I put it in my daily routine and I NEVER negociate with myself
But yes, that's very hard to do, I believe that after 3 weeks you have created an habit and that's easier after
Hope you do well tomorrow!

This is a huge issue for me [the motivation to practice on my own part]. I take several classes a week, which helps, but when I'm on my own...I tend to not drill and practice, and recently I've just had to make the decision. What is important to me? Weighing the effects of not practicing. I don't realy have school to compete with at the moment, dancing is more than just a hobby for me, it's what I want to do for the rest of my life, what I want my career to be. So, for myself I just had to say, "how important is this really?" It really depresses me when my body isn't capable of doing all the things I can see in my mind, because I havn't been practicing with it enough...I don't know, this was recent for me, so I'm still working on doing my drilling everyday and incorporating longer practices, but just start little by little. I know when I tend to get motivated, I want to dance for 4 hours that day, work out and usually make myself soar for the next three days...it's better to do a little bit today, maybe 30 minutes to an hour, of drilling and then dancing, or stretching, whatever you need. Put on some good music and go to. Just do it. And then, hold out...for the next day, and do it again...for me that is hard, because I'm so impatient, but if you can get yourself going...

Moslty, you have to find what works best for you. Some people can just set aside a certain block of time, pre-schedualed, say 5pm everyday, I'm going to warm up for 15, drill for 15, improve or work on choreography for 15-30, and then cool down for another 15. But if your schedual is different everyday, like mine, you can either pre-schedual whatever time works best, or just find the free time each day to do some.

And remember, every little bit helps. While you're waiting for your food to cook, do some drilling. In the bathroom? Do some drilling? Shaving? [hair removal for me when I occasionally do any of it] Excellent time to practice belly flutters and shoulder work. Walking somewhere, or sitting about, bellyrolls, hipwork, shoulders, chest...whatever you can think of, if you're taking a break from your studying, sit up, or stand, stretch out, and work on some drills for 5 minutes.

:] It will slowly become habit.

Hey! I'm a bio major & anthro minor. Any idea what you wanna be when you grow up? I'm still figuring it out, but I loves me some hominoid fossils.

Anyway, here's what I had to do:
1. No job. It's tough (no more Starbucks), but work made it too difficult to practice. I applied to a gazillion scholarships, and my school actually gives me some $$ because I have awesome grades. But on the other hand, this can make it difficult to pay for workshops & classes & of course, rent & bills.
2. Join a gym. Try to find one that's nearby and has a studio in it (where they hold classes). Mine has a beautiful studio that anyone can use when there are no classes going on, so I practice there everyday. I usually go right after class. If I go home first, or if I try to practice at home, I usually end up watching CSI instead. It's kinda funny to watch people's reactions- they go to the studio to stretch or workout, and WHOA! There's a girl bellydancing!
3. Scheduling & prioritizing. I used to be super anal and would draw up a detailed schedule for every day, but now I just have a dry-erase board with a calendar. I write down when I have tests, papers due, homework, etc so I know how to plan my week. You can then stretch schoolwork out over several days and just spend a small amount of time per day, and it keeps you from getting behind. Procrastination is BAD. I also had to cut out a lot of my social life, which kinda sucks.
4. Get out of the habit of being lazy in all aspects of your life. Don't leave the dirty dishes until morning; do them now. Instead of watching TV before bed, do some homework. Straighten up your room when you have a few free minutes. Don't sit around browsing the internet; check email, tribe, or whatever and then get off. My rule of thumb is that if I don't want to do something, I should probably do it right then & there.

Hope that helps!!

A few years ago I went back to school full-time. And by full-time, I mean 8 hours a day, 5 days a week plus an hour commute each way. I was studying fashion design and my projects often kept me up until the wee hours of the night. I couldn't afford dance classes - time or money-wise. But when I'd be up late working I'd keep the radio on, and every hour or so when I needed a break, I'd get up and drill for a song or two. Then I'd go back to work.

Congrats to you! I was mixing work, school, my kid/family, and dance so I do understand. I just finished up my BA and what helped me tremendously was to have performance opportunities or workshops in mind in addition to my regular classes. If I knew there was a performance opportunity at X event on Z date, I would add in time for drilling, choreo, etc. on my own too. Because many of those were group/student troupe dances, there was a bit of peer pressure to keep up with the work. If I don't have some specific goal like that, I am much more likely to slack off. Now that I have graduated and have had a few weeks off dance classes, I feel somewhat lost (all those hours of studying, class, reading/researching, and writing no longer need to be accounted for in my week). And, as mentioned by others, if nothing else, just drop in a choreo that you know but want to improve/change or improv randomly throughout the day, in between books, classes, etc. I know at certain times what specific movements I need to work on, so I'll just suddenly break into that movement sometimes (even in my cube).

For the past 4 years, I had class from 8am-5pm every weekday, and studied my brains out during every other moment (weekends were not a break, but 16 hr days at the library...). I managed to get some dancing in--I taught 4 hrs/week, and sometimes that's all the dancing I was doing at all, but having the classes in my schedule made sure that I didn't skimp out at least that much. My school had an open-mic night ~1 - 2 months and I usually participated in those. And then I participated in 2-3 workshops a year. And that was it! Ocassionally, on days after an exam, when my brain was totally fried, I'd allow myself the evening to chill/veg/dance, and that was immensly sanity-restoring. Sometimes when I was studying in the library, I would have my ipod headphones on quietly...if a song came on that inspired me, I'd hop up into the stacks and do some dancing for 4 minutes to the one song before I sat back down to focus again.

Ultimately, I found that trying to get up an hour early to practice every day, made me feel proud of my self the days that I did it, but very guilty on the days that I didn't do it. I decided that those feelings weren't worth the expectation. So I stopped expecting myself to do more than I could do. My priority was school and my own sleep/wellbeing. So dance got a little bit way-laid for a time. It offered the sanity in my life that I needed, but I tried to go easy on myself by not demanding Yet Another Thing to my insane schedule.

I completely understand! I am trying to balance working on a PhD as a geochemist and continuing to work as a bellydancer. At first, I just had to force myself to take 1 class and teach 1 class a week. Then, I started to realize that I was losing my personal growth because I just felt like all I did was drill (both in dance and in science). I knew I needed to start working on my own stuff again, but didn't have a lot of time, so I started drilling while I watched TV or cooked dinner or washed dishes. This helped me continue to drill on my own, but working your creativity is the fun part. So....I just started letting myself have a "playdate" one night a week. I might listen to opera or rap or metal (or just bellydance!) and try to do something with it....draw costumes or make them inspired by the music, screw around and sort-of-dance, choreograph (always good for coming up with new moves!), watch videos to inspire me....the list goes on! The bellydance playdate really helped me get away from all of the stress with school for an hour or two. Even if I felt like I wasn't very productive each time, I had a great time and my dance has started to move in radical directions with increasing speed!
Just my two cents (or $0.99),
Bastet