In this Taster workshop, we covered some Beginner level technique:
- Circles & half circles
- Figure 8s, plain & reverse
- Hip Hits/Side to Sides
- Hip Pushes, including the Step-Push travelling variation
- Forward Back step
- Hip Shimmy
There are practice videos available for all these moves in this Youtube Playlist.
We used all these techniques in a final improvised dance.
We used a gentle warm up to mobilise our joints, and some stretches at the end of the session to get any muscles that have tightened up back to normal.
If you enjoyed this workshop and would like to continue learning to bellydance, you can join the Beginners classes that run at Guildford Adult Learning Centre, on Thursday evenings. Don't worry, if you've done this workshop, you should be able to catch up fairly easily.
The course details are here, but don't enrol online. Instead, phone the Customer Service Team on 0300 200 1044, as they should be able to reduce the course fees, pro rata, because you've missed the first three sessions.
EDITED TO ADD
I said I'd upload a couple of Beginner routines. To be honest, they'd be hard for you to learn on just one Taster like today's, but... Fill your boots!
This first one is called Music For Zeinat, and it's the most Beginner friendly of my choreographies. I would normally teach it over 5 or 6 weeks in the first term of a Beginners class. (Sorry, I only just realised the video was set to Private, I've just changed it to Unlisted, so you should be able to play it now).
The next one is a bit more technical, maybe more of a second or third term Beginner routine. It's called Maigorakshi. Youtube won't let me show it, because of music copyright, so it's on Vimeo, and you'd need the password "bea" to see it.
Finally, this is Ziggarats of Cinnamon. This one was basically designed to show off different Forward Back Step variations. This is one of my early versions of this piece, I've simplified it a bit over the years!
