It is important to get the correct posture before starting to Belly Dance, and then consciously reviewing it during your dance lessons until it becomes second nature.
Stand with your feet hip width apart, knees soft. Pull in your pelvis, bottom tucked under. Lift the rib cage, shoulders down….and relax!
Sounds too complicated to be relaxing, I know, but it will soon become natural.
Here is Zahira again from Expert Village demonstrating the posture, and then teaching one of the most basic moves of belly dancing – the hip circle:
I hear this all the time: How do I shimmy like Shakira?
Well, that will take a lot of practice (after all, she has been dancing since she was a child), but learning the basic shimmy is quite simple, and once you start practicing it everyday it will become like second nature.
This video from Kimber on YouTube shows you how to get started with your shimmies and then incorporate shimmies into different moves:
As Kimber shows, you need to start off doing the basic movement quite slowly and then build up speed. As soon as you feel like you have lost the flow of the shimmy, slow it down and speed it up gradually again.
Kimber says you should never lock your knees, and this is excellent advice in all your dancing, as locked knees can often cause injury. If you were to take classes in Egypt you would find some teachers insist on straight legged shimmies (and some dancers find it easier to shimmy this way) but personally I think it is better to avoid unnecessary injury – and shimmies with unlocked knees look a lot more relaxed and effortless anyway!
