Contemporary journey @Dhurii
To take up any hobby as a profession, one needs to be highly disciplined. That’s my first lesson during the Induction program for Toolbox 3.0 on the evening of January 11, 2019. I see the crowd have mastered several dance forms already to be there. It's the perfection, the technique to be polished, and additional skills to be add-ons. We were instructed to drink glucose water, carry a notebook to make notes. It was the perfect place for all dancing professionals. I could feel the class energy which is so positive and infectious to try all the lessons without thinking whether I will be successful or will I land in a fatal fall.
The mentors are super motivating. It can only be the passion which drives all of us to wake up at 5:00 am to start our warmup and practice at 6:00 am during the weekday back. During the weekend batch, its insane 4 hours — 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. It's very much a state of trance when inside the studio. We have no idea what the outer world is until we step out. Our breaks are usually for 10 seconds for every two hours. Quoting Terence Lewis here — “One may be a Good dancer, but only after training one can become a Great dancer.”
I first heard the syllabus and my heart jumped a beat — It had classical Ballet, Yoga in addition to the contemporary form of dance - Everything I ever dreamt of! Every morning was a treat to me. I used to borrow Yulu Bike to the classes at 5:45 AM for 2 km cyclcling which was pretty much my warm up. The first month we were introduced to all the variations of dance forms. We started learning the techniques to master the skill.
The warmups were innovative. We were told to imagine ourselves as a tree and our legs are its roots. We placed the foot such that all parts touch the ground and the body weight is distributed equally across all parts of the feet. We had lots of variation of floor moves. We also used to play a game with commands like — forward fall, backward fall, jog, walk, roll, jump, and connect. We were told to look into each other’s eye while walking.
The body conditioning classes during Yoga and Ballet were worth a million bucks. The Yoga teacher questioned us — How many of you have been ever injured during our dance journey so far— All of us raised our hands. She explained that — We all do not understand what the capabilities of our bodies are. We tend to push it to the maximum which at times leads to injuries. If we understood what our body capabilities are — we would know where to stop — practice and then stretch to our limits. It made so much sense to us. When it comes to the muscle memory as well, remembering the routine should be natural. The body needs to know in which direction it can flow to complete and connect the moves rather than remembering the choreography as commands or right and left notations. It took me a month to realize this since I pretty much memorized the steps in my mind. Doing the suspension with zero momentum was really tough for me since I had a background of Gymnastics where we drive moves with an initial amount of energy. I had to unlearn certain techniques to start those with no momentum on the floor.
We also added animal walks like — duck walks, elephant walks, half suspensions like monkeys, frog jumps, reverse frog jumps, etc along with the sounds they make :) I bet it was silly but it turned out to be super fun. We learned the confident gaze and the importance of looking into other person’s eye, practicing to sit on the sit bones, head and tail connection etc we incorporated in our day-to-day life. The body bounce sessions followed by the jumps were so much fun. We could feel the vibrations and could not stop until it reverberated. Discovering what our bodies can do without thinking was really a challenge. If the mind stops restrict and don’t yell for pain, we can achieve wonders!
There were skill teaching and the techniques covered most of the routine which was the last part of the yet followed by the stretching. Backrolls and tumbles, suspensions were an integral part of the classes. Class etiquettes were very important when it came to following one direction, watching your group for coordination etc. We always are in a circle so that the energies are equally distributed. There are no superiorities. We are so thankful for the class and grab the vibes with a self-hug and group hugs towards the end.
At the end of the class, we used to shoot a video for revision and quickly write down the routines either pictorially or in words for reference. I even digitized the notes on my Google drive :)
P.S. I can't wait for our convocation and our final performance on stage :)
