shramaha

Over the last 12 or so years of dance, I have learned that Bharatanatyam, like any other art form requires an immense amount of discipline- without it, the dance can go nowhere. When I first began doing Bharatanatyam, it was the same story every week. Go for weeks on end without practice, only to cram days and days worth of abhinaya and complex jatis into a 20 minutes practice session before class. The results? Obviously less than perfect. Actually, abominable. I think the lethal combination was my too young age in comparison to my friends who were already in middle school and my non-passion for dance. It didn't take long for both of these issues to self-resolve, but discipline isn't just this floating ideal that is immediately achieved through regular practice. At the beginning of my arangetram practice I finally came up with an idea that worked for me then- and still now. It's not just for dance, truly it works for everything. I created a chart that listed out my warmup routine, workout routine, etc and the pieces I needed to practice, and checked off the days I planned on practicing. On the bottom of the chart, I wrote my goals- lower aramandi by one inch, increase endurance during varnam jati, achieve all splits and frog pose, etc. It helped me- by the end of each week I was closer to my goals and by my arangetram? I was ready. It doesn't end there- I still do it- dance, school work, SAT? all done through discipline.