How to turn and don't feel nausea

At the beginning I had problems with the turns, and there are a lot of turns in the polish folk dance, belive me. You can rotate around yourself or doing other steps with your partner. In general, it looks very effectively, but the work that you should put in practice the turns is huge! 

The first and basic rule of the turns is to come back with your eyesight to the same point you were looking. Otherwise, I'm sure you'll feel nausea and don't stand still in one place. It's important to never lose sight of one element of the scenery we chose to follow. The movement of the head have to be really fast. OK, that's the case of turns without your partner. But if you dance with somebody, it's necessary to look at him/her and wide smile :) 

At the moment we learned to turn the basic step of oberek, the turns similar like in the ballet and other one called okroczak. We do it with the heels on the floor and with the knees bended. And, of course - you mustn't forgive about the hands collocated pertly in the waist. I like it, altought it doesn't seems so subtle like a ballet turn which we do on the fingers.

And the last one I want you to know is the drobna kaszka turn. The dancers cross the hands and hold their hands. Then they start to turn together in one direction and next, in the other. It remembers a mill and the action of mill something with an instrument invisible between the dancers. The shape of their bodies should look like a glass of wine - the legs together and near and the sholders far.

I think that turn on a slant of the gymnasium is the worst exercise we do. I never finish it because of nausea :D I need many classes more to achieve success in this area :)

Sick conscientiousness?

Me, telling me off and philosophizing

Today is the first time I didn't go to the dance class. Maybe it is not an horrible crime, altought I'm feeling guilty. Can you understand it? Because me, not.

I think it's pretty delicate subject for me. I consider myself too conscientious person. Many times I don't let me take it easy, relax and much less to be lazy. I fell always responsable of everything. In the case of today's class, there weren't any obstacle to go. I didn't have urgent homework or other activity to do in this time. So the problem consist in that I don't know which was the reason of my decision. I fear to say that it was... laziness.

Actually, it was strange. When the class at the university finished, I had more or less one hour and a half. Like I didn't have it clear, I was just strolling into the tram station and asking me: which direction I will choose?

Concluding, I need to rezognize that when I got home, I regreted I hadn't choosed enjoy the dance class... However, I would like to defend me, explain the fact that occured. I have the right to loose so many classes as I want. I shouldn't categorize my election like a weakness, I think. There is no justification, that's truth, but it doesn't mean that I must give it every time I want to do this or other thing! 

Oh, so philosophical and psycological this post! Yes, but it forms part of my folk adventure. At the moment the unique negative consecuense of stay at home today will be perhaps unawareness of new steps, if they learn them, of course (not always we learn new things; sometimes we just repeat and improve what we know already). I sincerly hope the next time I won't doubt about go or don't go. Because, after all, the aim is TO ENJOY :)

There is a new muscle on my thigh!

One of the most difficult parts of my dance class is the warm-up. Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but it is not. The reason? Our warm-up are ballet steps and positions! I was surprised that we look about it, but it turned out that ballet is the base of everything we learn and will learn of folk dance. So let me introduce you a few details of what I practise every Tuesday and Thursday.

First of all, there are five basic positions which allow to do the basic steps.

 

We almost stand in the third position, but the other four are very important. The fifth make me wobble always! It requires that the legs be very streched, that's obvious, and the mines it is not.

Now, we can pass to know the essential terms. The steps or techniques I knew are: demi plié, grand plié, jèté, frappé, grand battement, relèvé, sauté, passé, battement tendu, battement jèté, rond de jambe par terre and changement. It's possible that I forgot some names, but I should confess that until now I won't able to remember this french nomenclature! I just need to absorb it like a vocabulary to the French class. The truth is that I know French, but I have the right to not understand it when somebody say french words with polish accent, right? Fortunately, in the Internet there are a lot of videos. They help me associate what we do in the class with the terms as such. Have a look of one of them:

Thanks to the steps with "plié" which mean "to bend" (standing leg or legs) I really sculpted my thighs! I discovered I have other muscle I didn't feel before and it's the vastus lateralis muscle. I just hope that in one year I will fit in the same size of jeans! :D