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alonewiththemoonOne of my holiday gifts was this samba dvd from World Dance New York--I'm so impressed with the DVD! The teaching is clear and straightforward, and I really appreciated the way the instructor would demonstrate steps at a slower tempo several times before moving up to full speed (which in the beginner choreo, the one I did today, I'm sure is still not full speed as samba goes). It definitely was to my advantage to be accustomed to a dance form that relies on free movement of the hips, so it's a little hard for me to guess how this DVD would be for a non-dancer or somebody from a strict ballet or jazz background. Movements are demonstrated clearly and cleanly, but there is not much detailed breakdown of how to achieve specific movements. A particular movement described as a hip circle was totally confusing to me until I realized it was really a vertical hip circle with a sway to it taken in a bigger circle while pivoting on the non-vertical hip-circling leg (see? confusing!). I would totally take classes with the instructor in real life, if that were ever an option.
You *cannot* dance behind the beat in samba, so this is going to be very good for me in terms of making me move fast and on the beat while not looking/feeling chaotic, something I feel I need to work on. It's a fun challenge to listen to a different style of percussion and find the patterns in it. I'm really looking forward to getting some of this stuff down so that I can make the correct nod to the samba rhythms that frequently pop up in drum solos, not to mention pretend I'm Tahia Carioca ;-) Plus, it's a great aerobic workout, much more strenuous than belly dance, even saidi. My foot handled it pretty well; my knee was a little twingy, but I think that's more a result of not enough stretching over the last few days and some knee pain was inevitable today no matter what type of dance or exercise I did. Some yoga afterwards helped clear it up.
You *cannot* dance behind the beat in samba, so this is going to be very good for me in terms of making me move fast and on the beat while not looking/feeling chaotic, something I feel I need to work on. It's a fun challenge to listen to a different style of percussion and find the patterns in it. I'm really looking forward to getting some of this stuff down so that I can make the correct nod to the samba rhythms that frequently pop up in drum solos, not to mention pretend I'm Tahia Carioca ;-) Plus, it's a great aerobic workout, much more strenuous than belly dance, even saidi. My foot handled it pretty well; my knee was a little twingy, but I think that's more a result of not enough stretching over the last few days and some knee pain was inevitable today no matter what type of dance or exercise I did. Some yoga afterwards helped clear it up.
