Whether it's social media videos, General Skills, private lessons or Technique for Teachers....I see two small,  but significant barrel turn details that really needs to be addressed. 
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First, the hands. While most of the time our hands are just naturally relaxing around the finger cymbals, there are a few movements where the hand position really matters. It just looks more elegant, easier to match your other dancers and in some cases can affect the positioning of your elbows too. Which we all know is a big deal in our dance.
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So what's the scooping all about? We never rotate our palms up and this is no different in the first part of the barrel turn. "Scooping" not only makes the hand look forced and awkwardly placed, but it also takes more energy to rotate the hand and arm back to the correct position to bring them overhead. 
Remember, we want that right arm slightly inwardly rotated at the shoulder. Scooping takes away the ability to inwardly rotate that arm. So what may seems like a tiny, insignificant detail is actually changing one of the biggest parts of the movement, the beautiful arms.

While we are at it...can we talk about the arm placement while they are overhead?

Carolena, Megha and my fellow SSCE instructors have been trying to correct this all around the world for years. Along with the scooping, we're seeing this trend of really wide spacing between the arms when they are overhead. Please be sure to bring the arms closer together. I break this down a little more in my block party video. 

See below:

In short, don't try so hard. Let the movement of the arms be a reaction to the contraction that's happening in the torso. If you keep your arms rounded and hands relaxed, then you'll let the beauty of the Barrel Turn shine through!

​Don't mistake Barrel Turn arms for Barrel of Monkey arms :)

In American Tribal Style® Belly Dance, we use a system of cues to communicate to our fellow dancers what's going to happen next. For instance, a bigger twist on count one of the Basic Egyptian means we are going to 1/2 turn the move.

We don't often get too detailed into the cues of our ATS® vocabulary. Sure, we know what they are and what they communicate, but sometimes I see technique get lost in many of our cues. 

The students in my current online series, Brush Up On Basics, are amazing with how open they are to identifying the bad habits we form over time and seem to love the details I've provided that we often don't get to cover in level one. While I was making a little video for the group based on some questions, I decided this is probably something a lot more people would like to review, so here goes...

Today I want to look at the Egyptian 1/2 turn cue in more detail.

The simplest explanation is that to cue the half turn, just make the right side of your Egyptian (count one of the step) bigger and this indicates we will 1/2 turn between count 3 and 4. Making the right side bigger includes pulling the right arm back to showcase the right hip. For as long as I've been dancing, I've seen dancers cut off this part off of the movement while they are cueing. Instead, they keep their arm by their ear during the cue, but this blocks their face from the audience. See the image below for an example

Do we ever block our face in ATS®? No way. So why is this happening?

Well, aside from someone just not knowing any better, I have a theory as to why this happens, and yes.... it includes anatomy!

The way I see it, the Egyptian is a big, beautiful, spiraling rotation that starts in the hips and continues all the way up to the arm and out the finger tips. We need to maintain this spiral throughout the cue as well.
In order to do this, when the right hip twists more towards our dance box, then your right arm has to pull back a little more to compensate. Otherwise you are just turning our whole body into our dance angle and we lose the upper body spiral. Extra engagement in the arm ensures we maintain the beautiful spiral and opposition that makes the Egyptian so beautiful.

The arms of the Egyptian are definitely strong and engaged. They rely on a variety of contracting muscles in your back (middle Trapezious, Rhomboids, Latissimus and more), your internal and external obliques AND the flexibility of your anterior torso muscles (Pectoralis major for example). The bigger the movement, the more strength and flexibility is needed. This is where cross training comes into play.

So check in with your Egyptian 1/2 cue. Filming yourself can be very helpful. If you find you are guilty of the face block then work on getting the arm back with proper form and keeping the integrity of the move. If you are rocking the Egyptian spiral then just keep rocking it and be sure to check in with your technique from time to time.  Remember, your technique is still applicable in cues! 

Also, check out the slow motion half turn cue video below! It really shows the extra twist!

Thank you so much for joining me!
​The final video in our month long ATS® Block Party series is dedicated to post party recovery!
Here are three wonderfully relaxing things you can do with a yoga block to help you recover from too much fun, a whole lot of dancing or simply a long day.  Enjoy!

Here we are! The final day of this month long party! This is our final active video, but I'll be posting one more bonus block party video later today that is sure to be a party pleaser :) 
In this video we put it ALL together! Using the different block party tricks we learned throughout the month....we incorporate them all into the Arabic step!!

OK, not really! But we do want to keep our arms overhead in many of our moves and we actually do NOT want them waving or wavering for that matter!  A lot of times we simply don't have the arm and back strength to keep our arms engaged, strong and graceful while they are overhead. Well...this little party trick is sure to help!
I used to do this without a block, but was introduced to this more challenging version by miss Ashley Lopez. 
It's definitely more effective with the block!! :)

This party is about to get crazy! Well...you know...as crazy as a one person party with a block can get :)
Here's a "twist" on a beautiful move! This video shows how to use a yoga block to check in with those swimming arms in the Arabic Hip Twist. TWO different party tricks, plus...use this on variations too!!
'll show you how!
Plus added video of Laurie and Veronica trying it out after class!

There is absolutely a little movement in the low spine at the END of the body wave, but so often the lumbar spine gets way too involved at the beginning of the body wave (and arabic). Even more often there is too much of a roll through the hips at the end so the movement ends up looking more like a bellyroll or lower torso movement when actually it's the UPPER torso that makes the move so beautiful!
Here's a different way to practice and check in with your movement. Trying this one will really tell you if you are releasing posture at the beginning of the movement and give you tactile feedback to reign it in! Keep that isolation in the upper and middle torso and the rest will just happen naturally!
BONUS: A little video of two students trying it out after class last week. Thanks for playing ladies!!

Strength and flexibility is the ultimate combination for safe, effective exercise. The chest opener is a great way to open and restore after strengthening with our previous block party.
You can do this with a yoga mat and for those of you that can't get on the floor, you can do this in bed! 
Try it out and tell me what you think :)

I LOVE me some spine talk! :) Seriously, it's super fascinating and it's hard to condense down and leave out information, but the block party videos are all about quick tips!! So for now, this video with a little summary of spinal movement and thoracic extension exercises will have to do. 
This exercise is so great at really working ONLY the middle spine and keeping the low back out of the picture. Remember to keep the lower body engaged the ensure time to stabilize the hips and low spine so we can just work on back strengthening.
Enjoy!

Using the block as a great prep to engage our side body for Barrel Turns and Ribcage Rotations. I really like this exercise because it gives you a great visual of "pulling yourself away from something" to help get more contraction!
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