Yame
New member
One of the things I enjoy about online forums is seeing points of view that are very different from my own!
I haven't watched this video, so I don't know what the teacher on the video is offering, so, this is a general comment about teaching shimmies to beginners....
I teach shimmies to my brand-new beginners on the very first night of class. I find that students love learning them - they feel as though they're learning a "real" belly dance move. Also, I've noticed from the dialogue I've seen in Egyptian movies that belly dancers are often referred to as "shaking their hips". It really is an very typical move, so why not teach it right from the beginning?
And honestly, I don't think a basic shimmy is all *that* hard to learn. I do, however, think that some teachers find it difficult to teach.
It is a very typical move, and depending on the style it's also one of the most important. It should be taught from the beginning, but I find it odd that it would be taught in the first class, and would lean towards teaching it around the end of the first session.
Of course, I am not a teacher myself, but I am very aware of methodology due to having gotten my initial bearings in this dance via self-teaching, having had multiple teachers, and being a very critical person. I am talking from the perspective of what would have worked for me and what I think would work for the people 'around' me (the people in the classes I've been in, friends who have asked me to teach them or help them with some moves, or people with inquiries on forums).
That is obviously a different perspective from the one you are offering, of someone who has been teaching this dance for years and years. If teaching the shimmy in the first class works for you, then maybe this dancer in the video is onto something and I am wrong to think that was a bad choice for a first lesson.
None of the teachers I've taken beginners with taught it right away, and neither did the DVDs that I used when I was starting out. Most belly dance students I know do not start to "get" this shimmy (driven by the bending and straightening of the legs, with slight up and down motion of the hips) until later on, and in fact some of them never actually get it. The up and down motion can not be achieved unless the student already has some isolation ability, and the shimmy itself requires speed, on top of that ability. This is why I didn't find it appropriate for a first class. But I'd love to know what type of shimmy you teach in yours, and how many students get it right away or about how long it takes for those who don't. It's fascinating that your students might be having the opposite experience with shimmies that I see most students having!