Monday, February 4, 2008

Thatta adavu

The first set of adavus is called thatta adavu. Thattu means "to tap" in tamil as in tapping one's feet or a tap on the shoulder. (Not to be confused with tapping energy). So in this adavu all we do is tap our feet. Quite easily the simplest of the lot, though you may initially feel really tired trying to do the whole set with repititions. For this adavu, like most other you sit in araimandi. Arai means half, mandi means to kneel. So araimandi is a posture in which you are half seated, feet turned outward, close to each other but not touching, hands behind your back. There are seven steps in thatta adavu. I give them below in the following short hand notation R= tap your right foot once, L= tap your left foot once. RR = tap right foot twice without puase. Spaces serve to indicate pause.
Step 1: R L (repeat as you wish)
Step 2: R R L L
Step 3 R R R L L L
Step 4: R R RRR L L LLL
Step 5: R R R RRR L L L LLL
Step 6: R R R L RRR L L L R LLL
Step 7: R L R L R L RLR L R L R L R LRL

as you can see the length of adavus increases with each step. Initially, when you still haven't mastered graceful movements, this might remind you of saani midhikardhu, but don't worry, it will start resembling more of dance soon.

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