Anyplace to Learn These Isolations?

[LadyLoba]

I really want "Pops, Locks, and Shimmies" with Sadie and Kaya, but I don't have a $35 for a DVD right now.

I already own "Learn How to Belly Dance: 10 Basic Moves," "Belly Dance 101" with Amira, "Belly Dance: Basics and Beyond" by Jenna, and Leila's "Belly Dance for Beginners."

Online I study from Sahira's online lessons and from the Soul Studio Belly Dance Dictionary

Does anyone know anything similar to Soul Studio or Sahira's online lessons (or a much less expensive DVD) where I can start to learn some more abdominal isolations and shimmies?

I've got the basics down....well...as "down" as a beginner is going to have them...of course I drill and practice them and work on layering them and dancing with them every day...and I'll keep doing that.

I'm just ready to start learning some more moves...and the only abdominal isolations I can find are a belly roll and an oomi. (which is really a tiny little hip circle according to some resources)

The shimmies I've learned so far are the "egyptian" shimmy, the up-down shimmy (some people call it a Lebanese shimmy), twist shimmy (also called washing machine shimmy or alligator), and the 3/4 shimmy (working on getting that one)

Any new resources would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jenc]

The Sadie and Kaya I have and it is damn hard. Try Michelle Joyce, Pop, Lock and Shimmy for half the price. Cheeky Girls Productions (Michelle) and WDNY are recommended for good value

 

[teela]

Check out Hard Candy by Neon. That has lots of pops, drops and whatever. The price is quite reasonable and it has a good tutorial section.

 

[LadyLoba]

I'm going to get the Michelle Joyce one...I watched some of her clips...and I really love her belly dancing!

I know we discuss the attitude of dancers on here...and I also really like the way she behaves and her facial expressions...you can tell she's feeling great without forcing a "I'm so sexy" or a "I'm so thrilled with everything about myself" face that gets so annoying....she's right up there with Shakira, Sadie, and Kaya in my "favorites" list.

 

[Yame]

If you like Michelle Joyce you might also like Sandra. They have a very similar style and are actually friends. I don't have any of Sandra's DVDs, but I have heard good things about them. From the trailers, they seem pretty good for a beginner.

In my opinion though, if you can do vertical (down to up and up to down) and horizontal hip 8s (also possible on chest), large hip circles, flat hip circles, and small hip circles (omis), vertical and horizontal chest circles, chest lifts and drops, chest and hip slides, hip lifts and drops, pelvic tucks and releases, hip and chest shimmies, chest undulations, hip twists, hip undulations both ways, head slides, shoulder rolls, hand undulations, snake arms, and maybe a couple more moves that I am forgetting about here, or even if you can't do all these moves but can do most of them, you can go ahead and stop worrying about how many moves you know and how many more moves you need to know and stop looking for DVDs that will teach you moves. There might be a couple more "moves" you will need to learn, but that should no longer be your focus, because there aren't very many more raw moves than these.

At this point, aside from of course keeping up your practice so that you can improve your execution of these isolations, what you need to do is play around with them to find their variations, listen to the music and learn about it, learn the rhythms to try to learn how those moves fit with the music.

Learn some footwork and learn to travel and move around while executing those moves so that you aren't just dancing in one spot. Dancing isn't just about standing there doing isolations... you will need different ways to get from point A to point B and you will need to be able to do it gracefully. You will need to be able to turn and spin.

Also, learn different ways to use your arms, to frame your moves with them and to keep them graceful in the transitions between positions. Graceful arms, or lack thereof, can make or break a performance.

A lot of dancers, especially self-taught dancers, neglect these aspects of the dance in their search for perfect isolations and hot new moves. I started out the way you did, and just focused on "new moves" until I realized there were no more moves to learn. Still I focused on perfecting them so much that I completely neglected my limbs, overall carriage, and traveling steps. After a while I came to terms with the fact that I would never be able to call myself a dancer if I didn't work on those things, and that I would only ever be good if I began to work on my musicality.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Yame]

Regarding abdominal isolations, I would not consider an omi (which I personally call an internal hip circle or a small hip circle) to be an abdominal isolation. I say this because when doing an omi, the hips are clearly moving, so regardless or whether the isolation is mostly being driven by the abdominal area or mainly by the glutes or mainly by the legs or by all or a combination of these equally, in all these possibilities the hips are moving, not just the belly.

Belly rolls on the other hand, are true abdominal isolations because when properly executed, only the belly is moving. There are down-to-up belly rolls and up-to-down belly rolls, and you can learn both or just one. I personally don't think they are crucial to this dance, but it's always nice to be able to do them.

There isn't much in the way of abdominal isolations aside from that, but I'll tell you what I know of. There are some people who can do side-to-side belly rolls, which is pretty cool but so unnecessary as a move in and of itself, that I would say 99% of belly dancers aren't able to do them.

Ava Fleming can move her ribcage out, and in, and can move each side of her ribcage individually both out and in, and do this "contract left, contract right, release left, release right" (and reverse) type thing that is sort of like an upper ab side-to-side undulation thing. I'm not sure she'd use that as a performance move but her ability to isolate her ribcage in such a manner makes for some pretty fluid and uber-isolated upper body moves and this characteristic I have only seen in her and a few tribal fusion dancers. She has DVDs (Sizzlin' Torso would be the one to find the above info) out if you want to take a look, but I think this is pretty advanced stuff so maybe you should hold off on it for now.

Princess Farhana is great with ab stuff and has some DVDs out that might help with belly rolls and such. Which reminds me, there are also flutters, which might interest you. They aren't really abdominal isolations in the sense that they are not being driven by your abdominal muscles and instead by the diaphragm. Well, if you get really technical maybe we can argue that the diaphragm is an abdominal muscle since it's a muscle and one side of it faces the abdominal cavity but that's besides the point so let's not go there. I'd kind of place it together with abdominal isolations because the effect shows up on the area we call the belly. Just don't get confused and think that it is being driven by the rectus abdominus or something. Princess Farhana's stuff is good for teaching flutters as well as belly rolls.

 

[jenc]

I agree with above - which is why I have got rid of all the pure drilling dvds I had. i coluld do movement perfectly as a drill but you need to start working on transitions ie how do you get from one movement to the next in a dance - also can you do different things with your arms whilst dancing. drilling does not help with these things. do you use the dance flows on the Jenna dvd? when I first got the dvd, I concentrated on the isolations, and neglected the travelling steps and the dance flows. then I bought a choreo dvd and found I could not do it, so I went back to working on movement rather than moves.

 

[teela]

I've noticed that the more recent DVDs have people moving around, become aware of what the weight is doing in each movement. When I started with DVDs, you mostly did the move in one place with your weight centered so when you needed to move you usually felt stuck.

 

[Yame]

I've noticed that the more recent DVDs have people moving around, become aware of what the weight is doing in each movement. When I started with DVDs, you mostly did the move in one place with your weight centered so when you needed to move you usually felt stuck.

That may be the case. I have to say though, I like it when isolations are initially taught in one spot with the weight centered, without much (if any) moving around.

I think it is easier for people to get isolations if they can focus on them, not having to do other things at the same time (moving arm patterns, shifting weight, traveling, etc).

With that said, at some point still in beginner level, students need to learn those concepts so they are not stuck just knowing how to do moves without being able to transition between them.