I rode my bike a whopping three miles yesterday and again today. My favorite part is the downhill part and going over the speedbumps! I did some belly dance drills afterwards. Then I had to make steamed rice to go with the salmon my husband barbecued. I have a song I might use to choreograph a sword dance. Practice sword dancing, that is. My teacher suggested the song and I think it'll work great. Speaking of my teacher...
I may have forgotten to mention that I danced downtown with my teacher and another tribe on Saturday night. As a result, I've learned that improv is not for me. No, no, no, no more improv for me to songs I don't know. When I danced in Southern California it was choreographed. I can memorize a dance. I am not so good at making up my moves as I go along. So. My teacher told me to dance with a sword on my head too, only I don't have a sword. I've practiced with hers for a couple classes and that's the sum of it. I enjoy using her sword and I balanced it pretty well if doing simple moves. Once I even got down to my knees and up again without dropping it. I was so thrilled. I practice at home with books on my head.
Well, I should have practiced my freedom of speech, but I'm lame and quiet. I gave her a look of petrified fear and she said, "You can do it." And she gave me not her sword, but a different sword that I've never even seen before. That should have set off the alarms, right? It did for me, but not her. But I still didn't say no.
Sigh. I went out with her and did it and that thing slid off my head about 80 times. It was a six minute song. Geez. It seemed to last forever. On the up side, it's a teeny town, I saw no one I knew, and the small crowd was really nice. I never dropped it, it just wouldn't stay. Then after the dance she told me she put wax on her sword to help it stay on her head. What!? I am never doing improv with her again. My ego was bruised, you can be sure of that, but I'm better now. It's funny because I never felt like crying, I was just upset. Truthfully, what upset me most was dancing poorly in front of the other dancers. It's just a darn good thing that I already performed a couple times because if that had been my first time I'd have been thoroughly discouraged from performing.
I did see one friend, Judy. She missed my dancing, but saw me afterwards and we chatted. She liked my costume and I told her I danced badly, so I'm glad she didn't see me. She wouldn't believe me and said she was going to tell everyone I was awesome. She lifted my spirits. Sure enough, she saw my husband at the market a couple days later and told him I was great. She was my angel that night.
