Entries Tagged 'Belly Dancing Lessons' ↓

Please note that Expert Village have chosen to remove the embedding option on their videos. That means you can no longer view them from this blog and will have to visit YouTube in order to watch them.

Where possible I have created a link on the blog posts where the videos are no longer viewable to the relevant page on YouTube.

Lisa

Now that you have the correct posture, it’s time to learn some more simple belly dance steps.

Aubre shows you how to do both static and moving hip raises:

If you are new to Belly Dancing it is important to remember to isolate the upper and lower parts of your body. That means that when you are performing a move in the lower part of your body - such as these hip raises - it does not impact on your upper half and vice versa. You can see that Aubre is moving her hips but her torso remains still. Evetually you will be able to perform separate moves at the same time in isolation from each other.

As with many Belly Dance moves you may hear these called different names. In this case they are often called Hip Snaps, or Hip Accents.

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!

This is a more practical, comprehensive belly dancing cool down, from Dolphina’s Goddess Workout. She reflects on the spiritual and physical importance of the cool down after dancing.

It might be a bit “out there” for some dancers - “spreading the goddess energy” - but the techniques are good. This is an excellent cool down for belly dancers as it incorporates stretching of all the major muscles used in belly dance.

The actual cool down begins at around 3 minutes 15 into this video. We will return to some of Dolphina’s other YouTube videos at a later date.

Just as vital to your belly dancing lessons routine is the need to cool down and stretch out at the end. This will enable you to keep the blood flowing and minimize any post-dance soreness. You will bring your heart rate down and reduce the potential of your muscles seizing up.

Zahira’s Expert Village video is again quite short but offers some great advice:

Stretches are important in a cool down, focussing on the areas that are used most in belly dancing - obliques, thighs, arms.

Please note, this video is no longer viewable from this blog, but can be viewed at YouTube by clicking this link.

Next we move onto Kimber’s lower body warm up for belly dancers.

Again the movements are beautiful and fluid - gentle figure of eights, small hip circles, bends, amd lunges.

To view more of Kimber’s videos on YouTube visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/kimbrgsm1

The music in the videos is The Seventh Veil by Aradia and DJ Zen from Sensual Belly Dance.

Thanks to Kimber from Anchorage for these more comprehensive warm up videos for belly dancers.

Let’s start with the upper body warm up.

As you can see, the aim is not to over stretch or strain during the warm-up but to gently ease your muscles into exercise. All the movements are soft, gentle and fluid and are focused particularly on the areas and isolations you will use during main part of your belly dancing lessons.

I am often asked  to suggest warm-up and cool down exercises for belly dancers. It’s vital before you begin all your belly dancing lessons that you always warm-up your muscles, even if you are only dancing gently, as you are using muscles you do not tend to use in everyday life. If your teacher does not encourage you to warm-up before a class or teach you a safe and effective routine to do so, they are not doing their job properly.

Let’s start with warm-ups. Expert village provide some great “how to” videos, and I love Zahira’s belly dancing videos. Unfortunately, her warm-up video is a bit short but the advice she gives is great:

For a more practical, comprehensive warm-up keep watching - I’ve got more where that came from.

Lisa

Subscribers to my Belly Dancing newsletter have been asking me for ages to find the best free online Belly Dancing Lessons and put them all in one place. So that’s what I am doing here. This is the equivalent to having free Belly Dance classes in your own home. I will also be reviewing some of the dvds that are available for learning belly dance too.

I’ll state right now that none of these videos should be a replacement for “live” dance classes. Belly dancing with a teacher in a live class environment is definitely the best way to learn. But, as many of you have told me, a local class is not always available, or your classes aren’t moving quickly enough for you, or you just want to brush up on your skills between lessons. I hope this will help all of you in those situations.

All these videos have been graciously recorded and placed on the Internet for everyone to use. Thank you to them for letting me use their work. Please be aware that if a video stops working it may be because the publisher has removed the right to use (embed) the video on another website, in which case you will need to go to YouTube or whichever site the video was originally put on. In as many cases as possible I will credit the creator of the video.

To find the videos you need please look at the categories on the right. Videos will be separated into categories for Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced, plus DVD reviews etc. Within categories there will also be categories such as shimmies, arms and so on. Gradually, I will be building up a library of videos, so if you get confused in your search, please just do a full blog search.

Now, without any more ado, here are your online Belly Dancing lessons - happy shimmying!

 Lisa

P.S. Please remember that Belly Dancing is an exercise as well as an art form, and should be approached with this in mind. Always warm up and cool down, do not attempt moves that feel uncomfortable for you, and always consult your doctor before attempted any exercise if you have health problems that may affect your ability to dance.