Beginners - Week 3. Now with Bonus Sha'abi music/dance

 This week we used our existing technique:

• Circles, Figure 8s, side hits, hip drops, shimmy

And we covered new technique:

• Hip Drops with the forward or backward body twist.
• Forward Back Step, including the pivoting version, and the seamless changeover of the lead foot.

We used our basic techniques from the previous weeks to do a warm up dance, and the new material in our group dance at the end of the session.

I have updated the Youtube Practice Playlist with the Forward Back Step video - it's another oldie!

HOME PRACTICE

Practise the Hip Drop, trying to make sure it's a drop, the accent is on the Down.

Remember there is a Hip Drop practice video in the Practice Youtube Playlist.

This is also a really good hip drop technique video by an American Bellydance teacher, Sahira (Beginners can ignore her reference to the glutes, but if you're experienced with hip drops, give it a try):

EDITED TO ADD

We used some Sha'abi music for our Group dance at the end of the lesson, and also for the cool down. Sha'abi is Egyptian street music, and it's equivalent to hip hop or grime, in that it's created by young working class people, it's quite subversive (and can sometimes be very lewd /sweary or political, so you need to be careful about songs where you don't know what the lyrics are about) and it started off very much as an underground style but has gained mainstream popularity over the years. 

The music we used for the group dance was El Ab Yalla, by Oka & Ortega:

The music we used in the Cool Down was Dawla by Enba (a bit more chilled):

I've tried to find a couple of clips to show how sha'abi is danced by ordinary people (rather than pro dancers). It's not that easy! Here are some boys dancing. Dancing sha'abi with knives and machetes is a thing. Don't ask me why. It just is.

And to balance things out, here are some girls: