Sit Toe Toe, Pivot Shift Step, Zafira Turn, 1 in 6, Step Forward Back Forward, Arabic 1, 2, and 3, Push Turn with Palms, Samiha, Pivot, Taxim Dip Turn, Three Step Turn, and the Campfire Step. At the end of the class she did an improvisational drill with all the movements she had taught. The hip isolations were simple, the arm patterns were simple, but putting it together with tricky footwork was the challenging part. I got a good sweat - Zoe Jakes in her video "Why Study Old School Moves?" had talked about how these movements were a cardio workout in itself.

I got a lot done in January. I've been doing well in my Public Speaking course at Douglas College. I've been keeping up with all my assignments. I created my first dance video for YouTube in a long time. I wasn't able to do all of Rachel Brice's livestreams this month, but I'm glad I tried, because it made me realize that I needed to work on conditioning to heal my knees, which I've been doing over the past couple of weeks. I did some volunteering as a grant writer and as a Student Ambassador at the college. I've been blogging regularly. I went to a cooking class and had my first western voice lesson in a long time. I've learned how to sing and play the keyboard melody of the intro, chorus, and verses of "Kehna Hi Kya." I've played scales, arpeggios, chord inversions, and  i-VI-VII and i-iv-VII chord progressions in A, D, and E minor. We went to the Bangladeshi Cake festival (Pitha Utsav) in Burnaby on Sunday.

I've decided to pair Intro to Fusion Bellydance with Fusion Fit 1 over the next few weeks. I think I completed Fusion Fit 1 in 2020, but I wanted to do it again to build my strength before doing more advanced conditioning.

I've done this class several times, including the time I did it in the first week of Ashley Lopez's Integrated Dance 1 Prep program from Datura Online. I've gotten a handle on the exercises. It began with setting an intention - my word was "healing". The sun salutations weren't as difficult this time as they had been before. My knees felt good while doing the seated and standing lunges. What was difficult was tree pose - I was barely able to raise my foot to just below my knee, and I kept stumbling down. I was able to do the standing twists without straining my knees, although I wasn't able to do the full twists. The feet and wrist stretches and the cool down at the end felt good.

One of my dance goals for this year has been to study the Rachel Brice and Colette Todorov classes on Datura Online to deepen my knowledge of Datura Style and its predecessor, Fat Chance Belly Dance Style (formerly known as American Tribal Style). I'm thinking of applying for the 8 Elements Phase 1: Initiation scholarship. I really want to train with Rachel Brice - she was the reason I started to study bellydance, and seeing a woman become successful on a global scale in her thirties as a dancer was a huge inspiration to me. Also, my best friend lives in Portland, Oregon, and I would like to have a reason to visit him regularly. It would be nice to train at an advanced level and connect with and perform with fellow dancers from across the world.

I decided to get back to the basics and start with the Intro to Fusion Belly Dance program. I worked with Datura Style Class 1 today. It began with a short introduction by Rachel Brice about the various influences on her style, Jamila and Suhaila Salimpour, John Compton, Masha Archer, Carolena Nericcio, and Mardi Love. There was a brief section on the anatomy of hipwork on the up, which went over my head - I really wish I had actually gone to the bellydance anatomy workshop Ashley Lopez gave in Vancouver in January 2020, which I had signed up for but skipped because of the torrential downpour that day.

Rachel started the actual class with a brief standing warmup including several forward folds, which she likes to do a lot in her classes. The first movement she taught was hip bumps. She taught them with a specific stance, upper body facing front and lower body to the diagonal. It was tricky to coordinate the hip lifts with pressing the foot down and then releasing the foot when the hip came down, especially because she was wearing big pants that concealed her feet. But I'm getting there. She taught arm circles with the hip bumps, first in and out and then out and in.

Next was the taxim, or hip figure eight down to up. She justified the name by saying it was a movement that really went well with taxim music ( solo improvisational sections in SWANA music). This is a movement that comes easily to me, so it felt like she was over-explaining, although it's always good to learn fundamentals again. I have struggled in the past with doing hip figure eights with my feet on the floor, but today I was able to for the most part. I was able to do the open arms "puppet master style", as she explained, with my elbows moving with the hips as though they were attached by strings.

The final movements were swings and glute locks. Rachel said one of her concerns when teaching swings was to make sure people didn't swing their hips incorrectly. The glute lock is kind of like a mini-combo where the hips move with glute contractions up, up, down, and then with oblique contractions up, down, up. It's combined with arms reaching together to the side with the glute contractions and then arms reaching upwards with the oblique contractions.

I've done this class before, but it was good to do it again. I was able to keep my knees bent in bellydance posture without feeling any strain, which is a good sign that the work I've been doing on knee conditioning has been helping.

This week I've been working further on "Kehna Hi Kya", singing and playing the keyboard melody of the intro, chorus, and first verse. I'm hoping to learn the second verse and put it all together with the chords next week.

Last Wednesday I presented my first speech of my course in Public Speaking, about "Why You Should Study Fusion Bellydance." It went well, although my eyes were glued to my notes on my smartphone rather more than I would have liked. The next day I submitted my self-evaluation on time and did my readings. I had some extra readings to do apart from writing the notes for preparing the reading response video, because in a couple of weeks I have to present a workshop on body language in public speaking. I was very nervous about writing the outline, because I had never done something like this before, especially because I had to make room for audience participation. But I successfully wrote it down yesterday. I now feel that I can accomplish anything I can put my mind to.

I had my first western style voice lesson online in a long time. We worked on "the fry", a vocal exercise used to increase one's range. My teacher gave me some tips on auditioning for the Douglas music program in voice, suggesting that I work on singing intervals and hitting the notes precisely. 

I've been increasing the intensity of my conditioning exercises from Datura Online, all from Ashley Lopez, to improve my knee health. I worked with "Pilates Conditioning and Warm Up" on Tuesday, which consisted of the Pilates sideline hips series, which gave my glutes and hips a good workout. I followed it with "Slovenia Slam". On Wednesday I did "Powerhouse" followed by "Side to Side Undulation." The Thursday after my upper abs and neck were burning from the previous day's core exercises, so instead of doing "Kick Butt!" as planned I did "Upper Body Chair Exercises", which was a good workout on its own. On Friday I did do "Kick Butt." I took a rest day on Saturday and watched April Rose's performance of "Casino Badia" to maintain my streak on the Datura Online 365 Day Challenge. Today I did "Hip Love", which I was dreading because it had been intense when I had done it before. But it was actually quite chill. The hardest part was the diagonal leg raises in the middle of the workout. I've also found that wearing slippers and pants indoors to keep my feet and legs warms protects my knees.

This week I was able to practice keyboard, vocal riyaz, and songs more regularly - I started working on singing and playing "Kehna Hi Kya" on keyboard. I decided to give my left knee some TLC and worked with Nikki Mae's Knee and Hip Stability video from her Patreon five days in a row. I worked with a few of Rachel Brice's shorter videos from Datura Online. In her Hip Up study video she talks about how it's a good idea to get a great personal trainer to develop the strong legs needed to maintain bellydance posture for full hipwork. I skipped cooking class and dance club to work on my college assignments. I've been rewriting my first speech for my Public Speaking class to make it more of an actual persuasive speech as per the assignment requirements. My classmates gave good speeches in our last class, and I've learned a lot from them.

I was feeling depressed because I only managed to practice music and movement on Monday this week. I practiced some keyboard, vocal exercises, and singing, worked on a single Bengali dance step, and did Bevin Victoria's Isometric Core Workout, followed by Rachel Brice's Monster A. My knee acted up and I had to focus on Sedona's Knee Joint Exercises and Ashley Lopez's Knee Stabilization - Mat Exercises the past four days. I went to Metrotown to buy clothes on Tuesday, had a good college class in Public Speaking on Wednesday, had a grant writing meeting and a webinar with a funding organization on Thursday, went to a cooking class on Friday, and bought groceries with Ma yesterday. I felt better today after submitting a reading response video and writing the outline for the first speech for my college course. Doing laundry and putting it away also helped. My knee is feeling good now. A couple of bellydancers in the Datura Online Facebook group suggested that I work on strengthening my glutes and hamstrings to heal my chronic knee issues, so I'm looking into doing knee-friendly lower body workouts.