Every day make sure to laugh, sing and dance, and see the beauty in every beat of a living heart, and that’s a step to tuning yourself to healing yourself and the world a little more.
Savvy
Category Archives: Dancing
Art of Dance Coaching
When dance lessons are adapted to suit the requirements of a specific group there is greater relevance in dance education and its application.
Here are 6 Valuable Tips while conducting Adapted Dancing workshops.
1. Empathetic Communication
Communication is a very important part of any dance education. Especially so in dance workshops in special groups. When addressing a session it is important to keep a clear and empathic tone to establish a sense of connection and care. Whatever the language of communication maintaining appropriate eye contact provides the necessary connect of being spoken to in the session.
2. Simplicity of Steps
Breaking a pattern to teach by dividing it into simple steps or simplifying it all for every one by choosing easy to do steps makes it more relatable.
In case of dancers with balance issues it is necessary to initially modify / alter steps or reduce directional changes to suit these parameters and progress from there.
Ideally starting of with simply the foot work without working on the arm movements helps focusing on learning one thing at a time. The progression must be gradual in time.
Photo& Artwork credits Savvy Raj
3. Matter of Repetitions.
It is necessary to do a number of repetitive movements of the same steps in order for the muscle memory to form. Hence repetition helps more than switching to other movements.
Depending on the groups capacity to continue taking a pause, interspersed with explanation or some motivation in between is also a good idea so that it does not get too challenging or monotonous.
4. Ease of Formations
There are different dance formations like the square circle and line etc. However conducting the dance workshop in circular formation is known to bring about a sense of community.
Adapting other dances creatively to this formation initially helps when the participants can see the instructors movements in the center.
5. Slower Music
Besides choosing slow songs even decreasing the tempo of the music aids in keeping up with the music Especially for new group of dancers and dancers with special needs.
6. Value of Inclusiveness
Most importantly ensuring everyone in the group is feeling included and addressed to, is very positively impactful.
Coaching another and transferring skillsets is an art.
Make sure to be responsible for the life entrusted to you to mould.
Savvy Raj
Member International Dance Council
Body likes it best when you…dance !
Dance, it feels wonderful when you do.
Dance for your life to feel at ease.
Dance when you feel like and dance often!
Dance makes it all worthwhile.
Your body feels light and easy, as you dance.
The trick is to keep flowing
With the moves and continue dancing
As long as you enjoy the feeling…
Dance is not meant to harm the body.
But to heal your body and mind.
Integrating the spirit within you
So keep dancing …whenever you choose
For the body likes it best when you dance!
Savvy
Reflections in Rennes
Life reflects itself through the things you do, the people you meet as well as in your passions and perseverances, in so many intriguing yet enthralling ways.
One such beautiful reflection I am experiencing is right here happening in France.
A sense of deja vu, a throwback to a decade ago, fond memories of teaching dances to people in the different places, all thanks to the magic of movements.
I am visiting Rennes France currently and last week I went to met my colleague from the world of dance, Celine Maheo who resides here.
Celine is a practicing clinical psychologist and an Argentine tango dancer.
What’s beautiful is that she is a dedicated professional who uses the dance therapy for helping Parkinson’s patients with their movements through Tango dance sessions.
My interest was piqued, as earlier I had been conducting similar dance sessions for Seniors, namely the Dance for Wellness workshops back in India.
So over a beautiful meet and greet sipping cups of hot herbal tea at the Les Grands Gamin at the heart of Rennes, ensued a free flowing conversation where we exchanged notes on each others life. Our passion for dancing was the visible to see as we hardly knew how moments passed by.
And when Celine invited me to her next Tango Therapy Workshop, it was an offer I could not refuse. I was actually keen to understand whether and how the cultural differences change the way of conducting and experiencing workshops here.
Dancing can improve the mobility and balance in senior adults.
Adapting the dance to suit the requirements of the group, like simplifying the steps, the placement of the feet, improves their coordination, mobility and balance.
The dance session was deeply engrossing & truly inspiring to witness and participate as well. The music played that day stayed with me well after the session.
So the next step turned out to be me conducting a Chacha session for them. The challenges of language barriers were surrmounted easily as Celine offered to translate my teaching from English to French.
Everything fell in place beautifully and voila time flew again.We danced a bit of Chacha that day and also some more in the next few sessions as well. I was told later by the learners how much they enjoyed it!
It was an amazing experience sharing the joys of movements and I thank Celine for her inclusivity in requesting me to conduct the dance sessions as well. And I deeply appreciate all her beautiful learners that I met,connected and danced with. It was a truly warm and wonderful time spent with them all.
As dancers, our every endeavour to bring smiles from the heart is a beautiful and creatively fulfilling experience.
Savvy
After the sessions we would gather together and discuss opening many facets of the learning and imbibing. It was a beautiful way of empathising and understanding each other.
Some of the beautiful souls I got to interact with in these few months…
Dance has a way of soothing your entire being and bringing forth and connecting you with the depth of who you are. That is when dance begins to feel meaningful and transforms life.
The dance connects established here in these sessions will be a beautiful memory etched in my heart, that I will take back home with me and cherish forever.
Today is 8th March 2020 and celebrated as Womens Day all over the world.
I dedicate this post to my friend and colleague Celine Maheo and all the women in the world who are making the world a better place, with every step in time.
Savvy Raj
You are enough!
As women we put off taking a stand
We may choose to stay on the shoreline
Too often we put off till tommorow
What needs to be done today.
Choose to chance the unexpected
Dare to dance with spontaneity
To dance is to be powerful enough
To express yourself as your self.
To be all you want to be.
Experience this power in you.
It is yours for the taking & sharing
Be happy, be you, today and every day!
Happy Womans Day’ today and every day to all the Women reading this.
Savvy
Breach and Trustš
Have you seen the whales breach
In such confidence they soar upward
They even maneuver a twirl
And fall back in complete trust
In the support of the water below.
How beautiful an example can mother nature give
Of unfolding grace in trust and confidence
Much of our lifes story can be just as beautiful.
When it is in a flow like that
When we rise in success with faith
Being completely confident of our purpose
When we surrender in complete unflinching trust
Knowing there is support and love flowing in the roots.
Why are humans rising and touching the stars?
Why are we progressing phenomenally
Yet why are we crash landing at times?
Why are we failing?
While it is the faith in ourselves that may take us upwards
Bu the lack of trust and support for one another brings us down.
Perhaps we need to learn from water
How to be flexible in its fluidity.
To be adaptable in its buoyancy
And then we too can rise again with every fall.
For inspite of every ability we have …
Support from our family and friends
Matter more than we know!
Wouldn’t you agree?
When you have faith in your roots then every leap of faith is of a trustful knowing
That no matter how far you reach you have a home to come back to!
Savvy
Synergy of energy
Have share this beautiful song earlier in another context.
But here the song emotes to me…
In these curated clips of tangos shown to time with this beautiful song I share my reflections…on the dance form Tango.
Born in the dark alleys of Argentina
The stark truth emerges of murky beginnings in the 18th century
Frequented mostly by slaves,immigrants in the ports of Buneos Aires and even Uruguay.
There were even bans on many of these tango musical gatherings.
The dance form began with countless influences of European and native culture.
Argentine Tango is both energetic and enigmatic
It has the strength and soul to show.
Equally exotic and evocative
Intriguing and beguiling
The lead and follow is beyond genders
For connection is beyond the physicality
For beside the passion play plain to see,
There is something quite alluring & attractive in the movements.
Two people apparently moving as one
The footwork entices and enthralls
The feet move with a mind all their own
But articulating a drama through the feet.
Slow, steady or sharp and staccato movements
Each pair of feet, teasing the other
Challenging into a seemingly deadly duel of the feet.
Hitting all the right notes
Never missing a beat
Never stepping unto another
Except for a flip a dip or a show stopping lift thrown in.
If you want to see the drama of life and living,
Watch the synergy of energy playing
In a soulful yet spirited tango of two dancers.
There is rivetting romance,
Yet strikingly serious and sombre in notion.
Depths of emotion & unbridled passion
Emanating in an artistry of motion.
Today there are so many versions of the Tango
Off shoots and diverse cultural interpretations.
That created new interpretations of the way the dance is danced.
In hold, in form, in stance and in steps. That it’s almost untraceable.
Tango today is alluring as ever with dark days remaining just a history.
Yet retaining the mystery and appeal, Captivating with its intensity.
The connects so rooted in the embrace and hold, that makes the fancy footwork so effortless.
Tango truly speaks eloquently more than ever before…
Savvy
