atisheh: dance and fitness views and reviews

Amira's Belly Dance for the miserable mornings

2012-02-02T13:12:00.001-06:00

When I first worked with Amira's Belly Dance & Yoga For Pregnancy (reviewed here), I really enjoyed it but wondered how often I would have enough time to do the full 1.5 hour workout. Oh, silly, innocent me! How naive I was as I was entering my third trimester. Little did I know in those halcyon days that sleeping through the night would soon become a special treat.

Backwards undulation as labour prep

So early this morning, sleep-deprived for a few days now, angry at the world and everyone around me, and having just felt my baby turn head up, I decided to give up on my ill-fated attempts to fall asleep again. I had a meeting to get to in the morning, but still plenty of time to get in, well, a full 1.5 hour workout -- and after several restless nights, my body needed it.

Let's just say this: the careful yoga stretches and deliberate and beautiful bellydance movements took me from being murderous to being almost -- happy! Once or twice, I even found myself smiling. Everything was much harder for my exhausted body to perform, but it also felt so much more necessary. This time, since I'm closer to my due date, I also paid more attention to the "Exercises During Labor" section. In fact, these exercises are also bellydance movements (pelvic drops, umis, and a lower-body backwards undulation), but I tried to imagine myself stringing them together during labour, mentally training for the big event. There were also yogic breathing exercises which I found amazingly soothing, including one that timed breathing to head rolls, which I think I could actually keep track of during labour! And the "Cool Down" section has a series of shoulder stretches that were particularly satisfying after nights of fighting with pillows and days of tensing up at work.

The last time I did Amira's Belly Dance & Yoga it was fun. This time around, it helped me face the day. When I finished, I set up some couch cushions for a shavasana and pretty promptly... fell asleep!

Review of Dancing For Birth: Prenatal Dance and Birth Wisdom

2012-01-30T11:40:00.000-06:00

Dancing for Birth is a program founded by Stephanie Larson and based on the premise that dance and movement will help women navigate pregnancy and, especially, labour. They offer dance classes for women from pre-conception to post-partum, instructor training, and the DVD, Prenatal Dance and Birth Wisdom. I received a review copy of the DVD, and have been looking forward to trying out another prenatal dance offering. Larson leads the program in a garden, accompanied by three other women, one of whom is visibly pregnant. There are motivational segments to the DVD, but I tend to find those kinds of exercises forced, so I gave them a skip.

Dancing for Birth as Prenatal Workout

The DVD is definitely at the gentle end of the spectrum. When I did it I was suffering from back pain, and at no point did it aggravate me. In fact, my pain has been gone since the day I did it, which makes me think it was just the right level of exertion for someone in the third trimester, fatigued and achy. Doing the dance program will probably raise your heart rate a little, but if you've been active in any other way you're unlikely to feel like you're exercising. There is a nice warmup on an exercise/labor ball, the moves from which could be used apart from the video. At the end, a short segment on abdominal and pelvic work introduces a few exercises you could repeat outside of the video.

The movements Larson presents are inspired by bellydance, African, Caribbean and Latin dance. There are a few small combos in the bellydance section, but for the most part this is a one-move-at-a-time program. They generally feel good to do, and many of them resemble what I've learned in labour prep classes. Larson is a certified doula, so this is not a surprise!

Dancing for Birth as Dance Program

If you have dance training and especially bellydance experience, you will probably be confused by much of the DVD. I'm not as good a judge of the other dance forms, but most of the dance movements are introduced as bellydance, and they would probably be better described as "bellydance inspired." I found myself repeatedly correcting movements when I performed them, making sure, for example, that my horizontal figure-8's were truly horizontal. And wondering why I was stomping before doing a hip bump.

The strangest aspect was the arm work. It generally did not look bellydanceish (and I think that's a shame, since this is such an easy way to look graceful when feeling massive and pregnant), and at one point it was confusing for me precisely because I do study bellydance. To wit: the "go-to" arm pattern for large hip circles is generally to fold the hands to the chest when leaning forward (thus also modestly covering heaving cleavage), and to open the arms out when leaning backwards. In this video, the arms do the opposite -- they open out with the lean forward, and fold together during the lean back. Someone else may not have trouble with this, but I found myself floundering constantly because the movement was so counter-instinctive to me. Again, when doing hip sways with snake arms, I'm used to having the arm and hip on the same side go up at the same time -- the instruction on this video has you do the opposite.

The individual movements and combos are usually performed for a random amount of time, and then abruptly stopped. Larson does sometimes count out the moves, sometimes to 8, sometimes to 10, but repetitions on the other side might be done without a count, and may vary in number. Cueing is not mirrored. There is soft background music, but the movements are not performed to the music. Again, if you're happy to just follow along and go with the flow, you may not mind. But if you're used to the structure of balanced sides and reps of eight, you will probably be frustrated.

At the same time, I think the instruction is not really detailed enough for a beginner. There is some attention to posture, which is always good, but the moves are done in "follow along" format, and some of the background dancers struggle to follow too.

In short, Dancing for Birth is fine as a gentle movement practice for labour, but not solid dance instruction.

Review of Eva Bondar's Pregnancy Workout

2012-01-24T00:21:00.004-06:00

Eva Bondar's Pregnancy Workout has one major strength, one major flaw, and is generally just fine in betweeen.

Eva showing you how to conduct your kegels

The strength? Its kegels workout. First of all, it's one of the longest I've seen in any video. Eva uses her hands to help you visualise the muscular contractions, and it's helpful. What I particularly like about this kegels practice is that it also focuses as much on kegel muscle relaxation as on it's tension. I've always wondered about all these kegel exercises that are all about tensing the muscles, when what you're really preparing for is conscious relaxation of those muscles during labour. Now, I know that's easier to relax a strong muscle than a weak one, so these practices do make sense, but why not exercise the relaxation itself? The birth prep books have you relax every other muscle, and yet this is hands down (erg...) the most important one on the day of birth!

The weakness? Eva is frustratingly unspecific in her instructions. She will often start a movement and only later tell you verbally what the movement should be doing. She'll tell you to lift a leg or do something on a side without specifying which. (Which is actually not so bad.) She'll tell you to do something for one final rep, and then go on doing it for three or four more reps. If I'm face down in some awkward position, and heavily pregnant to boot, I don't want to have to crane my neck to look at the screen to figure out what I should be doing!

For the most part, Eva Bondar's Pregnancy Workout is a nice, very stretchy, quite gentle, pilates-based prenatal workout. There were a few moves I hadn't done on other videos, and generally lots of delicious-feeling side stretches. There is also a back segment, which is a very good idea for when you're starting to carry extra weight in the front. I can imagine doing it again, especially on days when my other pilates prenatal workouts seem too hard (this is by far the easiest), and perhaps the second time around I won't be so annoyed by the vague instructions!

Review of Jennifer Jiménes' Let's Dance Together - Prenatal Dance Fitness

2012-01-21T23:23:00.002-06:00

While it's been a lot of fun trying different prenatal workouts -- and a lifesaver in terms of how I feel -- the analytical side of my brain also enjoys seeing how many different kinds of programs are out there. I've already reviewed several prenatal prep DVDs with dance components. In fact, Naia, Sera Solstice, and Amira's programs all use bellydance, which I'm increasingly convinced is just perfect for both pregnancy and labour movement itself. Earlier today I took a Lamaze class on natural comfort measures near Dallas, and almost all the moves the instructor suggested women do in labour -- hip bumps, pelvic tilts, hip circles -- are basic components of bellydance. She even suggested a kind of shimmy for helping with back labour, or with a baby that is malpositioned!

This is a long intro to Jennifer Jiménes' Let's Dance Together - Prenatal Dance Fitness, but that's because I want to explain what makes this program different. I received a review copy of the program, and Jennifer included a note in which she explained that it's more about developing "inner trust" in your body than typical dance fitness. The difference begins with the staging. Instead of a single instructor facing the camera, or, say, three different practitioners modeling trimester variations, this video has a group of pregnant women, dressed brightly, sitting, standing, and dancing in a circle. Already doing the video feels less like instruction and more like participation. In fact, this is one of the few videos I've done which I felt encouraged me not even to look at the screen -- and this is a good thing. It's hard to relax and turn inward when you're looking up at a screen.

The program begins with a gentle warmup that stretches out every bit of your body, with some really nice seated exercises for the legs and a variety of flowing movements done on all fours to relax the lower back and pelvis. The latter chapters include a labour prep section, including an exercise to help you maintain stamina through pain, and a meditative cool down. But what I really want to talk about is the dance segment.

Now, when I go to a dance class or watch a dance instructional, I want to be taught something. When I've been to dance classes where students were asked to free dance at the end of class, I was invariably stressed out by the experience -- not because I don't like to improvise, but because I feel too self-conscious, especially when others are there. If you'd told me that this video had a significant portion devoted to free dance, I would not have been excited. But in truth, I wound up loving it.

Why? Well, first of all, it's not totally free dance. You're invited to explore movement, but Jennifer calls out different parts of your body to focus on, as in "dance with your shoulders!" Both times I did this video, I was amazed at how creative I could be with that amount of prompting -- I found my body performing moves I'd learned formally in dance classes, moves I'd seen other dancers do, or just totally new motions I invented because they felt good. It was, cheesy as it sounds, liberating.


The bright colours strike a Merce Cunningham vibe...

It feels wonderful to be heavily pregnant and realise that your body still can do things that feel so lovely. But I think this kind of exercise could be great beyond pregnancy too -- how much better would those stressful improv moments in dance class have been if the teachers had guided the movement like this? A lot of dancers love choreography but are scared of improv, and I think a gentle practice like the one in Let's Dance Together is a perfect way of breaking out of the choreography box. I wasn't as enthusiastic about the second dance segment, which was a kind of circle dance with scarves, but the "Free Dance" portion was enchanting and made me want to do it again and again.

Did the program lead me to trust my body more, or to feel better prepared for labour? I think it's hard to answer that question before actually giving birth. I will say this: I think the workout, and especially the free dance section, are excellent at giving you practice at figure out what kinds of movement make your body feel good. The fact that you're not following someone else's count or precise movements, but taking each of the exercises and doing them in a way that stretches and strengthens your muscles in the best way for you, is, I suspect, good practice for labour, when you have to set your own pace and figure out what works in easing the pain. And if labour is a dance, as I've sometimes heard it described, it has to be improvised.

Jennifer Jiménes' Let's Dance Together - Prenatal Dance Fitness is available on Amazon via the link, or from Jennifer's website, Let's Dance Together.

Yoga for the miserable days

2012-01-18T17:02:00.000-06:00

Under the very capacious category titled, "Things they never tell you before you get pregnant," one of the entries has to be:

Sleep deprivation begins before the child is born, not after.

This is the result of a spicy cocktail of anxiety dreams, a big, uncomfortable belly, acid reflux, and the need to urinate every twenty-six seconds (give or take two seconds). Now to make this even more fun, try going to the hospital for a nine-hour "prepared childbirth" class, and you will ask yourself the following:

Why did no one show me lengthy videos of women in labour, oh, about seven months ago?

Why did no one explain to me the mechanics of the human pelvis, and the two corkscrew turns a child has to make to exit through it, at some point during my education?

But the sordid reality is, no one did, and now you are tired, scared, and wondering how you will deal with a baby who screams all night when just having your sleep interrupted already makes you miserable.

I'm fine, really, how was your week?

Well, the glorious thing is that I did manage to sleep for most of the night last night, and eager to get back to some modicum of sanity and productivity, started the day off with Yoga Journal's Yoga for your Pregnancy. I didn't have much time nor much energy, so I decided just to stick to the 30-minute "energizing workout," which as I previously wrote, was not particularly vigorous. But I wasn't ambitious -- I just wanted to stretch everything out a bit, to feel my body move in a pleasant way, and to prepare for a longer program tomorrow.

The result? Magic. Seriously. I love the pilates and dance-based workouts I've been doing lately -- and look forward to reviewing more -- but there really is something special about yoga. And there's something really special about yoga that you're doing for yourself, when you don't really care about looking good or pushing past your limits or impressing anyone with how you can balance on your pinky.

I took it so slowly today, but really focused on the deep, deep breathing, and on making each stretch and movement count. My old yoga instructor would have been talking about "intention" -- without really knowing it, I did have an intention for this simple little yoga practice, and that was to centre myself again. And it worked. When I got up, I was sure that my body was wonderful, I was having the easiest pregnancy any woman had ever had, I wasn't afraid of labour, and that wiping another human being's poop for the next few years would be absolutely hilarious.

I've read it a thousand times, I've heard it said just as often, but I still have to learn it myself: yoga is not about "getting ninety minutes" in or setting a record. But to me, it's not about spiritual awakenings either. It's just about allowing myself to take an effective, cheap happy pill with no side effects.

How to get those veils cheaper

2012-01-16T18:37:00.000-06:00

As if sensing my new need for veils, the Belly Dance Shoppe just advertised a 15% discount on their new silk veils. The code is NewVeils (I tried it without a space, and it didn't work), and the sale goes on until January 23, 2012. Now I am sorely tempted... soooorely tempted.

Finally got a veil!

2012-01-13T13:10:00.001-06:00

So, I have quite a few veil DVDs, some of which I also need to review, and I thought the next few months would be a great time to do so. My torso and belly might not be as flexible, but I can still use my arms, right? The thing is, I've done very little (like, really, really little) in-class veil work, and even that was years ago and rather randomly taught. And this week, when I was working with Jennifer Jimenez' "Lets Dance Together - Prenatal Dance Fitness" (review coming soon) and got to the scarf/veilwork section, I went to find the piece of chiffon I've had lying around for years and -- could not for the life of me find it. I found practice zills, hip scarves, poi, all kinds of little props I have hanging around, but no chiffon! I realised the awful truth -- I badly needed a veil.

But what kind? It turns out that bellydance videos have varying amount of information on choosing a veil. Veil with Aziza and Kaeshi Chai's Expressive Bellydance Veil both go over the basics, silk and chiffon, and Kaeshi also shows how to steam iron your veils to keep them looking fresh. There's a small section on choosing veils in Sarah Skinner's Seven Veils, but the really long introductions are in Skinner's Bellydance with Veil and Shoshanna's Fabulous Four Yard Veils. Skinner's intro is more of a show-and-tell -- you can tell that she's really in love with her veils! -- and she focuses quite a bit on the makeup of the fabric and the look, weight, and hemming of the veil, going through varieties of chiffon and even more unusual fabrics. Shoshanna doesn't deal with quite as many kinds of fabrics, but she gives more examples of how particular veils might work in dance, what moves she likes to do with what kinds of veils, and also which veil fabrics are too heavy and might cause injury!

Other resources I like are Dina Lydia's article, "Making a Veil," and Zorba's "So Many Veils, So Little Time!" In the end I went to Little Egypt, a store and bellydance school here in Dallas, and picked up a couple of silk veils at their sale that were pretty much cheaper than on eBay! (And a little practice cane... because I'm bad.) I'd still like to get to a fabric store nearby and see what kinds of chiffon are out there, and if I can make a really sturdy -- or at least disposable -- practice veil out of some on-sale fabric, but for now I'm ready to go!

Review of Suzanne Bowen's Long and Lean Prenatal Workout

2012-01-12T16:53:00.002-06:00

Suzanne Bowen's Long and Lean Prenatal Workout is one gorgeous pilates-based workout. Actually, to tell you the truth, it doesn't feel like a prenatal workout at all. Suzanne herself is not visibly pregnant in the video, and there's almost no "baby" talk. She does tell you to take rests and get water more frequently than you'd hear in a normal pilates workout (rather than the "keep going, you can do this!" typical of exercise mavens). And those of us who have watched lots of prenatal workout intros can tell that the workout does not involve any exercises dangerous for pregnant women -- not much bouncing, and nothing done on the back. But given all that, this is the first prenatal workout I've done during which I repeatedly forgot I was pregnant -- and at seven months, that's a feat.

The workout is divided into three main sections:

Standing - 20 minutes
Mat - 20 minutes
Stretching - 10 minutes

There is also a 10-minute postnatal abs section taught by Leah Sarago that I haven't, for obvious reasons, looked at or tried yet.

What's the scoop? The standing segment was ballet-inspired but eminently doable. There are light squats and lunges, but all done so precisely that even my usually-weak knees didn't protest for a moment. (And have been fine all day afterwards.) Most of the leg series are accompanied by arm movements that will really warm you up. This section felt really beautiful, and gave me a feeling of lightness I haven't had in a while.

The mat work segment was, frankly, challenging. I don't have an enormous amount of upper-body strength anyway, and found I simply had to take breaks here and there. And there was an oblique exercise that I could have done easily before pregnancy, but at seven months was just not going to happen anymore! But, to my surprise, the abdominal exercises were much easier to accomplish without strain than in other prenatal videos.

Also excellent was the stretching segment. While it helped to be warm for this, I would recommend it as a stand-alone program to anyone who is pregnant or has back pain. The leg, hip, and back stretches were extremely effective and satisfying, even though Suzanne warns you not to push yourself too hard or too far. I could feel my prenatal sciatica slipping into nothingness...

The workout closes with the invitation to relax while sitting on or your side, while music plays for a while. I wound up not finding this music all that relaxing, but when I turned off the video I realised I was surprisingly refreshed given the practice. The Long and Lean Prenatal Workout is a program I expect I'll be using even when pregnancy is only a memory!

Review of Patricia Friberg's Belly Beautiful Workout - Prenatal

2012-01-05T19:29:00.003-06:00

Patricia Friberg's Belly Beautiful Workout - Prenatal Fitness for a Beautiful Pregnancy is an excellent addition to a prenatal workout collection. While most prenatal workouts are yoga-based and focus on stretching, Belly Beautiful Workout is Pilates-based and will make you feel some burn, but it is also gentle and precise enough to be done even by a seven-month pregnant woman!

I received a review copy of this program, and was excited to try it because of the props. Patricia uses a Swiss ball and an elastic band in her exercises, and suggests you set up on a sticky mat. Now, this could be annoying if you don't have the items, though the mat is really optional and the Swiss ball can be replaced in most cases with a chair. But I was glad -- for a while, every exercise DVD I bought came with a free elastic band, and I somehow have acquired two Swiss balls I don't quite know what to do with. So I'm happy to play with a program that teaches me how to use them.

The workout is divided into several sections:

A segment on Pelvic Floor Work (separate from the full workout)
Warm Up
Upper Body
Lower Body
Stretch
Relaxation

There is also an intro and a section on Diastitis recti, and Patricia tells you throughout the workout which moves to avoid if you have the latter.

In general, this is the kind of video that looks super easy to do when you watch it on screen, and is in fact much more challenging. The warmup is probably the only one I've done on a prenatal video that really warmed my muscles. The upper body segment uses the elastic band. Most of its moves are not terribly strenuous, but you will definitely feel some of them. (And the upper body tends to be neglected on prenatal workout videos, so I think it's valuable.) And the lower body segment has some moves performed leaning sideways on the ball that are very difficult by the end. Patricia makes leaning on that ball look easy, but I fell off multiple times while trying to perform the exercises! The one thing I would say is that if, like me, you have weak knees, you should be careful performing these exercises and the lunges in the lower body workout.

This is much harder to do than it looks

The stretch segment is short, but effective (it also uses the ball, to my surprise!), and it leads to what I think is the real gem of the program: the relaxation segment. Now, most programs, even the yoga ones, tell you to relax during shavasana, or in a best case scenario, tell you to picture something relaxing or to relax particular body parts. Patricia sets you up in a position safe for pregnant women and then guides you through a progressive relaxation that is very similar to one in Preparation for Birth: The Complete Guide to the Lamaze Method. It involves tensing each muscle for five seconds and then relaxing it, which is much more effective than just "trying to relax." How effective? Well, let's just say that by the end of the relaxation segment, I had relaxed right out of consciousness. Even though I had been awake and alert just a few minutes earlier! I wound up having a wonderful nap on the floor (yes, right on the yoga mat) and will use that segment again just to practice guided relaxation.

I only did parts of the pelvic floor segment, but exercises do teach you how to access the Kegel muscles in a slightly different way than I've seen elsewhere, and I can imagine them being very useful. Most of them could also be done sitting at a desk.

You will love this video if:
- you want a bit more of a challenge than prenatal videos usually offer
- you like using props
- you like Pilates-based movements
- you want to focus on your upper body
- you want to practice deep relaxation as recommended by some natural childbirth methods
- you want practice building your Kegel muscles

You will not love this video if:
- you are primarily looking for stretching
- you have weak knees
- you hate having to buy or use props

You can get the video at bellybeautifulworkout.com/.

Review of Amira's Belly Dance & Yoga For Pregnancy Prenatal Exercise

2011-12-28T17:55:00.003-06:00

My exploration of dance-based prenatal DVDs continues with Amira's Belly Dance & Yoga For Pregnancy Prenatal Exercise, a massive three-and-a-half hour video that includes yoga and strength exercises, dance movement instruction and practice, birthing prep, interviews with health professionals and dancers, and two performances. Amira provided me with a review copy, and in our correspondence she mentioned having intended to make a much shorter program -- I guess she got carried away with the research!


Amira's yoga warmup

So this video is really several programs in one: the first, which most people will probably buy it for, is a gentle conditioning program for pregnant women with a strong dance component. The second is a reflection on childbirth from several different perspectives: Amira's as dancer, pregnant woman, and researcher, those of a midwife and a chiropractic doctor, and testimonials from six dancers who had children. These programs are also intertwined to some extent. I'll deal with the second program first.

Amira's Belly Dance & Yoga For Pregnancy Prenatal Exercise for Childbirth Information

The thrust of Amira's work is very much about recovering non-Western modes of bodily movement and preparation for childbirth. This can be seen in her introduction, and in little segments between the exercise sections of the workout. My own reaction to this was split. On the one hand, it's incredibly silly to force women to give birth lying down, and it's also patently clear that many of the movements in bellydance are precisely what doctors now recommend to pregnant women to alleviate pains and prepare for childbirth. "Ancient wisdom" is a broad and vague category, but there is clearly a lot we can learn from forms of movement that are not sitting at one's desk. On the other hand, I also tend to resist idealizing either the past or non-Western medicine. Pregnancy is not a disease, but it is dangerous, and a lot of women died in the past who wouldn't die today in North America or Western Europe. (Maternal mortality is still a major issue around the world, one Hilary Clinton has drawn attention to recently -- see this, this, and this.)

Dancer Maggie shares her birth story

This is why what spoke to me most from this part of the video were the testimonials of dancers, who spoke about their own birth experiences. What came out of this was that pregnancy and birth are complicated, messy, and deeply individual. Some wound up having C-sections, some had tough pregnancies but were able to give birth vaginally, and every woman seemed to have a mix of joys and regrets. All thought they had benefited from their dance practice, but in different and nuanced ways -- a feeling of femininity, a strengthened bond with the baby, or better body awareness. I loved that this section of the video showed that becoming a mother is not one-size-fits-all deal, even if many of us have ideas about what the "perfect" childbirth might look like.

Amira's Belly Dance & Yoga For Pregnancy Prenatal Exercise as Prenatal Workout

The exercise section of the video contains five sections:

Yoga Warmup & Stretch
Strengthening
Belly Dance
Exercises During Labor
Cool Down and Stretch

This is quite a bit of material, and you will probably prefer just to do the warmup, cool down, and one of the sections in the middle on a normal day. I've tried it all except for the labor exercises, though these are mostly also bellydance movements, with the interesting addition of breathing practice that even women confined to bedrest can do.

The program is extremely careful, and very gentle. While you will stretch and strengthen your muscles, there are no jarring movements or even footwork. Everything is cued slowly and precisely. It means you should do this video on a day when you're not in a rush (you might be frustrated with the pace), but also that you're unlikely to injure or unduly strain yourself. Subtitles and inset videos will sometimes show modifications. And the program as a whole is a complete package -- every part of your body will be gently stretched or worked, though it won't feel like an intense workout. The best result was one I didn't even notice right away. After doing this video, I had almost three days without sciatica pain.

Kitty paws help pregnant pain!

The "Belly Dance" section consists of basic movement instruction, but no choreographies. For women who are new to bellydance, Amira's instructions will be approachable. More experienced dancers will not find challenging moves or routines, but I think this section would be a great long warmup for a pregnant woman continuing her dance practice. (It doesn't have lots of lunges or extended shimmies that other warmups I know use, but which might be difficult or dangerous during pregnancy.) What I think is really valuable about this section, even for women who know how to do a chest circle and a maya, is that Amira's slow and careful repetition of the movements forces you to pay attention to your basics. I found myself really focusing on the fundamentals, striving to extend my range of motion, and working on doing basic movements in a beautiful way. It made me think that there could be a plus side to dancing when pregnant!

And yes, bellydance does feel very good when you're pregnant! What I found funny was that Amira included a section on arms and hands and claimed that it was for the beauty of the dance rather for any health benefits. Beautiful handwork is my favourite part of bellydance, so I'm with her on that, but I think she's wrong on one point. Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to carpal tunnel syndrome, and nothing is as great for that as bellydance hand flourishes are! They're gorgeous, but they also have health benefits. Go figure.

The summary? You will love this DVD if you want a full but gentle prenatal workout, if you want to luxuriate in movement that will support your pregnancy, and if you want to hear about other women's thoughts on and experiences of childbirth. You will not love it if you want a fast or sweaty workout, or if you do not want to hear about childbirth practices around the world (there are informational bits between the workout segments). You can get the DVD at www.pregnantbellydance.com.

Continuing choreography with Jillina

2011-12-26T23:11:00.000-06:00

A few days ago I wrote about my fear of choreography. I realised that part of what I needed to do was to slow down. I may not be one of those people who can watch someone at the front of the classroom do a series of complicated steps and repeat them immediately (and I have, to my horror, been in rooms of dancers who can), but I can learn if I take my time. The ability to learn fast is different from the ability to learn at all. What came out of this were some good discussions on Bhuz and OrientalDancer.net, in which I got to hear about other dancers' experiences learning to perform, being afraid of advancing in the dance, and learning how to learn choreography.

A few days ago I took advantage of Christmastime leisure and returned to Instructional Bellydance With Jillina - Level 1. My first time around, I had worked with the movement instruction section and arduously learned the first three combinations. Before beginning the second session, I ran through the first three combos from memory, to see how much I could recall on my own. (All of it!) I then repeated the sections for those three combinations, which gave me a really wonderful feeling -- the transitions that had felt unnatural earlier now came easily and organically, and I barely had to think anymore.

The real surprise, though, was the fact that I sped through the next four combos. (There are only seven total.) For some reason, even though I was really tired when doing this practice, my body could just pick up the combinations this time around. I did have a little trouble with footwork, and I probably wouldn't recollect as much of them now, but I was able to get up to full speed much, much faster than in the first practice session. This still involved a few repetitions of each combination's instruction and practice segment, but I did not have to stop these quite as often. This was completely unexpected!

Again, Jillina's video is nothing fancy -- she uses just a few basic movements in combinations that are simple but lovely. But to me mastering them still felt like an achievement. By the end, the many spins had made me dizzy (I am pretty pregnant, after all!), but I did a run-through of all the combinations again and did some cool-down stretches on my own. I then reviewed the final section of the video, in which Jillina adapts the combinations into a choreography to "Alf La Waila Waila." For the next practice, I'm planning to review all the combinations again as a warm-up, and then tackle the choreo to the song. I'm not sure how I'll deal with having the patterns changed, but at least the music will now be a help. This whole choreography thing is starting to seem... doable.

Review of 10 Minute Solution Prenatal Pilates, with Lizbeth Garcia

2011-12-20T00:35:00.003-06:00

I've been feeling pretty fit and pleased with myself lately, but 10 Minute Solution Prenatal Pilates pretty much kicked my butt tonight. Maybe it was my body telling me to take a day off, or maybe it was the fact that I was working with the video pretty late in the day. But while I meant to try all five prenatal segments (there is also one postnatal workout), I only did two full ten-minute parts and about half of two others.

Lizbeth shows how it's done

Despite the fact that this program made me feel, well, weak, I think I'll wind up a fan. It's one of the most strenuous workouts I've tried so far, without leading to overheating. Both the "Standing Pilates" and "Total Body Pilates" segments have significant arm work, with light weights, which not only feels pretty good for the upper back but reminds you that you can work out more than my hips and back during pregnancy! The "Core Pilates" segment has you prop yourself up with pillows and then do modified pilates abdominal work, and trust me, you will feel this, especially if your other workouts have avoided the abdominal muscles. "Pilates for Buns & Thighs" will give you serious burn in the aforementioned regions, and "Pilates for Flexibility" offers some really delicious stretches. Basically, the pace is fast enough and the exercises challenging enough that you could do just one ten minute segment a day and feel that you had done something for your muscle tone. The DVD allows you to customize your own workout, so you can decide how much you want to do and in what order.

Pregnancy, it turns out, is no excuse to ignore your inner thighs

Lizbeth Garcia is visibly pregnant throughout the exercises -- though also visibly buff! I'm easily annoyed by too-peppy workout instructors, but she is just cheery enough without grating. (And there's something a little rough about her voice that I really like too.) And -- I think this is kind of adorable -- although the picture on the DVD has her perfectly styled, in the actual video her workout shirt is too short for her belly. I think pregnant women can sympathize!

An omi a day keeps the doctor away!

2011-12-19T20:22:00.001-06:00

Shira posted this little goodie on Tribe, and I simply had to share. Israeli researchers recently found that attending bellydance workshops decreased the rate at which women had to go to the doctor. The average age of the participants in the study was 49, so it may just have been regular movement, but I still think it's a cool bit of news. Read the news at the link:

Israeli researchers: Belly dancing good for women's health

The Eternal Beginner; or, Beating the fear of choreography with Jillina

2011-12-19T02:02:00.000-06:00

Bellydance has been a source of joy and frustration to me. Joy, because it's the dance that really speaks to my soul, the dance that feels right on my body, the dance that helped teach me to feel comfortable as a woman when I was just becoming one. Frustration, because the intensity of my studies and work, the frequent moves during my twenties, and my own fear and self-consciousness have kept me from progressing beyond beginner.

I took my first bellydance class almost ten years ago in Toronto. In that time, I've taken classes and even quite intensive workshops in Connecticut, New York, Berlin, and Texas. But the longest I every stayed with one teacher was right at the beginning -- since then I've had trouble finding classes in one city, in the next I had trouble finding a studio I liked, in another city I spent too little time, and the class I took this spring with a teacher I liked was cancelled without notice. Despite the fact that I've done much harder classes, when I go to a new teacher I describe myself as a beginner. There is so much I still don't know, and I don't want to be the annoying student who judges herself to be intermediate. But this does mean I'm always breezing through the basics, and never really learning to put things together.

(The funny thing is that when I put on music and just jam, I have no trouble improvising...)

My worst fear is of choreography. Maybe it's due to the memory of trying out for arts school when I was ten, and a dance teacher running through complicated steps which everyone around me could magically pick up. They all turned left, while I was turning right! The truth is, choreography is not something I pick up quickly, especially if it's not introduced with music or doesn't really make sense with the music. I've never quite figured counting out. But taking regular classes this spring taught me something: I can learn combinations and choreography if I practice them really incrementally, and repeat them often. I'm not the person who can watch twenty-four counts' worth of moves and repeat them afterward without a hitch, and perhaps I never will be -- but that doesn't mean I can't learn if I'm willing to be more patient.

So, today, I decided to work on beating my fear of choreography. I searched my video library for a DVD that would have simple choreos with repetition, and came across a video I've had for ages: Instructional Bellydance With Jillina - Level 1. I thought the mix of quick review of the basic moves and small, manageable combos would be just right -- and it was. Jillina first introduces the combinations slowly and then drills them 3-4 times with music. After teaching the seven combinations, she then goes through them again, but modifies them into a choreography to "Alf La Waila Waila," and has you practice that.

Part of my resolution was that I would not try to do the whole video. My current condition (28 weeks pregnant) means it would probably be unwise anyway. But I wanted to see if I could really learn a few combos if I applied myself, rather than doing the program as a whole and always feeling that I can't keep up. So today, after working with Jillina's technique review, I just focused on the first three combinations. They were simple, easy, but lovely with the music. (I'm not one of those people who think bellydance has to be incredibly complicated to be beautiful.) When I found that a particular transition or movement was counter-intuitive, I paused, and kept rewinding and repeating the drill until it felt natural. And I added my own breaks to repeat everything from the top. Finally, after learning the first three combinations, I stopped the video and practiced all three together several times on my own.

I found slowing down like this really liberating. Jillina gives no instructions for arms and hands except when she's choreographed snake arms, so once I had internalized the combinations I found I could follow her or improvise my own stylization. And, to my surprise, the process of learning combos and footwork was not as difficult as it usually is. I will probably do some pilates tomorrow and pick up the Jillina again in two days, and see how much has entered muscle memory, how much I need to relearn, and how things go with the next combinations. But for now, I'm excited, for the first time, about choreography.

What are your experiences learning choreography?

Working with Prenatal Yoga Complete

2011-12-17T19:02:00.000-06:00

I'm not ready to do a review of Prenatal Yoga Complete yet, since I've only worked with one program. This is more of a preliminary report!

I wasn't sure whether to spring for this video, since quite a few people on Amazon did not like it. There are so many options out there, why go for something poorly rated? However, when I realised that it's basically Iyengar yoga, I was too tempted, and finding a cheap copy in the Amazon Marketplace, decided to go for it.

I don't have a lot of experience with Iyengar yoga in general. I went to one class at the BKS Iyengar Yoga Studio of Dallas a while ago, and keep meaning to go back. My recollection of the experience was this: I did not feel that drug-like relaxation that I usually get from a yoga practice, nor did it feel like a strain at any point, so I was at first disappointed. However, a little later I felt great, and since that one single class, I've found myself recalling the careful, precise instructions for the poses we did even when I'm doing other yoga programs.

That's my way of saying that I suspect there's something to this whole Iyengar thing, even if it's not immediately satisfying the way a more active form of yoga is. And let's face it, when you want the relaxation and release of yoga, setting up a million different props is probably not what you're looking to do.

Prenatal Yoga Complete is a modular DVD, which I think is pretty cool. Basically, you choose a trimester and then you get a menu offering practices of varying lengths addressing different pregnancy issues and goals: things like dealing with morning sickness, back pain, or aiming for relaxation. The pregnancy sciatica has been cruel to me lately, so I chose a second-trimester back and hip workout.

The modular construction of the video means that there isn't flow from one asana to another -- each is essentially a different clip. Set up often takes a bit of time, and even though the descriptions are detailed and long enough to allow you to get everything in place, sometimes you will have to pause the video. You need quite a few blankets, bolsters, blocks, etc., but Mary Pappas-Sandonas does suggest substitutions in the introductory clip on props. And a lot of poses are done against a wall, which was a challenge for me since I did not have a free wall handy, but I was able to do most poses just fine without it.

Little did you know that a grand piano is a useful yoga prop!

What I loved is that this program gives you time. If you enjoy that aspect of yoga that is about paying really close attention to every single muscle, aiming towards best alignment, and breathing through a challenging pose, this is the video for you. The props made many of the poses easier to achieve than what I'm used to doing in other prenatal yoga DVDs, but I made up for that ease with attentiveness. And some of the asanas, done carefully, were much harder.

I also loved that this program included a beautiful, ridiculously relaxing, supported shavasana. Instead of a guided visualization or instructions to "relax" different body parts, Pappas-Sandonas leads you through a deep breath relaxation. I found this much more effective. And -- the best part -- after the clip for the shavasana is over, the video goes to silence. (There is nothing worse than wanting to stay in corpse pose a bit longer but having some ridiculous DVD intro music play on infinite loop.) My sciatica pain isn't completely gone, but out of all the stretches and programs I've done lately for it, this one has been the most effective. I'm looking forward to trying out the other workouts.

Review of Elena Brower's Element: Prenatal & Postnatal Yoga

2011-12-15T18:55:00.003-06:00

At one point while doing Elena Brower's Element: Prenatal & Postnatal Yoga I thought: "hey, this is like what I know as yoga." That seemed like a weird thing to think considering the number of yoga videos I've been doing lately. But Elena Brower's program reminded me of the yoga classes I used to take in New York, in the kids' playroom of our apartment building, with one super-intense and wonderful yoga teacher. It has the same kind of slow, careful movement, with very precise instructions that are sometimes difficult to conceptualize, but work brilliantly once you get what she means. Later, I checked the DVD case and realised Brower does Anusara yoga, which is what we were doing back then. Maybe it's because it's what I'm used to, but there's something about Anusara yoga that really hits the spot for me -- more dynamic than just one position after another, but more measured than vinyasa flow.

Pigeon pose -- brilliant for prenatal back pain

The program itself is short: it's about half an hour, and flies by in what seems like less time. There are subtle modifications for pregnant women, things like very careful twists and gentle backbends and squatting work. That said, it doesn't feel like a prenatal program. It won't get all the kinks out (at least it didn't for me), and it's not so much about relaxing or stretching. Instead, you get warrior poses, some pigeon poses and forward bends and downward dogs and moves in and out of plank, and a final seated relaxation.

While I was doing the video, I felt like I was building strength. It wasn't nearly as tiring as Jennifer Wolfe's Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga, but I could feel it. Then, strangely, when I finished the program, I felt like I hadn't done anything at all! The only difference was that my hips felt looser.

The verdict? I'll wait a bit and see how my body feels. I loved the precision of Brower's instructions, the way focusing on one muscle or breath could enable me to stretch further comfortably. I would happily purchase more of her DVDs, and am certainly looking forward to working with the postnatal part of the program. However, I don't think this video is the complete package for prenatal conditioning or relaxation. Use it in conjunction with other programs.

Review of Heather Seininger's Yoga Pregnancy: Pre and Post Natal Workouts

2011-12-11T12:11:00.001-06:00

Heather Seininger's Yoga Pregnancy: Pre and Post Natal Workouts is basically the polar opposite of Jennifer Wolfe's Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga, which I practiced with and reviewed yesterday. Whereas Wolfe's program seems intended to be as close as possible to a real and vigorous Vinyasa yoga practice with a few modifications, Seininger's program is short, easy, and seems more focused on giving pregnant women the basic stretches for back, chest, neck, and hips that they need to deal with everyday pains and prepare for labour.

The video also includes a postnatal workout, which I didn't try for now. But the prenatal workout is just right when you really only want a stretch and a bit of strength building. Seininger has a very calm voice, and she matter-of-factly instructs you how to enter each position, each time giving you a moment to center yourself and find your balance. There are warrior poses, but here you have time to get into proper form and to check your foot placement. Every asana is done carefully, purposefully, and without rushing. There is a brief (too brief!) shavasana at the end. There are modifications shown for third trimester, and these are usually cued verbally as well.

If you've done any kind of yoga at all, this probably won't challenge you too much. But it's perfect maintenance for days when you want something light, and a good way to start the day.

Review of Jennifer Wolfe's Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga

2011-12-11T01:56:00.001-06:00

I don't envy producers of workout DVDs. I figure they have a hard time pleasing their audiences -- at least that's what Amazon reviews tend to indicate. And here's my theory for it: the prospective audience for a workout DVD is fundamentally split: there are the people who are so dedicated to their cardio/yoga practice/bellydance drills that they need videos to supplement their classes and gym visits, and then there are the people who haven't done anything in a while, and figure the new Laotian dancing yoga & hooping video might be the thing that will inspire them to keep with a workout program. Needless to say, these groups of people will not be satisfied with the same video.

This problem is amplified with prenatal workouts. There are the superfit mamas who aren't going to let a little thing like the 9-month gestation of human life get in the way of their muscle conditioning, and then there are the ladies whose backs are starting to hurt something fierce and who have been terrified by their natural childbirth books into doing some kind of prenatal yoga.

I tend to fall in the latter camp, but in the case of Jennifer Wolfe's Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga I'm split. On the one hand, I've done enough regular yoga classwork in the past to agree that most prenatal yoga programs really are just stretching. They feel fabulous, but are probably not helping my condition too much. On the other hand -- I find this program a bit too strenuous, even when doing all the third-trimester modifications. I actually bought it in a set, Complete Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga & Short Forms, which has a DVD with 15, 30, and 45 minute practices. Because I had time today, I thought I'd jump right into the 75-minute practice on the first video, but this was clearly a mistake. At one point I had to start taking breaks and doing child's pose repeatedly, and Wolfe does encourage this, but it's frustrating. And my lower back hurts this evening, making me think that I might have strained myself a bit. However, I'm willing to try the shorter programs and see if I can't work up to getting something useful out of the longer, 75-minute practice.

For now, I'll review positives and negatives of the long program, all through the filter of my own likes and pet peeves!

The Pluses

- The workout is generally quite well cued, including verbal cues for the modifications, and the presenters "mirror" what you should be doing, so it's easy enough to follow.
- Breathing is indicated throughout (though Wolfe sometimes seems to lose track of what breath should go where -- this gets confusing).
- While I usually worry about so many lunges and what they might mean for my weak knees, movement in and out of lunges is described very precisely, step-by-step, in a way that minimizes the chances of something going wrong.
- Wolfe repeatedly encourages you to take a break if you need it.
- The practice is vigorous enough to feel like a real workout. You really get warmed up, and you're definitely building strength.
- There's a longish squat section that feels really good, and that seems to be just the thing for birth prep.
- This is one of the few yoga videos I've ever seen, prenatal or not, that has a decent shavasana: Wolfe does a long, guided meditation, with light music in the background that is not annoying. That's impressive.

The Minuses

- The safety notes often come in the middle or second repetition of a pose. They should come right at the start!
- This may be an issue with vinyasa in general rather than with this particular DVD, but the move from a lunge to a warrior posture is often too quick to really allow for proper alignment of the feet. Now, this is a video for people who have yoga experience, but being pregnant means that finding your balance and figuring out where your feet are is a longer process, and one that varies daily.
- Those lunges and downward-facing dogs get really repetitive. They also get tiring, but it's easier to soldier through a program that's more varied. In 75 minutes, a much greater range of yoga postures could have been done.
- There is a little, but not much, for the neck and shoulder area. Given that this is also an area where pregnant women typically have pain, it would have been nice to have more than a head circle in each direction and an eagle pose.

This is it so far -- I'll report on the other workouts as I use them, but this one was too much for me at present. Still, for building strength it's probably a very good idea to do something a little more rigorous than sitting on a chair and doing a side stretch.

Review of Sera Solstice's Goddess Dance: Prenatal Bellydance & Meditation

2011-12-07T09:01:00.001-06:00

As much as I tend to hate anything with "goddess" in the title, especially with combined with "pregnancy" or "bellydance," I love Prenatal Bellydance & Meditation and by the end of it, have a bit of a girl-crush on Sera Solstice. This is the first prenatal bellydance program that leads you through what feels like real dancing. Moreover, the aesthetics of it are simply delightful.

This woman's dancing is perfection

I'm going to review this from two perspectives -- as a prenatal workout and as a dance instructional. The video also has two meditation segments, but I'm not quite into that right now.

Prenatal Bellydance & Meditation as prenatal workout:

Sera is eight months pregnant during the filming of the video, and she explains that she has chosen movements based on what she has found satisfying for her pregnant body. She doesn't mention consulting any medical literature on safe movements for pregnancy, but nothing she does contradicts any indications I've seen. Her backup dancers demonstrate the moves for early pregnancy and postnatal, but there really isn't too much difference in most sequences.

The beginning warmup is dancey, smooth, but quite minimal -- I suggest complementing with your own basic movements like cat stretches, leg stretches, and neck and shoulder rolls. The dance combos themselves are great for a woman who's growing. Yes, they push a little further than the very basic movements of other prenatal workouts, but it ultimately feels very good. Although Sera often talks about the need to lower awareness to the hips and pelvis, I think the real strength of this program is in what it does for the upper body. I'm in my sixth month of pregnancy, and I end every day feeling pain in my upper back and rib area. While my yoga videos do provide good side stretches, there really is nothing like bellydance to stretch upper abdominals, upper back muscles, and obliques.

The workout as a whole is not heavy on the cardio, but you will feel it, especially if you have been doing lighter, pregnancy-type exercise. I added a necessary cool-down and stretch on my own. There is one hilarious section in which Sera explains the most complicated Kegels I've ever heard of, and then guides you to do them along with a series of bellydance movements. This was too much for me! Look, if you want me to move all those muscles separately and precisely, muscles I have never been asked to control to that extent in my life, then I had better be sitting on the ground thinking about that and only that. It's not gonna happen during an omi.

Prenatal Bellydance & Meditation as dance workout:

I loved the video as a dance workout. I don't think it would be the right thing for someone trying bellydance for the very first time. Although Sera does give quite lengthy explanations of the movements, using good visuals, you have to pick them up pretty quickly to be able to move along with the video. It takes most women a bit of time to learn a flat-footed maya or an omi or even a chest circle. However, if you have some experience of the moves, her instruction is great for improving your execution of them. The combinations are manageable, but not boring, especially if you also think about getting the hands and arms right.

Most importantly, Sera is a really beautiful dancer. I tend not to get as excited about tribal fusion, since it often seems to lack the fluidity and grace I love about more traditional bellydance forms. Sera is the person to prove me wrong. Her movements are an education in grace, and it's saying a lot that following her makes you feel like you are dancing.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this DVD from World Dance New York.

Review of Leisa Hart's Fit Mama Prenatal Workout

2011-12-05T18:36:00.001-06:00

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

This morning I did Leisa Hart's Fit Mama for the first time. Let's face it, there's a need for this kind of program. While there are countless prenatal yoga and pilates DVDs out there, there aren't quite so many available with cardio workouts. And sometimes cardio is really what you need -- not so much to lose weight (obviously), but to get a bit of energy and warm up the muscles in a way that stretches alone don't accomplish.

In case you can't tell, you're supposed to be sexy now.

And, you know, I got it for five bucks at the local Half Price Books.

Having spent almost an hour in Leisa Hart's company today, I'm pretty much speechless. On the one hand, there are some truly good things about this video. It did get me warmed up, it wasn't too hard to follow along, the stretching section had a few moves I haven't seen on other programs (including a very useful stretch for targeting the sciatic nerve), and there were a couple of abdominal exercises that were creative. Also, in the bonus section there is little video with a short stretch program that can be done standing, with a chair. This strikes me as valuable for those of us with desk jobs, who might really feel the need to incorporate a little extra movement into the day. I haven't watched the labor prep/movements bonus video, but that may be useful too.

But who can say no to a sciatic stretch?

On the ooooooother hand... (you knew that was coming, didn't you?). Oh lordy, is this video ever annoying. The salsa cardio section is not too bad, but it is quite repetitive. Hart has the idiotic cardio instructor habit of "encouraging" her audience with phrases such as, "Sexy!" "I see what you're doing there!" "Put a bit of hip into it!" "Sassy!" "Can you be sexy when you're pregnant?" (Wait, did I hear that last one correctly?)

I mean, really. How sexy can I look when I'm six months pregnant and doing the cardio vid version of salsa in yoga pants in the middle of my living room? Why do I even have to look sexy during this?

Move forward to the so-called "yoga" segment. This section of the program looks like a cardio instructor saw photos of yoga moves in a magazine and assumed they were actually stills from a very active practice. There are only a few positions, and each one involves bouncing in place. Rinse, repeat. Hart demonstrates her yoga cred by constantly mentioning "deep breaths." Except, instead of taking the slow, deep breaths typical of yoga, she blows out in the loudest and most off-putting manner imaginable. I don't think this woman has ever been near a yoga class in her life.

So what to say in the end? The video has some real benefits, it gets your blood moving, and the stretches are not bad. (Not complete -- nothing for neck or shoulders -- but not bad.) If you can enter a zen state where you just enjoy the sheer ridiculousness of it, you will probably get something out of it. I can't imagine putting myself through the fake "yoga" workout again, but I would do the fake salsa and the stretching segment. At a fiver, it wasn't a bad purchase, but it's not a program to chase down.

Habibi Journal -- now online!

2011-12-03T14:17:00.001-06:00

When I first got into bellydancing I heard a bit about Habibi, a journal about Middle Eastern dance published between 1993 and 2002. I was so curious. I used to check in on the Gilded Serpent regularly, but only a few of its articles are really substantive. (And its reviews quite superficial and congratulatory -- which made them useless for me, a budding collector.)

Well, Shareen el Safy just announced that much of Habibi, which she published, is now available online:

The Best of Habibi

I was lucky enough to take a long workshop with Shareen a few years ago in New York. I still haven't gotten around to working with the videos I bought, and I only remember a few of the moves she taught, but what really stayed in my memory were her reflections on the dance itself. She talked about how dance is not just a way of interpreting music for the audience, but that the dancer's role is also to communicate the "deliciousness" of the movement to those watching her. What I loved was her focus on the internal, private, and sensuous aspects of a dance that tends to seem showy, entertaining, and "available" -- at least when compared to modern dance or ballet.

I've only skimmed a bit through the Habibi archive, but a lot of the articles seem to reflect this thoughtful approach to a dance that is often misunderstood, and often approached with technique but not with soul. The one article I read, which I absolutely loved, was Suhaila Salimpour's recollection of working as a dancer in Lebanon. I can't wait to discover more of the writing on Habibi.

Holiday 2011 Bellydance Steals and Deals

2011-11-28T17:52:00.001-06:00

What with the Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Commercial Craziness lately, I thought I would round up a few of the online sales that would be interesting to bellydancers. I'm including costuming! Many of them seem to be going beyond this weekend, so this post should be useful for a few months!

Updated: Ocean State Media has some good deals on their new website -- varying percentages off of videos. (Link goes directly to their dance videos.) Until December 31st, use coupon code 104CH for 10% off!

New: Leyla Lanty is offering a holiday combo special: her DVD "Habibi, You Are My... WHAT?! Leyla Lanty's Essential Arabic for Dancers Vol 1" plus her Egyptian dance music CD "Golden Days Enchanting Nights," for $23 including shipping to US or Canada. (Usually $28). Email her at leyla - at - leylalanty.com for details.

Hollywood Music Center has had a sale for a while: Middle Eastern CDs for $5 and DVDs for $10 each. Seems particularly good if you're interested in folkloric stuff.

BellyDanceShoppe has a Cyber Monday sale just today: 15% off with the code Cyber.

Dahlal Internationale has a 25% off sale, but for the life of me I can't make it work!

SharifWear has a second item at 50% off sale, with free shipping for orders over $100 for Cyber Monday.

Dancers Warehouse offers 10% off with the code HOLIDAY10, and they'll ship for free on orders over $75 with the code FREESHIP.

World Dance New York has had special pricing on their website for a while: 15% discount for orders of more than one DVD, and free shipping to US addresses.

I'll be updating this list as I learn more -- if you know of any sales, please include them in comments. I have ordered from (and been happy with) Hollywood Music Center, World Dance New York, and Ocean State Media. I can't vouch for any of the other merchants.

Review of Annette Fletcher's Prenatal Stretch & Strengthening

2011-11-27T19:00:00.001-06:00

If anyone had told me that pregnancy would make me more likely to exercise -- and not just to obsessively buy workout DVDs but to use them too -- I would have called them crazy. After all, how could the discomfort of a growing belly make me more energetic? It turns out that at least when it comes to light, yoga/pilates/stretching type workouts, the small aches of pregnancy actually make working out a must!

Stretch with movement

There seem to be a ton of prenatal videos out there (I have about 13, and will try to review them all!), and one of the newest is Annette Fletcher's Prenatal Stretch and Strengthening. I received a review copy from World Dance New York, and I wager I'm one of the few people to have used this program already! When I first received it, I did the warm-up, lying down moves, and final stretches. It was a weeknight and I was too tired to go for the standing moves too! But today I had a chance to work with the whole program.

After all the introductions (easily skippable), the main program consists of:

Warm Up
Full Body Movements
Standing Exercises
Deep Stretches

No times are given for these segments either on the box or on the menu, which I would have liked so I could time my workout. However, the entire workout is about an hour long.

Annette Fletcher does some classic floor pilates, but well supported

The moves are basically pilates with a bit of yoga thrown in. The only props are two yoga blankets that Annette folds in various positions to support the poses. Nothing is particularly taxing -- only in a few of the lying leg exercises are you likely to feel any kind of burn, and warrior poses are held long enough to strengthen but not to the point of exhaustion. The program is great for stretching your entire body while also working on some strength, but moderately enough that you don't really notice. (I could tell that my endurance had improved by the second use of the video however!)

What I really liked:

- Annette is clear and not annoyingly peppy.
- A number of the positions combine stretching with gentle movement, which really helped me to relax.
- Time is spent on the neck and shoulders -- you wouldn't think these get particularly tense during pregnancy, but they do.
- Some unusual positions or combinations of positions.
- Generally good cueing. For example, there is one adjustment she has you do during a forward lunge that is simply perfect for getting the right stretch.
- An exercise for working on Kegel muscles that is about as clear as such exercises get, considering that it can't really be viewed on a DVD!

What I didn't like:

- I know it's more pilates than yoga, but I missed having a relaxation segment at the end. Then again, it was easy to just turn the computer off and do my own.
- There are a few moments where Annette gives safety cues for knees ("if your knees are uncomfortable, do this") while the exercise is underway. These guidelines should be introduced right at the start.

Overall, I think the video offers a complete, accessible workout program that tones and stretches without causing discomfort at any point. It's not broken down by trimester, but Annette offers gradations of difficulty for many of the exercises. I've already done it twice in one week, and can see myself returning to it throughout pregnancy and afterward.

Review of Yoga Journal's Yoga for your Pregnancy

2011-11-13T22:44:00.001-06:00

Yoga Journal's Yoga for your Pregnancy is a great little video for a pregnant woman who is starting to feel the aches and discomforts of pregnancy and really just wants to get a delicious stretch. I bought it used a few weeks ago, and Sunday afternoon seemed like a nice time to do something not too strenuous for my body. However, after I finished the program, relaxed and pleased, I went on Amazon and found that many had rated the video poorly. I was shocked! It turns out, however, that many of them are regular yoga practitioners, and they, not surprisingly, found the program too easy. I didn't. Here's my take:

The video is composed of several segments: a 30-minute energizing routine, a 15-minute relaxation routine, and smaller videos on breathing, meditation, birthing-room yoga, along with a short postnatal yoga practice. One option allows you to do the energizing and relaxation routines along with the breathing and meditation all in a row, which adds up to an hour of practice. There is one glitch here, in that both the 30-min and 15-min routines set you up for a shavasana at the end, and playing the program in a row doesn't skip this. Since I did the 1-hour program today, I wound up doing two short shavasanas and then continuing on with the breathing and meditation sections -- a little ungainly.

As to the main practices: this is not flow yoga. The instructor sets up each position, instructs you quickly on the variations, and you then spend a brief amount of time doing the asana. There are three women on the screen, each doing a different version or level of difficulty. Now, I really liked the way they organized this. In most videos, the star instructor does the most difficult poses, setting them up as a kind of standard, while the other practitioners do variations that you can barely see in the background. In this case, the main instructor, Kristen Eykel, usually demonstrates a pose of intermediate difficulty, while the women in the back show a harder and an easier variation. Eykel also describes the modifications -- up or down in difficulty -- so that you do not have to look at the screen. However, the practitioners also switch it up sometimes -- the one who was doing the more difficult standing exercise might do the easier bending asana. They are at various stages of pregnancy, but the modifications they do seem to be more based on their bodies and abilities, rather than on trimester.

This is such a small detail, but I really liked it -- it simply seemed more real. After all, when I usually practice yoga, I'm not at the same level for all asanas. While I'm sure all the women in this video are advanced in their own practices, the way the video is set up makes exercise more approachable.

The asanas themselves are generally not difficult -- really not difficult. You will get a good stretch, and you will build strength a bit, but you will probably not break a sweat or feel exhausted if you have done any yoga before. I did not see much of a difference in intensity between the "energizing" workout and the "relaxing" workout.

The breathing segment is particularly nice. I found it one of the more approachable breathing practices I've seen on a video, but it was still long enough for me to feel relaxed and refreshed. The meditation segment was not the most convincing meditation I have done, but I tend to think it's hard to meditate with a video playing in the room anyway.

All in all, my body felt noticeably different -- no more pain, no more stiffness -- after doing the program, and I've been in a calm, happy zone in the hours since. I'm looking forward to checking out the birthing-room yoga segment and the postnatal yoga practice -- both nice extras on the DVD.

Review of Shiva Rea's Prenatal Yoga

2011-10-21T13:31:00.000-05:00

I recently went to a prenatal yoga class at a local studio, and while the place was nice and the instructor was friendly, I was a little surprised when she explained that their philosophy is to do the same vinyasa flow as in their regular classes. The only modifications were to move the leg around the belly when going from downward dog to a standing position, and to do shavasana on the side. Frankly... it was a bit tiring, and moving my leg so awkwardly led to knee pain in the following weeks. Maybe I would have really enjoyed it had I been a hardcore yogini with a regular practice, but I was really just a pregnant woman with a body that changes every day, and I'd sort of been hoping for a practice tailored to my condition.

Note the three levels of modification!

Enter Shiva Rea's Prenatal Yoga. I hadn't really worked with any of other videos, since they tended to seem a little difficult. The prenatal workout is really accessible, however, with just a slight bit of challenge. Moreover, it really seems to be designed for pregnant women -- there are gentle warm-up movements and exercises specifically for stretching and strengthening the pelvic area. Many of the standing moves are done with a chair, which makes the stretching more relaxing and less strenuous. It really is a gentle, relaxing hour-long yoga practice that you simply want to repeat.

What most impressed me, however, was this: Shiva Rea has two other women, in their second and third trimester respectively, doing modified versions of the positions next to her, but you don't even have to look at the screen to know what modifications you need to do. With every move, she also explains out loud how to modify it in case of discomfort or if your pregnancy is advanced. She even tells you to move your block to the other side of the mat when necessary. I've always found it a bit perverse that yoga videos will show modifications, but then force people to squint at a little body in the background of the screen. A woman in her third trimester can actually use this video without having to look at the screen -- now that's smart.

Review of Naia's Bellydance Prenatal Fitness

2011-10-16T12:10:00.000-05:00

I recently worked with Naia's Bellydance Prenatal Fitness for the first time, and can report the following: this is a useful little workout if you are pregnant, tired, but want to move a little anyway. It is not strenuous in the slightest, which could be good or bad depending on your point of view.

Naia grooves to pregnancy

If you are a pregnant lady who has done years of bellydance and wants to keep running marathons in the third trimester, you will probably not get much out this program. Just avoid it and avoid the disappointment. However, if you are a pregnant lady who hasn't been sleeping well, or who has a bit of back or knee pain, or who just does not want to commit to an hour-long workout that day, this is very good. I'm only in the second trimester and generally feel pretty energetic, but I expect this will only come in more handy as I get further along. I also think it could be useful outside of pregnancy on days I'm lazy, want a simple 30 minutes of dancing around, or when I'm suffering from mild back pain and don't want to take chances with a more aggressive workout.

Now to the program: it is divided into five sections, a warmup, lower and upper body, travel steps, and a bit of dance. The bellydance moves are quite basic, though I did find myself a bit confused in the travel steps section. (This is not my strong suit, so I would have liked a little slower instruction here -- but it's also something to grow into.) There's quite a bit of emphasis on stretching, which felt very good. And there was precious little of the "think about the miracle of life growing inside of you" kind of talk which I have found in other prenatal videos, and which, frankly, drives me up the wall. (I'm not dancing for my fetus, I'm dancing for myself. My fetus can learn to dance once it comes into the world and has mastered the whole walking thing.)

I corresponded a bit with Neon, who conceived and designed the video (and, full disclosure, sent me a review copy from WDNY). She did quite a bit of research on pregnancy and labour to create this program. I'm not a medical expert, but I can confirm that there is nothing in this video that feels extreme or like it would put undue pressure on any part of the body. And given that everything I've read about prenatal exercise advises women to perform moves that bellydance incorporates anyway, I'd rather just do something that's like dance than a dozen boring pelvic tilts.

Cardio Go-Go!

2011-01-30T13:22:00.000-06:00

As I said in the last post, I'm not really one for jumping around. This means that doing cardio is really a challenge, one I (occasionally) try to meet by doing some kind of dance-based workout.

A few days ago I tried Crunch's Cardio Go-Go Dance for the first time. I have one negative thing to say about this video, and a number of positive remarks, so I'll begin with the negative: the Gypsy Clark's high-pitched, grainy voice kind of drives me nuts. Now, after forty minutes of hearing it and having endorphins coursing through my body, I no longer had a nails-on-chalkboard reaction to it, but oh were the first ten minutes ever hard.

Now for the positive: first of all, this is the first Crunch dance-based DVD I've done that actually felt like dancing. I don't know what it is about cardio-style dancing, but that cha-cha and that hip-hop never seem anywhere close to the real thing. There's something so weirdly controlled, so robotic, about cardio instructors' dance movements. It's like someone took my croissant and made it whole-grain. I'm sure it's better for me, but it tastes funny.

That said, I've grown to like them, even Marie Forleo in all her strangeness. I'd rather do a fake cha cha than twenty jumping jacks. But Cardio Go-Go Dance actually feels like dancing. It's only one kind of dance for the full DVD (no medley of "Latin heat" or whatever), and a lot of the moves felt like what I might do naturally in a club.

What I expected even less was this: so many of the movements were bellydance movements! Chest lifts and shimmies, hip bumps and lifts, omis, and so on. The mood and the music are completely different, but I think the video would be a great way for bellydancers to do some cardio that would warm up exactly the muscles they use, but with a wholly different vibe.

Finally, I really liked the fact that the backup dancers/exercisers varied in the way they performed, or danced, the movements. In fact, some of them did the movements in a more dancey, if not as intense, way than Gypsy Clark. Watching them I got a sense of how the video could be done more as a dance warmup than as a typical cardio workout.

A method to the barness

2011-01-30T13:08:00.000-06:00

During one of my little forays to Half Price Books, I noticed two of the Bar Method DVDs. They were priced a little higher than their other workout DVDs, so I let them pass, but once I got home and saw how well-reviewed, pricey (and nearly unavailable on Amazon) they are, I went right back and snapped them up.

I'm a sucker for these ballet-inspired, little-tiny-movement workouts. I think it's because I'm inherently lazy, so I don't like to jump around a lot, but also because I like workouts that make me concentrate on what my body is doing. I love how thoughtful yoga is for the same reason. So I began by trying what seemed to be the easier program, The Bar Method: Change Your Body!.

What's interesting about this system is that it uses light weights, which means there's a bit more focus on arm work than in my beloved Callanetics. Almost every movement is followed by an appropriate stretch. The glutes and legs are worked in a variety of ways. And there are truly challenging abdominal exercises. Now, these use very few crunches, but the focus is on pelvic tilts. My guess -- and I hope I'm not getting the anatomy wrong -- is that they're working the Psoas muscle, which is generally quite hard to reach. This isn't discussed on the video per se, but the effect of working the Psoas muscle is, I've heard, to pull in the abdominals -- which you can't get just by doing crunches. I haven't seen this kind of focus on the Psoas in any other workout video so far.

By the time the workout was done, I didn't really feel I had done anything. Sure, the individual exercises had been challenging, but none were exhausting. Still, I thought I'd wait a day or two to see how I felt the next day, if the exercises had really worked my muscles.

The next day: oh lord. And the day after that -- I could feel leg, butt, hip, and arm muscles still pleasantly hurting. Now that I know its effects, I can't wait to do it again!

Yoga Journal's 21 day challenge

2011-01-15T10:05:00.000-06:00

Airport stopover, and my usual treat: heading to the Hudson's News and buying a variety of magazines, my guilty pleasures for the flight. They usually tell more about me than I'd like to have known: I think a combination of food magazines like Food and Wine and exercise mags like Yoga Journal really says everything about causes and effects.

The current issue of Yoga Journal (to which I used to subscribe, until it got a bit boring) did inspire me, however. They're beginning a 21-day yoga challenge. The idea? Do yoga, any kind of yoga, for 21 days straight, and make a habit of it. To support this, they're putting up free yoga videos on their website. There are supposed to be twenty-one, for each of the twenty-one days, but when I click through the three weeks, I see the same week's workouts repeated.

I began last night, by doing the 20-minute evening sequence. It was a super-easy practice of gentle back stretches. Which was good, since I had a bit of back pain and was almost asleep as I was doing it. Kate Holcombe encourages you to do most of the practice with your eyes closed, which made it even more soothing.

Everyone thinking of doing the 21-day challenge should begin with the evening sequence, not with the more rigorous 40-minute practice. Why? Because the evening sequence proves it is possible to get a bit of yoga in even when exhausted and ready for bed.

Yoga in the Alps

2011-01-15T09:44:00.000-06:00

For most people, going to the Alps means one of two things, skiing or snowboarding, combined with liberal amounts of melted cheese. Since any of those items are likely to put me in the hospital, I decided I would do yoga instead. This was also a chance to check out some of the local yoga videos in Germany, although I had to be careful, of course, to buy only those specifically marked as Region Code 0.

One of my choices was Yoga 2 mit Ralf Bauer, and to be honest, part of my motivation was that the practice is filmed in the mountains (albeit in summer). After all, it doesn't really make sense to be doing yoga on a cold mountaintop and looking at people stretching on a Caribbean beach, does it?

The other thing that drew me to the video is that it actually has a variety of shorter programs (morning and evening yoga, meditation, guided relaxation) along with a 48-minute practice. I've really only done the main practice so far, so I haven't even begun to use all the options available.

The main practice itself was quite a bit easier than I expected -- it's really aimed at people who might not have done any yoga at all, and therefore doesn't push too far. Usually, a simple combo is guided, and then a very slightly more difficult addition is added to that combo on the third and fourth repetitions. What I enjoyed, however, was the fact that every single move was combined with a cued breath. It reminded me of my Gary Kraftsow Viniyoga DVDs. Part of what I find so relaxing about them is not having to think about anything but following the cues.

I can imagine this workout being good for those days when I want to do something medium-length, but am not feeling too pliable. During my mountaintop practice, I had plenty of time, so I wound up using it more as a warmup for my own, added asanas, which lasted another hour or so. The whole practice wound up being some kind of magical calming drug -- simply wonderful.

Back to yoga with Rodney Yee's Strength Building Yoga

2010-12-04T14:15:00.000-06:00

I used to do yoga pretty regularly -- once or twice a week, in fabulous, long, intense sessions that left me nearly comatose. But since I've been too lazy to find an instructor or studio in my new town, I've relied on videos.

Today, I tried Rodney Yee's Strength Building Yoga for the first time. It's really two workouts, the first around 45 minutes, and the second another 20 or 25. That's short enough for it to make sense just to string them together and have a decent practice. Yee assumes that you know the postures, and there is almost no instruction on how to perform the asanas. On the other hand, the breaths and movements are cued well enough that I was able to do most of the practice without looking at the screen. (What did suck: the sections aren't really chaptered, so if you need to review an explanation for a complicated set-up, you really have to "rewind" manually.)

There were moments in both sections of the workout when I not only couldn't keep up, but couldn't even begin to do the basic move. But that's the fun of yoga, no? Its effects make themselves known in increments, and almost always by surprise. And aside from those few, quite difficult, asanas, the practice is slow-paced and not particularly exhausting.

Returning to Bellydance Arms & Posture

2010-11-23T00:03:00.000-06:00

Today, in an attempt to begin my resolution (actually made after I finished this video), I worked again with Rachel Brice's Bellydance Arms & Posture.

I did it, in short, because of pain. Shoulder pain. Upper back pain. Stiff neck. I have a great DVD for yoga-based shoulder work by Jill Miller, and it really is great, but I wanted a bit of dance too. Just in case you're wondering how bad my shoulders are: there is enough loud cracking in my upper back every time I roll my shoulders that I know whether I'm keeping time with the music or not. (I know: you really needed to know that.)

The rope pulling exercise

On the one hand, I was stiff, my shoulders were weak, and I still see no point in the knee-hurting level changes she covers that have nothing to do with the rest of the workout. On the other hand, I was much more inspired by Bellydance Arms & Posture this time around. Although Brice doesn't have you do a lot on posture per se, working so much on the shoulders just has that effect. The practice periods for moves like sidewinder are long enough to actually *get* it. And there's a cute little combination at the end that, done enough times, is something you can adapt to other kinds of dance.

I also really appreciated the soothing, yoga-based warmup and cool down. The video is a cohesive unit, and if it's not as comprehensive a source for arm work as dancers might want, it's easy to commit to fifty minutes and just do it. And the neck stretches -- Brice didn't forget the neck stretches! Bless her.

After it was over, and to my surprise, I found myself just dancing. For some reason, loosening up the shoulder area (and live dance teachers are always telling me to keep my shoulders down) was strangely liberating for the rest of my body. Wonderful!

Quickie Review of Balletone - Center Moves

2010-11-22T23:51:00.000-06:00

I picked up Balletone - Center Moves a few days ago at Half Price Books, and was disappointed when I got home to find it had been poorly reviewed on Amazon. Too fast, they said, too many unexplained ballet movements.

Well, since I have no background in ballet, and I am the *worst* at moving quickly or anything like, well, center moves, I worried. But I did the video yesterday anyway, and was delighted to find it a really graceful, dancey cardio workout, which had me gleefully moving and stretching for a sweaty forty minutes.

Actually, there are very few ballet terms used in this video, and those that are are explained. The workout is basically composed of a series of movements which are gradually added on and rehearsed, until by the end you find yourself doing an entire little routine. In that sense, it can be a bit boring, since you do the same movements many, many times over. However, that's also a chance to learn the movements better, and to get to the point (if not on the first viewing, then on the second) where you don't have to think about them anymore.

Balletone - Center Moves also incorporates little strength moves (especially leg lifts) and side stretches into the routine. This does mean that you don't have non-stop movement, but you do get to work on balance, which is also part of being fit.

In short, I liked it, I can see myself doing this video again with pleasure, and I think it's a great companion to the more static ballet-based workout programs.

Enough is Enough: A Resolution

2010-11-22T23:40:00.000-06:00

A confession: I have a lot, and I do mean a lot of dance and workout videos. I wager the number is around a hundred, though I would fear to admit to more. And yet I haven't danced -- at least regularly -- in ages, and as much as I love the yoga or pilates videos too, I don't do those with any kind of regularity either.

So here's my goal, and I won't spend too many words on it: to try and do every one once, at least two videos a week. I think to aim for more than two would be too ambitious, and even two a week (or one) would be an enormous improvement. And then, because there's nothing like bragging for motivation, to use this blog to track my progress.

What I won't do is be methodical: I won't work extensively with one video unless I really feel like it, and I won't pay too much attention to balancing things out. If I feel like lots of silly cardio, I'll do that, and if I'm in a bellydance mood for a while, I'll do that. And I'm allowed repeats. Let's see how this goes!

Pleasant Surprises: Hemelaya Behl's Yoga for Urban Living

2009-07-28T18:17:00.000-05:00

There's nothing quite like surpassed expectations. I didn't have particularly high hopes for Hemalaya's Yoga for Urban Living (her ads for her other workout videos always look so cheesy), but it was super-cheap and had decent reviews on Amazon. Also, I wanted quickie workouts I could fit into my schedule, so it seemed worth the risk.

The DVD has three programs, "Morning Quickie" (about half an hour), "Evening Bath" (25 min), and "Daily Connection" (1 hr). I've done "Morning Quickie" a few times, and found it a nice, simple set of sun salutations and twists that get my back more flexible at the start of the day.

You'll get to your yoga practice faster if you don't bother with pants

Last night, I decided to try "Evening Bath," since my back was still a little sore from the previous day's bellydance marathon. It turns out that it actually was very relaxing. The music is toned down, Hemalaya speaks in a soothing, quiet voice, and the positions are more of the resting or deep stretch kind. Except -- the shoulder stand! There was an entire shoulder stand series, which I found surprising. I must admit I worried a little about my back while doing them, but I woke up this morning feeling great, so I guess it must have worked.

All in all, the program really helped me relax and stretch my back muscles. In fact, for most of the DVD, I was able to follow her verbal instructions and ignore the screen altogether. The funny thing is this: it was only last night that I noticed the third program, which is an hour long, and just when I've been looking for longer yoga videos! Yoga for Urban Living indeed.

Working with Love Potion: The Bellydance Workout - Day 1, Tutorial

2009-07-26T23:35:00.000-05:00

I'm always inspired by the way Mala works systematically with a DVD. I tend not to be like that. I'm more of a butterfly -- I see something interesting, I do it once, and then forget it on the shelf for a while. But I wanted to get back into dance, and I wanted to see what it might be like to do the same program, whether a workout, a choreography, or some mixture of both, repeatedly over a few days. Would I notice an improvement?

The perfect candidate for this experiment seemed to be Love Potion: The Bellydance Workout. Like other recent offerings from World Dance New York, it has an insane amount of material, a full 140 minutes of it. The DVD case advertises a 50 minute instructional section for beginners, which intersperses guidance on movements with segments of flow, a 5o minute practice flow, and the workout itself, which is 40 minutes long. I thought I'd commit to three days, and do one section on each day, progressing in difficulty as I go.

Sounds easy enough, and after watching the intro, I got ready to dance. What I didn't realise was that the 50 minute instructional section is not actually 50 minutes long. It's over an hour and a half. I suspect they mean that the instruction itself is 50 minutes long, if you put it all together, but there are enough segments from the flow section that doing the whole thing takes a long, long time. In a way, I'm glad I didn't know what I was getting into, or I might have been too lazy to start!

A couple of observations on this first day: the moves are quite basic, but putting them together in combinations, with footwork, armwork, and all at full speed, is not so basic. It kind of reminds you how much bellydance can do with just a few simple movements. The footwork is covered quickly, but it would be worth learning well. I love, as usual, Neon's gentle accent and the way she explains the principles behind movements. I also love that she gives pointers on head position and hand accents. This kind of attention to finesse has been a real focus in WDNY videos lately, and it's most welcome. Also, in her introduction to Love Potion, Neon advises experienced dancers not to skip over slow movements, and she's right: these are truly difficult to do smoothly.

Oh yeah, and I really need to work on my three-quarter shimmies.

After an hour and a half, I had to do some serious stretching. I can feel all my abdominal and back muscles (in a good way), to say nothing of my arms and shoulders. At one point during the instruction, my arms were really tired and drooping, and I felt that I must be really out of shape. I now realize this was probably after 80 minutes of keeping my arms up! Neon says in the introduction that this is not meant to be an aerobic workout, but a muscular one. This is truth in advertising -- this is probably not the best way to spend your time if your goal is to lose weight, but a great way to practice sharp or gooey movements, footwork, coordination, grace, and musicality.

Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this DVD from World Dance New York.

Quickie Review: Annette Fletcher's Perfect in Ten Pilates

2009-07-25T19:48:00.000-05:00

Annette Fletcher's Perfect in Ten: Pilates is a nice little whole-body workout, including light warmup and stretching.

First, a clarification: there are five segments. I suppose that the first one wasn't advertised as a workout segment since it's more of a warmup, but it does consist of pilates moves. Also, doing all five segments adds up to about 57 minutes of exercise. Somewhere, the math is off.

Fletcher is straightforward and clear -- no perky encouragements here. I like that every single move and breath are cued. I also like that, for tougher moves, she will have you do a preparatory movement sequence, and that she sometimes shows modifications. (This is especially the case for ab work.)

The movements are indeed difficult, especially to do precisely. Still, except for the abs section, I can't say I really felt much of a burn. Doing the arm, leg and glute work felt more like pleasant stretching than strength training. I've had a more intense workout from other pilates programs.

All in all, I'll probably do the program again, though probably when I want a wake-up and stretching regimen with some mild strength training.

Quickie Review: MaDonna Grimes' Urban Street Heat

2009-07-25T19:44:00.000-05:00

Let's face it: the ultimate test of a workout video is whether you want to keep doing it.

MaDonna Grimes' Urban Street Heat has the tight structure of a typical cardio dance workout: she adds on a move at a time, adds arms and styling after the footwork, and repeats the whole thing from the top. To help you remember the choreography even further, Grimes gives each move a name that she can call out.

While I'm not sure that I'd pull out many of these moves in a club, they're definitely "dancier" than those of other cardio dance workouts. Enough of them are doable the first time around, and enough of them are hard enough, either because of the arm work or because of their speed, that you can still grow into the program. Still, the most important thing is that the workout is *fun*. Grimes is sassy, teasing the male dancers in her group. The dancing requires your entire body, which makes it hard to sleepwalk through it. You'll break a sweat, but the entire workout is short enough to fit in your schedule and leave you energized rather than tired. And, after doing the video twice, I find that I'm still looking forward to the next time.

Quickie Review: Marie Forleo's Cardio Dance Blast

2009-07-25T19:37:00.000-05:00

At first, Cardio Dance Blast seems pretty cheesy -- the moves are a little silly, and Marie Forleo likes to give themed encouragements along the lines of, "You're on the island, mon!"

Still, it's very well-structured, and it's perhaps that same cheesiness that makes it fun to work along with. Aside from an effective warm-up and cool-down, there are six dance segments. Each one starts with a simple move, builds on that with more moves, until you have a mini-choreography. You then do each move in the entire choreography twice, and finally, the whole choreo with only one rep of each move. Forleo always introduces the basic footwork, then adds stylizations like twists or hip bumps, then arm work, and finally chest or head stylizations. This is makes it easy to pick up the moves, and you can work at your level.

The variety of dancers/exercisers in the background is really nice. Some are more into the dancing, some have less athletic bodies, some do smaller or imperfect versions of the moves.

I tend to find cardio boring, but Cardio Dance Blast is a great way to stay mentally as well as physically engaged throughout a workout.

Review: Rania's Belly Abs

2009-07-25T18:30:00.000-05:00

Belly Abs is a great little video if you know what you're getting. If you have some bellydance experience (from class or videos), if you already know proper dance posture and how to protect your back and knees when exercising, and want a quick dance-based workout that will drill combinations and target your abs, then this video will be perfect for you. The moves really do work the abdominals -- you will feel it! -- and a few sets of crunches add a little more exertion. The combinations are fun, fast, reasonably complex, and quite "dancey." I could imagine using any of them, as is, while dancing to music. That said, they become increasingly difficult as the video progresses, so there's some room to grow into the program. And the entire workout clocks in at 33 minutes, which is great if you want a quick burn and sweat.

If you have no bellydance experience, this is not the video for you unless you are gifted at picking up dance moves. Rania does break things down quickly during the video, but it's really more as a reminder. Although she provides a small bonus segment called "ABCs of Bellydance," this is really just an overview of the dance in general. There is no posture instruction. During the actual workout, she assumes you know how to tuck your abs, do mayas and camels, shimmy, and even suggests optional layering of shimmies.

The set is pretty but not distracting, the production values are professional, and the music is a steady but unobtrusive Middle Eastern beat. Rania herself is not the perky cheerleader type of instructor. She's calm, funny, and seems relaxed and natural in this video (much more so than in her Natural Journeys videos). One small fault is that she uses the words "left" and "right" to refer to her left and right, so you have to adjust if you like to mirror the instructor. In addition, it's not clear from the DVD copy that it's not at all for beginners. However, the program is good value for the money, and really is intensely targeted on the abdominals.

Review: Suzanne Deason's Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss

2009-07-25T18:21:00.000-05:00

Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss spent some time gathering dust on my shelf before I finally tried it. When I finally did, I loved it, and this may well become my "go to" yoga video for busy days.

I happen not to like "flow" videos so much, and it seems most yoga DVDs out there are exactly about that. I love the feeling of breathing into a pose, and the challenge of using my muscles to maintain a strong pose for a little while. Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss gives me just what I need: a good combination of standing, sitting, and lying poses; lots of twisting poses (which I've also found lacking in flow videos); a few poses which gently, but powerfully, build abdominal strength.

The video allows you to do the workout at different levels of modification, which means that you can measure yourself to someone at your level as you check your position. It's hard to know if you're doing a pose right if the only model you get a yoga master, or if the modified pose is somewhere behind the yoga master (hard to see on a small screen). Almost every breath is cued, which I also appreciate, and Deason keeps up a running commentary with advice on what you should be feeling and doing during each pose. Her voice is soft enough that you can ignore it if you wish, but I found her suggestions very useful for working on strength and balance, especially during standing poses.

And, the entire thing is only forty-five minutes long! It really fits into a busy day, and is wonderfully restorative. I'm not sure what it does for weight loss, but I can tell you that I feel physically good after doing the video, with just the right combination of energy and pleasant fatigue.

Using Barbara Benagh's Yoga for Beginners

2009-07-25T18:04:00.000-05:00

I've had Yoga For Beginners for a while now, and I'm pretty sure I've used it in the past, but since I've been taking proper yoga lessons for six months now, I rarely turned to it.

What made me take it off the shelf today was my search for yoga practices longer than 30 or 40 minutes. Generally, I'm very glad to have shorter practices that are easy to fit into my day. Still, I wanted to see if any of my DVDs have longer practices, preferably an hour to an hour and a half, so that I might try and approximate the feeling of a real class on days when I have more time.

What's neat about Yoga For Beginners is its organization into two levels. There is a menu with a series of focused workouts at around 20 minutes each, and a second menu of longer workouts that combine and recombine the shorter routines. I wound up picking up a forty-minute "Energize" routine, looking forward to the yoga wakeup.

My feelings about it were mixed. Maybe it's because I love Benagh's Yoga for Stress Relief, but I expected this to be great. It wasn't. Benagh pays a lot of attention to breath, and gives all sorts of detailed instructions for positioning. Unfortunately, the movement cues didn't really match what was going on on the screen, so when I looked towards the screen for guidance but listened to her breathing and movement cues, none of it made sense.

Another thing that annoyed me was a strange combination of slowness, lack of variety, and difficulty in the program. Now, I like slower yoga, but I want to spend my time deepening an asana, not lying down on my face breathing and thinking about what I might do next. The slowness of the program also meant there wasn't much variety in the movements -- the same program could have been done in 20 minutes. On the other hand, although the sun salutation didn't have a full forward bend (I suppose because this is a beginners' video), there were many repetitions of a full cobra, which I find quite hard on the lower back. My yoga instructor really challenges us in practice, and yet she still doesn't have us do the full cobra that often.

I don't think the video is bad, per se... a few hours later, my back does feel better, and it's probably good for a slow and lazy day. Still, the "Energize" workout was anything but energizing. (I'm sure her relaxation and stretching routines are better.) And I want an hour-long video that really challenges me -- if I want to spend an hour mostly lying on my face, I'll stay in bed!

Review: Michelle Joyce's Drills! Drills! Drills!

2009-07-19T16:00:00.000-05:00

First things first. Drills! Drills! Drills! is not a DVD for people who have not learned the basic posture, movements and isolations of bellydance. If this describes you, go directly to a beginner's video, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

The drills Michelle offers here are, for the most part, not strenuous, but you do need to have ingrained at least some basic bellydance movements to the point where you can do them without thinking: shimmies and hip bumps should be second nature.

The second key point is that the movements are, in general, geared towards helping you define your isolations, layer movements, and even use different parts of your body at different rhythms. Michelle points out several times that you may not like the moves you're drilling, and you may not want to use them in a choreography, but that they're helping you build dance skills.

That said, if you *do* have bellydance experience, and you're looking for a video which will help you train for bellydance (or get some light exercise) in a "dancey" way, this is it. The video begins with a few strengthening exercises for the quads and abs, and then moves on to a seemingly endless series of varied drills. There are drills which will have you practicing your isolations with different foot and arm positions, drills done while dancing a grapevine, drills where you do a zig zag shape with your hips, pelvis and chest.

I loved the variety. The drills are well-thought out and clearly organized, but they don't follow the same pattern. This required me to use both my body and my mind in different ways, and kept the movements from being dull. I loved the fact that Michelle puts in little reminders about proper form as you're doing it. There isn't a lot of arm work, but there's definitely greater use of the lower abdominals than I've seen in other videos.

If you're like me, you will find that some things come easily to you, some take a while to click, and some things seem impossibly hard at the first go. This is absolutely a DVD to grow into. At nearly two hours of running time, there's a wealth of material, and you can always do only one part of a layering drill if you're not at Michelle's level yet. After the section on finger cymbals, the drills are also done with zill accompaniment -- this was impossible for me, but it was a great chance to repeat the drill I had just done.

Most importantly, the program was fun, despite its slightly military name! The section on 3/4 shimmies is a lot looser than the early drill sections, and I found myself improvising to the beat. In other words, the drills started to become dance. My advice to dancers using this program is add your own warm-up and cool-down, but also to put on a song or two of music you really like after you're done drilling and just let go. You may just find your body reacting to the music much more readily than before, and with a greater variety of movements.

(Full disclosure: I received the DVD through one of Michelle's generous giveaways on the bellydancevideos yahoo group.)

Review: Gary Kraftsow's Viniyoga Therapy for the Upper Back, Neck & Shoulders

2009-07-19T15:56:00.000-05:00

I bought Viniyoga Therapy for the Upper Back, Neck & Shoulders and its companion for the lower back shortly after having a debilitating back spasm that put me out of commission for several weeks. I went to physiotherapy, and although it did help, I find the exercises excruciatingly boring, which of course means I don't do them as often as I should.

So, what was the result? These DVDs are quite simply a godsend. (I'm only writing a review of this one now because I haven't yet used all three segments of the lower back DVD.) Kraftsow says in his introduction that doing the yoga exercises should be like brushing your teeth, and I find that the program is designed to make it just as easy to keep the stretching going as brushing teeth would be! Knowing that I have a choice between segments of different lengths, and that I can do just 20 minutes in the morning (before I get too hungry!) and still be doing something for my back, makes it so much more realistic to keep up a yoga program.

That, and the fact that the exercises work. I am sometimes so tense that the neck & shoulders movements don't relax me completely, but they do help, and I generally feel the difference the following morning: they can be better described as preventing future, worse pain than easing current pain. I might add that several of the exercises are similar to what I learned in physiotherapy, which gave me some confidence in the system.

I spent more on these DVDs than I usually do on exercise videos, but I also use them several times a week, much more than I use anything else. They offer variety in type of exercise and duration of program, and they're set up so that I can do a light program when I'm suffering from pain and a harder one when I want to build strength. I've also noticed a difference in my core abdominal strength from using the two videos. Finally, I should add that the DVDs also include mp3 files of the practices, in case you just want to work out with the sound and don't need the video any more.

Review: Neon's Luscious: The Bellydance Workout for Beginners

2009-07-19T15:53:00.000-05:00

Did we really need another bellydance-based workout? I wouldn't have thought so, but Neon, as usual, has gone and proven my expectations wrong.

Luscious - The Bellydance Workout for Beginners is an exquisitely made program, with more good qualities than I can enumerate. The costumes and setting are gorgeous -- nothing like the typical brightly-lit aerobics studio -- and Neon advises you at the beginning to dress up for it and join the three dancers here in making the movement special. This is the kind of thing that sounds cheesy, but I did it, and it makes sense: how will you forget about bad body image or those extra pounds if you're wearing ugly workout wear? Dressing up makes you feel like you're dancing, not punishing yourself.

The instruction itself is taught in sections themed "Circles," "Infinity Loops," "Undulations," "Hip Accents," "Shimmy," and "Body Line." Each dancer leads two of the sections: she stands at the front and her voiceover describes the movements to be done. What I really like about this is that the sections weren't assigned randomly; instead, each section bears the particular dancer's imprint, and showcases her strengths. It's subtle, but you start to notice that Neon leads complicated, quick-changing combinations, Blanca shows her wonderful, large, and sensuous movements, and Sarah Skinner adds an upbeat Turkish feel to the shimmy section. This made the instructors seem much less like exchangeable dancing bodies, and much more like teachers with particular areas of expertise.

On-screen graphics show you the move

The movements are varied, and quite a few combinations are introduced and repeated from two to six times. This is not a "four of this and four of that" drill. In fact, I would suggest that complete beginners start with a different video. This would be great for advanced beginners like me, who are not expert enough for a complicated choreo with tons of layering, but get bored when everything comes in fours and is repeated ad infinitum.

All along, the dancers offer tips on putting emotion into the steps, on maintaining form, and on making movements deeper and stronger. While the dancing is rarely fast-paced, the slowness of the movements is often more challenging and grueling. The workout made me sweat (though it might not make everyone), but more importantly, it challenged me to maintain grace, form, and muscle control while learning the combinations. I couldn't believe it when the forty-five minutes were over -- it felt like fifteen!

If you have weak knees, you might want to be careful with some of the lunges and plies; on the other hand, there aren't a lot of them, and they're done slowly enough that you can be careful. I'll also repeat the warning that this might be a little hard for complete beginners who aren't already good at picking up choreography. However, the video does have a well-indexed instructional section which describes all the movements used in the workout. As a step up, there's a version of the workout with music alone, and no voice over.

In case my enthusiasm wasn't clear enough, I really think WDNY has a winner with this video. It's simple, but also simple enough to do regularly and to grow into. At the same time, even once you have learned the step combinations, adding graceful arm and handwork (to say nothing of being aware of facial expressions, head positions, and dancer's poise) poses an extra layer of difficulty. And finally, the movements are, quite simply, beautiful. You will be happy to be dancing.

(Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this video from WDNY.)

Review: Asharah's Modern Tribal Dance

2009-07-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

I need to say to begin with that I'm really not fond of the dancing on Asharah's Modern Tribal Bellydance. I'm not that crazy about tribal fusion anyway, but I've definitely seen tribal fusion I've liked a lot more than this.

So, weirdly, as much as I don't like the dancing here, I think the video itself is pretty well done, and can actually foresee myself using it. The main reason for this is that its "Warmup & Conditioning" section is actually a 45 minute exercise and stretching video for dancers, and it's pretty much the answer to my dreams. Seriously, I've imagined what I'd like in a program (often because of exercises I've had in live classes), and this is it.

This section alone could stand alone as a full-priced DVD, and would be worth the money. It's a combination of movements from three groups: yoga, ballet (i.e., the kind of stretches you have at the start of a ballet/ballet- inspired class), and Suhaila-type seated abdominal and chest work. Nothing terribly new, but having them all together in one place is incredibly cool. There's deep plie work, thorough leg stretches in every possible direction, the shoulders and neck are not ignored, and neither is the back. Asharah also gives frequent knee placement reminders, so although the practice is challenging, it won't kill your back or knees.

The next section is a Technique & Isolations section of 55 minutes. In this section, Asharah goes over pretty basic movements in bd/tribal fusion vocabulary, but explains them in detail with the appropriate muscle contractions. She's very Suhaila-based (and, in fact, thanks Suhaila in the credits). Here she covers:

- Shoulders and arms
- Chest squares
- Chest circles
- Glute contactions
- Glute contactions - up
- Glute contactions - down
- Vertical hip 8s down-to-up
- Vertical hip 8s up-to-down
- 3/4 shimmy up
- 3/4 shimmy down
- interior hip squares
- interior hip circles

These are pretty basic moves (I know the last one as an "omi"), but it's good to have the breakdown and practice, especially for those of us who are far from being experts anyway.

Next comes the "Modern Tribal Movement" section (30 min), in which Asharah teaches how to break down a single movement into three or four smaller segments, so as to achieve a strobing or robotic effect. She does this with: shoulders & arms, chest slides, chest locks, undulations, and vertical hip 8s up-to-down. I haven't watched this section all the way through, and like I said, I don't really like how the result looks in dance, but it did strike me that some of the exercises were similar in concept to those on Aziza's Pratice Companion. So, weirdly, although I don't want to dance like Asharah, I can imagine using this section as a drill and exercise tool.

Finally, there is Combination instruction of 30 min, which you can also play with practice music. And an 8 min yoga-based cool-down. And performances.

I suppose it figures that if you put three freakin' hours of material onto one DVD (runtime is 180 minutes, no joke), you're going to please a lot of people. Asharah is relaxed and straightforward on the video, and there is really just so much material to work with, at such different levels, that it's an incredible value. I think people who are actually *into* tribal fusion will probably adore this video, although they might find the isolations section a little basic. However, even people who are not can use this DVD as a dance training video, rather than a dance instruction video. The actual dance section makes up 30 minutes out of 3 hours -- the rest is really a conditioning program for dancers.

(Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this video from WDNY.)

Review: Shamira's Bellydancing: The Sensuous Workout

2009-07-18T22:40:00.000-05:00

Bellydancing: The Sensuous Workout is wonderful, if you know what to expect from it. It's not super long (46 min), and it won't fulfill every desire, but it does what it does very well.

This is one fierce costume, if I do say so

Let me start with the negatives, and save people some money. Do not get this video if you want:

- A high intensity workout. It's not, it's just not. I do break a sweat sometimes, especially if I try to follow along with her arms, but you won't feel challenged if you dance regularly.
- Thorough bellydance instruction. It really helps knowing the moves before, though she does introduce them in the "Basic Movements" section. I advise using this after another video, even after her Sensuous Workout 2.
- Lots of bellydance moves, complex technique.
- Shimmy work. Her shimmy section is very short. The video is much better on circles, hipwork, traveling steps and turns.
- Finally, and this is the reason I took off a point, while there is a warmup, it's short (no neck stretches, for example), and there's no cooldown. So you have to add to that on your own. Also, I really think every bellydance video should go over posture, just as a matter of course.

However, this video is fantastic if you want:

- A light, not too strenuous way to get moving and have fun. It might be a good way to start an exercise program, or to get moving if you've been sick or not dancing for a while. I have much fancier bellydance videos in my collection, but since dancing is my hobby, not my life, I wind up playing this one much more than I ever expected to. It's just great when you're not that energetic, you don't want to strain your back or knees, but you want to get moving and feel the spirit of the dance.
- A sense of the grace and beauty of bellydance. Shamira's style is not to string together a hundred movements in ten seconds, so if that's what impresses you, get something else. She uses a few movements (especially in this video), but she puts them together in a lovely way, and gives you a sense of how you might make combinations out of them.
- Easy traveling and stationary combinations. It's nice practice.
- Incredible hands and arms. It's funny: to me, the loveliest part about Shamira's dancing are her hands and arms, but she doesn't really talk about them on the two Sensuous Workout videos too much. If you've got the steps of the video down, try following along with the arms -- it makes it much more challenging, and gives the video the potential to be used for a longer time.

To conclude, Shamira's dancing, even in this "workout" DVD, represents to me much of the reason I first got into bellydancing. She's graceful, expressive, and playful. I think even dancers who know many more moves than are represented on this DVD can stand to learn a lot from her, if they pay attention.

Review: Puela Lunaris' Flamenco: You can do it! Sevillanas

2009-07-18T22:37:00.000-05:00

I became interested in Puela Lunaris's DVDs through World Dance New York, which is better known for its bellydance instructional videos. And while Lunaris has done work on the Zambra (the style of flamenco most closely associated with oriental dance) it is important to note that Flamenco: You Can Do It! - Sevillanas has nothing whatsoever to do with bellydance. In fact, the sevillanas are not even flamenco. They are an old, very strictly structured Spanish social dance which is sometimes performed in flamenco shows, but is also done socially in Spain. This DVD not only introduces the dance, but does an excellent job at showing how it can be performed alone, in a pair in a relaxed, social manner, and in a more showy performance style with fans.

The good:
As much as I generally do not like choreographies, this is the dance for them, since every sevillana is the same. The first choreo section is an extremely lengthy breakdown of all the movements necessary for all four sections of the sevillana dance. Lunaris is painstaking in demonstrating the steps, repeating them many times over, and then adding arms. There is instruction on posture, arm movement and placement, arm variations, the different styles of hand floreos.

Lunaris often also shows variations that can be introduced, not in the steps per se, but in the upper body styling or arm movements. This is where the dancer can express his or her individuality, since the steps are fixed. She also briefly describes how men's arm and handwork differs from women's.

In the second choreography, Lunaris has mini workshops on fanwork and on dancing with a partner, and runs through the entire choreography again using the fan. She uses her partner to show not only how dancers move around each other during the sevillana, but also more stylistic variations.

It should be clear by now that this DVD is a treasure, an absolute treasure. I am currently taking beginner flamenco classes and learning the sevillana as part of these. They are quite complicated, at least at first, and any online reference material has not been very good at explaining the dance part of it. To have a DVD at this price not only run down the entire choreography but also show variations is truly exquisite. The two performances at the end are an extra treat.

The bad:

As well-organized as WDNY DVDs generally are, I find myself wishing for more, especially when it comes to Lunaris' videos. The current organization allows you to watch a demonstration at full-speed with music, then have a lengthy breakdown, then have choreography and practice with music. This is great, but it bothers me that some of the basics of the dance, like how to do floreos for example, are hidden away in a long choreography, with no way to guess at where they might be. There should be an easy way to jump to the descriptions of a few basic techniques, if not have them in a different section altogether.

More specifically to this DVD, since the sevillana is such a repetitive dance, all of the instruction would make much more sense if the dance were broken down in table form and available as a screen or even for printing. It would make the choreography much easier to learn.

How to use this video:

First, watch the first choreography all the way through. Just watch it. Watch the performances to see how it all fits together. Then start doing it, but take it slowly. In a normal class, this is material covered over months -- the fact that it is all on one DVD makes this video valuable, but it is also unrealistic to expect to learn it quickly. Just focus on the feet at first, and only later practice adding the arms, and then, slowly, the hands.

That said, the sevillana is more approachable than flamenco dance. I.e., it's easier to look good dancing the sevillana. Lunaris' is a great introduction for those with no experience of it, and a wonderful reference work for those who are learning it in a live class. She has a charming on-screen persona, and she is careful to give you a sense of the culture, attitude, and context of the dance as well, so you understand the spirit as well as the movements. If you are willing to practice a little, you will not regret buying this video.

Review: Aziza's Ultimate Bellydance Pratice Companion

2009-07-18T22:34:00.000-05:00

Aziza's Ultimate Bellydance Pratice Companion is like nothing else. A self-contained, intense bellydance drill practice and workout, it will make you want to throw all your other dance and exercise DVDs in the closet and just do this everyday. No, really.

She's as happy as I will be

First, the basics: the setting is a staged workshop, and you see Aziza over the heads of the participants, as it were. There are online clips of the video in which it seems as though Aziza might be hard to see -- expanded on the larger screen, this is never the case. Aziza mirrors you, calling left as she moves right. The student dancers are a nice effect: while they are skilled enough to keep up with Aziza, they still need her encouragement and correction now and then.

The practice is composed of 6 sections: a warm-up, ribcage drills, hip drills, arm practice, an insanely lengthy, never-give-up, shimmy drill, and finally, a cool down.

The warm-up is thorough, involves a lot of breathing, parallel-foot plies, gentle head movements, bends and arm work, and really does get you ready to practice. (To give you a sense of it, Ava Fleming suggests you do this warmup before using her own DVDs, so it's a keeper.) Posture is covered in detail, but relatively quickly. To jump to the end, the cool-down is even better, involving good leg and back stretches to stretch out the muscles you've just used. Aziza gives posture reminders throughout the program, and is careful to guide your knee placement and to encourage gentle movement of the head for safe exercise.

The ribcage and hip sections include what I find a very fun drill which involves moving the body part in question in six different directions, in a variety of different ways. You really have to use both your back muscles and (especially) your abdominal muscles to keep your posture and do the movement.

The arm section consists of a series of port-de-bras combinations. While still valuable, the arm section is the least unique and innovative part of the DVD. It does, however, have an exercise for learning to move your hands slowly while moving another part of your body quickly. I could imagine this being useful for flamenco dancers as well.

And then there's the shimmy drill. Imagine shimmying. Now imaging shimmying some more. Now imagine doing all sorts of movements with your arms, head, and torso while you shimmy. Now imagine making all sorts of shapes with your hips while you shimmy. Now choo-choo shimmy. Now shoulder shimmy. Oh, now back to normal shimmying, with increased force! Now repeat all the exercises from the ribcage and hip sections while shimmying. After enough time, if you just keep on going, your body enters this zen space where all it knows how to do is shimmy: that's where you start being able to layer things, and you almost don't mind. You think it's about to be over, and then Aziza makes you write the alphabet horizontally with your hips (while shimmying). And then vertically with your ribcage. And then you shimmy some more. And at the end, you find out you were shimmying for twenty minutes, and you can't believe it, because you know you never would even have attempted such a thing if you knew what was in store for you.

In case I haven't made it clear enough, this video is a gem: so is Aziza. She has charm and a sense of humour, and a kind of sadistic gleam in her eye when she's promised one more repetition and says, "I lied! Another one on your right." The two performances at the end are just the kind of flirtatious, playful Egyptian style bellydance I love, and it occurred to me as I watched them that trying to imitate those dances would be an entire other workshop! However, this video would really be good for anyone working on their drills, and Aziza's focus on driving the movements with muscles would probably sit well with many tribal or fusion dancers.

After such a glowing review, I almost feel it necessary to say that I don't know Aziza at all. I just think that this video has so much to give to so many different kinds of dancers that it's an unregrettable buy. I tried for a long time to find it used, and now I know why I couldn't: this isn't something you let go.

Review: Rachel Brice's Bellydance Arms and Posture

2009-07-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

Rachel Brice's Bellydance Arms and Posture is a good, self-contained practice for arm and shoulder work with a distinctly tribal flavour.

What it's not:
It's not a thorough guide to tribal bellydance arm work, nor does Brice go over hand movements. The important distinction to draw is that this video is actually not instruction in using your arms to dance, although it includes some dance components. There are two aspects to arm movements: what the muscles and joints should be doing (pull arm up, rotate elbow, shoulder down, etc.) and what you should be visualizing or feeling in order to get the look right (feel as though you're pressing, pulling molasses, moving your hands through water, etc.) Rachel covers the first part, the muscles and joints, very well for the moves she shows, and I was able to "get" some tricky moves after her explanation. She doesn't explain how to get her "look", that is, her way of moving her arms through space veeeery slowly and deliciously and graciously. If you've had some dance instruction, you can probably imagine visualizations for yourself, but this DVD is not a key to that.

I should also mention that the DVD is slightly misnamed. It should have been called "Arms & Shoulders." Although Brice does give posture reminders, there is no longer discussion of or practice for correct posture.

What it is:
It's a great little practice you can do all in one go (and it lasts under an hour). (I did skip two leg-strengthening parts involving deep squats that would have killed my knees.) There are many exercises for improving shoulder mobility and strength, some of which I had not seen before. Some of the arm movements reminded me of the arm practice session of my flamenco class.

If you're interested in tribal, you've probably already bought this video. However, it would be very useful for any dancer looking to work and stretch the shoulder region, bellydancers, yes, but if you're learning flamenco this would be great too. This is also a video I'd file under "Great for People Sitting at Desks/Computers All Day Long" -- if you're even a bit curious about this kind of dance, this video will help you move exactly those muscles which are most damaged by sedentary desk work.

Other notes:
The video is also a really good deal for the price. I like Brice, but am not an acolyte, and her choreographies kind of all look the same to me (amazing, but the same), so I'm not in a position to judge the performance. There is a cute chit-chat segment between her and Miles Copeland in the "Extras" section in which she comes across as funny and down-to-earth. I would also add extra stretching to the end of the program.

Review: Sera's Bellydance East Coast Tribal

2009-07-18T22:24:00.001-05:00

I finally worked through Sera's Bellydance: East Coast Tribal after owning it for a while, and I was stunned at how excellent it is. There are a few flaws (which I'll get to later), but those aside, it's a superb video.

First things first. This is not a beginner's DVD. Sera neither gives the kind of explanations of basic movements a beginner would want, nor does she present all the basics of bellydance. No way. It is, however, a great DVD for intermediate dancers. Sera goes over some basic movements (especially in the warmup), but in such a way as to help you increase your flexibility and power.

The 20-minute warmup and the 10-minute drill section get you doing some basic stretches, focusing on your isolations, and quite importantly, working on powering moves from particular muscles. The dancers mirror your movements (so when she calls "left," they actually move to their right) which I prefer. Sera is extremely thorough about calling out which muscle to use for a move, and always managed to remind me as soon as I forgot. I *was* worried about the neck stretch, since she moves the head all the way back, and some moves also seemed quite hard on the knees, so I modified them. In the choreography Sera is careful to point out which sections are knee-unfriendly, and sometimes offers a modification, but this is not the case in the workout. She does, however, tell you when certain moves are difficult for beginners, so you don't get discouraged.

I would say that, considering how cheap the DVD is, the warmup is worth the price alone. I know I'm going to use this (with some extra stretching) as an introduction to other bellydance videos.

Next comes a demonstration of the combinations to be learned, and then very detailed instructions for each of six movement combinations. I had watched the video before, but only by doing it could I see what a brilliant teacher Sera is. She has that uncanny ability to know *just* when you're relaxing a certain muscle, or doing a movement lazily, or forgetting about your posture, and to give a perfectly-timed reminder.

On the other hand, the combos themselves are challenging and, to my eye, beautiful. It's not hard to get the basics of each, but to do them right, with the correct arm movements, good timing, and perfect form, is hard. This is a major strength of the DVD: you can grow into it a little. Both the warmup and the dance instruction are basically doable for an advanced beginner/intermediate, but they have enough layering and little details that you have a reason to go back and do the video again.

As you can probably tell by the length of this review, I am impressed! I do want to say though that it's not the right DVD for you if you just want to pop something in the player and shake your hips around. Some of the muscular movements can be quite strenuous. You need to pay attention to the instructions, you need to listen to your body to avoid injury, and you may even need to pause it and practice a movement slowly and carefully on your own. And you need to stretch thoroughly at the end. But this is what makes it so good.

Review: Shamira's Bellydancing: The Sensuous Workout 2 "Pure Technique"

2009-07-16T12:37:00.000-05:00

I have a number of bellydance videos, but I find myself coming back to Shamira's Sensuous Workout 2 over and over again. Why? Because I can use it in different ways at different times.

Shamira presents 22 basic moves. What's great about it is that she then teaches a few basic combinations for each move. You might be taught a hip jerk (as she calls it), and then you're taught how to do it at full and double time with both hips, how to walk forward with it, and how walk sideways on your toes with it. For each combination she'll teach different arm movements. Lovely.

While the moves Shamira teaches on this video are by no means all the moves there are to bellydance with, it's a nice combination of basic moves and ways to walk with them, so you can get a feel for the dance. Also, for dancers who have learned some of the basics but have no idea how to put it all together, the Sensuous Workout 2 is a great resource. I recently put together a short choreography, and this was the video I went to for movement combinations I liked.

When you've practiced the moves, you can go on to the choreographies/dances. They're done in one go, really more like an exercise video than a step-by-step choreography instruction. I haven't tried all of them, but even the easiest one will leave you with a nice feeling in your obliques. The DVD is set up so that you can click on a choreography and it will show you the moves you should have studied before dancing it. If you click on one of those chapters and do it, it returns you to the screen of that particular choreography.

Shamira is not the most athletic dancer. (She's clearly toned, but doesn't move in a super-muscular way.) But she's definitely one of the most graceful you'll see. In a way, the real value of this video is in her hand and arm work. It isn't always spelled out, but once you get the basic moves, try and pay attention to what she does with her arms. My personal opinion is that much of the soul of the dance is in the graceful hands and arms, and Shamira is a wonderful model for this. Even if you know many of the basic moves, putting them together into graceful combinations is where the magic is.

Review: Gerson Kuhr's Core Training for Belly Dancers

2009-07-16T12:33:00.000-05:00

I wasn't sure at first whether to buy Core Training for Belly Dancers. I wondered whether the exercises were all that different than the usual ab work, and if one actually winds up using it frequently enough to make it worth paying $30 for a twelve-minute workout.

I eventually decided to take the risk and buy it, and I have to say, I've been extremely pleased. It doesn't give an intense burn like a 40 minute ab video, but it is very focused, the exercises are unusual enough not to be boring (though crunches are in there too), and it does give the feeling of being tighter after doing it. I also really like that he has a pelvic tilt exercise (for the transverse abdominis muscle) and two lower back exercises to balance out the ab work.

Also, while I don't do it every day, I've found that this is the one video I turn to when I want to do *something* physical that day, but am too tired/don't have enough time to do an hour or something.

The enclosed booklet has descriptions of all the exercises with photos and muscle explanations. Brilliant!

This is not a video which promises magic weight loss or a complete transformation. But it is a good little ab workout, and you're likely to do it more often than the longer, more intense videos. Little by little, that work takes its effect. I should also mention that, pharaoh outfit aside, this video would be useful for *anyone* looking to slip a little ab exercise into their schedule. None of the moves are bellydance moves -- they're just ideal for dancers who need a powerful core.

Review: Jehan's Sacred Bellydance

2009-07-16T12:30:00.000-05:00

I bought Jehan's Sacred Bellydance on the recommendations of other reviewers (like Mala), so in a sense, this review should be superfluous. However, I wanted to write one anyway for two reasons: first, to address certain aspects of Jehan's belief system that may be offputting, and second, to add a few notes about who I think this set is good for.

First, the "sacred" stuff. If it's your bag, great. If, like me, you're pretty convinced you're not a goddess (just a decent human being), you might be turned off by Jehan's beliefs -- which do, indeed, come up throughout the video. I urge you to overcome this aversion. It's a great video, and you don't have to pay attention during the goddess stuff. On the other hand, I also have to say that I respect Jehan because I get the sense that she is communicating something she believes deeply, not just putting on a trendy pose. And her positive remarks on women really are pretty appropriate for bellydance!

Now, who is this video for? I actually wouldn't recommend it for learning the basic dance moves, but I think it's great once you already know the moves, and want to add finesse, power, and expressiveness to them. If you want to work on your arms, following along with Jehan's flowing movements is great. (And your arms will HURT, incidentally. In a good way.)

The brilliance of the video is that, although it's an "encyclopedia," the segments flow together nicely. For this reason, I've used it more as a stretching workout than to learn from. And here is why I want to suggest that EVERYONE, dancer or not, buy this video. If you have been sitting in a chair for too long, if your body is tired and tense, Sacred Bellydance is amazing at stretching and relaxing it all out. And not just the back and arms -- the neck, fingers, hands, feet, toes, everything! I've pretty much only used Sacred Bellydance in this way, and it makes me feel amazing.

One final thing. Although bellydancers come in all shapes and sizes, the ones publishing videos are usually on the commercially thin side. Jehan is a womanly woman, and I think this is important. You might feel more comfortable watching her if your body is like hers, but more importantly, it's good to see how correct posture looks on a body which is rounded... well, where women's bodies *should* be rounded.

Review: Peter Martins, New York City Ballet Workout

2009-07-16T12:22:00.000-05:00

I rented this video around the same time that I started a "Ballet Body" class at my local gym. Also, I had been doing Callanetics, which is ballet-inspired. So I was really in the mood for something just like the New York City Ballet Workout.

Other reviewers on Amazon have mentioned the fact that the ballet terms are not explained (annoying, but you can deal with it), or that the narrator often does not give proper cues (actually very annoying, since he sometimes gives them, but at the wrong time, making it confusing even if you know what to do). Here are my problems with it:

1. I found the warmup horribly insufficient. That was not a warmup. That was barely a stretch.

2. The long and unskippable pauses between sections make sure that any warmup will be useless.

3. The beautiful, artsy dark background and shots make it really difficult sometimes to see what the dancers are doing. How about some bright lighting, like the kind they have in their actual studios?

4. There really aren't enough repetitions of each move. Not even the crunches. I'm sorry, sixteen crunches is not going to do anything for anyone's abs. I really wish they hadn't tried to fit in so many different moves and combinations, and had just chosen a few good ones and made the most of them -- and by that I mean explaining proper technique, showing modifications, and doing them enough times to get the muscles to work a little.

I guess that any exercise is better than no exercise at all, but I have a hard time imagining seeing any physical improvement from this DVD. My class at the gym has more repetitions and more of an aerobic component, which allows for more of a workout. Meanwhile, Callanetics (or yoga) is much better at building flexibility and muscle tone. I think the New York City Ballet Workout would be lovely for someone who wanted to see different ballet moves, and I loved the extras, but there are better dance-inspired workout videos.

Ballet for Oriental Dance with Autumn Ward

2007-12-17T23:33:00.000-06:00

I took part in Autumn Ward's "Ballet Technique for Oriental Dance" workshop yesterday at Salsa International. I have pain in the weirdest muscles today (my pecs hurt, if you can believe it!) and places in my hip, and my credit card also hurts because of the Sharifwear sale they were having.... but all in all, it was great.

You obviously can't learn much ballet in two hours, but that wasn't the point of the exercise. I thought this class might be something like an introductory ballet class, but it was nothing of the kind. Instead, it was much more interesting: Autumn discussed some aspects of ballet that have been incorporated into oriental dance, and how they might vary from the ballet forms. This also included some descriptions of ballet technique -- she made us do some very interesting exercises for getting a proper pointed foot, for example.

Autumn talked about arm positions in ballet and how we vary them for oriental dance, and made us do a partner exercise where we had to use our arms, in position, to resist against our partner. (Hence the painful pecs and back muscles today, which I take as a good sign!) We worked on that hipdrop-kick movement that gets used so much in bellydance, and on getting a graceful leg extension.

And, we spent a lot of time on turns. I'm probably the most turn-challenged person on the face of the planet, but I loved her instruction. First of all, she talked about how ballet drives spins and turns from the legs, while oriental dance drives them with the arms or the hips. She went over arm technique, and right away I realised how much I had been missing by not using my arms. And although she mentioned spotting, she didn't start with it. My trouble is that spotting, if anything, makes me more dizzy and confused, and makes me forget about what my body is supposed to do. I found I did alright when I just focused on my body -- my footwork, and powering the turns with my arms -- but the moment I tried to introduce spotting I lost it all.

We also covered arabesques, spinning inward and outward, and when each might be used. All in all, it was a wonderfully useful, tight class. I'm not a brilliant spinner now, but one can't be after two hours. Stil, I now have a much better idea of what to do, and strangely enough, I have this desire to run around a room spinning -- I can see how it could get addictive!

The Princess in Milford

2007-10-22T23:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, a treat: Princess Farhana was giving workshops in Milford, CT. I really enjoyed this, both because of the Princess's way of running a workshop and because of the warm, welcoming attitudes of the women attending. It helped me realize that the competitiveness I had felt at the NYC class was not just something I had imagined, but also, quite happily, that there are other ways of experiencing a dance class with other women. Farhana had us all say at the beginning how much experience we had so that she knew how to deliver the instructions, and we ranged from 3 months to six or seven years. This could have been weird, or a moment for showing off, but instead everyone applauded the "bellydance babies," and I had the feeling that having less experience was just not something to be embarrassed about in this environment.

As for Farhana, my god is that woman fun. She has a style that I can only describe as "studied vulgarity," and I mean that in a very good way. She playacted at being domineering and angry when we did the moves too quickly, she described some of the hand-to-head poses as the "one hand headache" and the "two hand headache," she swore a bit too, but it was always with a sharp sense of humour. That was one side of her performance. The other was composed of dancing that was just lovely and graceful, a real acknowledgment of us as individuals, and a sense of warmth.

The class itself was quite relaxed, and quite varied in content: a big section on abdominal muscle control, some quite lovely combos which then had abdominal work layered on them, and finally, a short amount of time with veils. I didn't buy anything: to be quite honest, I'm still a little weirded out by the intense shopping aspect of workshops. This was only my second, and while I really love shopping and getting bellydance videos, props, etc., it still seems kind of weird to me to gather around a table of wares instead of dancing.