Technique Tuesday; More On "The Pinned Butterfly". {Placement For the Hips and Shoulders In Tendu Front.}

Last Tuesday I posted about the concept of pinning the hips and shoulders to an imaginary mat, like a butterfly on display.

Today I have a short video to show it action.

 

I use a tendu front as an example move, but it applies to leg movements of any height that require stabilization of the hips and shoulders.

Hope this is useful!


Thanks for hanging and watching.

Enjoy the dance that is life!

~Erin

Oh Yeah, We be Twerkin'! A Valid I.D. Required And Will Be Checked At The Door.

Okay, clearly there is no way for me to check I.D.s, but you get my point. Although, I'm pretty sure most teens (and, gasp, younger) have many of these moves fairly dialed in. Whenever I work with a group of teens, I try to tone things down. Not because I think I will protect them from ever seeing these moves, but more out of respect for their age. Like not swearing in front of your grandparents, even though you've heard tales of their epic swear fests in their own youths.

Every week I look at numerous You Tube videos of dance routines and tutorials. Hip Hop, lyrical, contemporary, ballet, Zumba, fitness, body weight training and general booty shaking. I watch entire dance routines and tutorials for individual steps or maneuvers. Sometimes I'm hunting for something out of desperation, but for the most part I love my searches.

If you have ever done the You Tube shuffle then you probably know that you start with one video, and quickly find yourself going off into a few, if not many, different directions.

Anyhows, I found, what I think are some pretty good tutorials for I step I didn't realize that I didn't know the name of; Twerking.

I always thought this move was called "brunking". Oh, technicalities. One of the things I appreciate about this tutorial is the use of isolations in the hips. Using the fingers to help you learn whether you are emphasizing the pulsing back or pulsing forward movement. It just adds to body intelligence. Yes, booty shaking can be a part of the body (or should I say booty) intelligence matrix.

This next presenter is a goddess in my opinion. At some point, I will get this tutorial dialed in. Body rolls are something many people like to work on because the move can be fun and challenging. Even when one understands the concept and parts of a body roll, getting it to feel natural and smooth can take a long time. But it is one of those moves that the journey is part of the fun.

I love how she expresses gratitude to fans that have regaled her with tales of showing their new moves to their beaus, but reminds everyone that her tutorials are for dance training purposes. I think she did a pretty good job of differentiating.

Enjoy the dance that is life!

~Miss Erin

Thrill The World Day Is Only 12 Days Away!!

  Austin, Texas 2008

I don't where from where, but they got their Zombie on!
Chico 2010!!




That's right! Thrill The World (TTW) Day is less than 2 weeks away!

I've mentioned before that this is the first year I have ever attempted to learn the dance or to even think about participating in the international event.

For those local to the Chico, California area, here's the link for the Thrill The World Chico website. The event happens Saturday October 27th at 12noon.

The link above and the links below will give you all sorts of info, including ideas and tips to really get your Zombie look dialed in!


For visuals and tutorials on how to learn the official Thrill The World "Thriller Dance",click here for the Video Clips. Clip 39 of 40 is my favorite, as it does the whole dance with the instructor's back to the viewer (easier to follow along) and the cuing voice over with the music.

For the dance script,click here for the full text of the Dance Script. Having words that go with your moves really does help. I used to make up songs about variations and dance pieces when I was younger for when I would practice them in my head when falling asleep at night.

What's the fun of dance without some music! For the original Thriller song to a cuing version,click here, and you should be able to find where you can download a track (actually I think there are a few tracks at different speeds) of "Thriller" w/ the cuing voice over.

So the "dance script" has a word for each movement. To help myself sort of remember all the sections with their many movements, I wrote out a sort of condensed version. Once you feel comfortable with all the moves in a segment, then you can start clustering those segments into sections.

For example:

Zombie March

(forward) right left right left
(take-it-back) right left right left
(to-the-front) right left right left
(take-it-back) right left right left


March Booty Swim

(forward) *shoulder step nothing step *shoulder step *shoulder step
(back) *shoulder step nothing step *shoulder step *shoulder step
(step) booty bounce (together) booty bounce
(step) booty bounce (together) booty bounce
swim together swim jump (hold)
swim together swim jump

*use your RIGHT SHOULDER

Shuffle Ha Slide

shuffle back hop hop forward
turn look stare stare
down ha down ha down ha down ha
down clap slide slide slide stomp and shoulders look left
down clap slide slide slide stomp and shoulders and prep

Hip N’ Roar

right hip right hip right hip in out
left hip left hip in and roar
walk walk roar-turn roar-turn roar-turn
walk walk roar-turn roar-turn
jump and land circle
shake-it-and-a-uppa and a shake-it-and-a-uppa
stomp stomp stomp look left
walk left right left and turn

can be grouped together as;
Z March
March Booty Swim
Shuffle Ha Slide + Hip n Roar
So on and so forth.
You can copy and paste and print out as a little cheat sheet for when you practice. Sometimes just holding a silly little pieces of paper with notes on it can give me all the confidence I need!

I hope you find it useful!



Z March
March Booty Swim
Shuffle Ha Slide + Hip n Roar
________________________________________________________________________

Wuz Up

_________________________________________________________________________

Shuffle Ha Slide + Oh Snap Rock On + Head n Shoulders

__________________________________________________________________________

Stomp
*down 2-3-4 rise 2-3-4

__________________________________________________________________________

Shuffle Ha Slide + Oh Snap Rock On + Head n Shoulders (x-tra prep)
*Down 2-3-4 rise 2-3-PREP
__________________________________________________________________________

Hip n Roar

___________________________________________________________________________

Z March
March Booty Swim
Shuffle Ha Slide + Wuz Up

____________________________________________________________________________

Z March + Stomp + SCARE!

Enjoy the dance that is life!

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends...

Oh I'm a lucky girl surrounded by awesome people!

I've posted lately about breaking down the "Thriller" dance in preparation for Thrill The World Day (TTW).

My friend Melanie has kept me on track with using the right video tutorials.

*Side note; one of these days I'm going to do a post on Melanie's Zumba journey. I remember back in around '08ish telling her about Zumba and how fun it was. "I could never do that. I'm not coordinated enough for that!", are pretty close to her exact words. Now, half the time I'm watching her while I teach for inspiration! She is a beautiful and fierce beast on the Z floor!

Well, last Friday I was breaking down a bit more of the dance right before Zumba class. And I was starting to get those feelings of, "What have I got myself into?". I'm terrible at talking and dancing. So talking through the steps while doing them, while at tempo can definitely get a little dodgy for me!

Lucky for me, an angel named Brittany was in class. She let me know that there was a version of the song that had voice over cuing for the moves that corresponded with the tutorial I was using.

Brittany had emailed it to me by the time I got home. It's loaded and ready to be used this morning.

My 15 year old daughter and I had fun practicing with it last night. Okay, I was practicing the dance, Caitlyn, however, was trying to see if she could Dougie to Thriller. I was going to insert a link to a tutorial on how toDougie, but it became quickly apparent that it was going to be a long search for an explicit language free video. Search at your own risk!

A big thank you to Brittany!

I'm ready to get my Zombie on!

Enjoy the dance that is life!

Thriller Tutorial Update!

A few days ago I posted some tutorials that I thought were helpful for breaking down and learning the Thriller dance in preparation for TTW Day.

Well my friend Melanie went with her kids to one of our local TTW practices and noticed that the dance they use is more specific to one of the tutorials.

Its the one that is linked on the official site. Actually its a series of clips. 40 to be exact.

I tracked down clip 39 of 40. If you need to see the tutorial in its entirety you can find it by

First going to the TTW site
http://thrilltheworld.com/

Second, go to "Learn the dance" and click on "video links". There you will have the options of all sorts of sections to chose from in learning the dance.

There is also a "dance script".

Today our script is;

Zombie March

(forward) right left right left
(take-it-back) right left right left
(to-the-front) right left right left
(take-it-back) right left right left


March Booty Swim

(forward) *shoulder step nothing step *shoulder step *shoulder step
(back) *shoulder step nothing step *shoulder step *shoulder step
(step) booty bounce (together) booty bounce
(step) booty bounce (together) booty bounce
swim together swim jump (hold)
swim together swim jump

*use your RIGHT SHOULDER

Shuffle Ha Slide

shuffle back hop hop forward
turn look stare stare
down ha down ha down ha down ha
down clap slide slide slide stomp and shoulders look left
down clap slide slide slide stomp and shoulders and prep

Hip N’ Roar

right hip right hip right hip in out
left hip left hip in and roar
walk walk roar-turn roar-turn roar-turn
walk walk roar-turn roar-turn
jump and land circle
shake-it-and-a-uppa and a shake-it-and-a-uppa
stomp stomp stomp look left
walk left right left and turn

Wuz Up

(forward on right leg) wuz up 1-2-3
left right 1-2-3
(take-it-back) right left 1-2-3
left right 1-2-3

Shuffle Ha Slide

shuffle back hop hop forward
turn look stare stare
down ha down ha down ha down ha
down clap slide slide slide stomp and shoulders look left
down clap slide slide slide stomp and shoulders look left

A big Thank You to Melanie for keep'in me on track!

Enjoy the dance that is life!