Monday, January 2, 2012

Bellydancing - 8 Basic Moves and Memory Sheet


Today is a good day for Belly dancing. I learned these moves last year, and I could go into more detail, but for now here's the basics. Belly dancing is about having fun and shaking everything you’ve got.
With belly dancing you’ve got 8 basic moves, 4 upper, 4 lower. (Apparently there’s a ninth one somewhere, but I haven’t learned that one yet, so we’re working with eight here.) These moves can then be combined and used to make the fun shapes of belly dancing.

Upper Body
1          Slide (keeping the lower body perfect still and using your core muscles to slide right and left_
2          Lift (using your upper abdominal muscles to lift your chest)
3          Twist (Twisting from the waist)
4          Cu-Cu (bringing your entire rib cage in then out, like a cu-cu on a clock)
Lower Body
1          Slide (Hips move from right to left
2          Lift (Lift your leg completely off the ground using your core muscles, it’s harder than the sounds
3          Twist (Twist your hips alternately to the back, try not to use your upper body.)
4          Scoop (Contract just your lower abdominal muscles to create a scoop action with your hips.

These are combined to make 12 combined moves.
Upper
1          Slide +Lift
2          Slide + Twist
3          Slide + Cu-Cu
4          Lift + Twist
5          Lift + Cu-Cu
6          Twist + Cu-Cu
Lower
1          Slide +Lift
2          Slide + Twist
3          Slide + Cu-Cu
4          Lift + Twist
5          Lift + Cu-Cu
6          Twist + Cu-Cu

Shimmies
There are three basic shimmies, Upper, (doing the twist really fast. Remember, the key to the upper twist is to avoid airplane arms, you want to isolate the movement as much as possible to the core muscles.) Lower (Twist in the hips, really fast) and Running in place. With the latter, you’ll keep the pads of your feet on the ground and move your heels really fast. Something that helps is pretending you have a wall behind you and you are trying to make your knees hit that wall.

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