1st day of Hula, 1st day of video taping

My students are progressing more and more each week! We have continued into or Hawaiian segment and today they learned four hula basic steps. Not only did they learn how to do the steps, but they learned how to spell the names of each step that i taught them- kaholo, kalakaua, hela, and uehe. I explained how each vowel in hawaiian is pronounced then asked volunteers to guess how to spell the name of the movement after i told them how to say it. In addition, my girls began learning the difference between the two main hula styles- the ancient hawaiian kahiko and the contemporary hula auana. I explained what the music would sound like for kahiko and auana then played some examples to see if they could identify which song belonged to which hula style. These exercises push the girls to make connections of sound through spelling the hawaiian language and listening to two different hula music/dance styles. Next week we will continue our study between the two different styles by watching videos of examples.
Today my students were particularly quiet and paid attention. This could be because of the presense of our video documentor Jaynie and our photographer Vera. It could have been the fact that two of my main "talkers" that love to chate during class were not suited up and unable to participate, which is actually unfortunate. Or maybe it was the fact that we were learning something new- hula. Whatever the reason- it was nice to have the undivided attention of my students! We'll see how next week goes.
After teaching the four hula basic steps we practiced them to both kahiko and auana music while i also added in simple hand placements. The girls told me that they like the sound of kahiko more then auana so i am probably going to teach a hula kahiko. Stayed posted for next week's blog.