Pros: Appropriate for brand-new beginners who never belly danced before. Fitness oriented.
Cons: Doesn't identify which moves are just exercise versus good for performing.
The Bottom Line: Great if you're completely out of shape and you want a not-too-tough exercise video. Won't teach you to be a performing belly dancer, though. Good for beginners.
ghaziya's Full Review: Bellydance Fitness for Beginners - Basic Moves
This is not a "belly dancing video". It's a "fitness video" that happens to use belly dance moves as the components of its workout. So, if you're looking for an exercise video, maybe this one will work for you - read on to see what else I have to say about it. But if you're looking for a video that will teach you to become a performing belly dancer, this one is probably not the right match for you. Instead, you might consider "Magical Motion" by Atea.
The instructors featured in this video are Veena and Neena Bidashi, a perky pair of identical twins based in southern California. Dressed in matching crop tops, tights, and hip scarves, they demonstrate each move while a voice-over narrative describes how to do it.
The set is well-lit and attractive without being distracting. Camera angles vary just enough to keep from becoming monotonous, but aren't excessive. The background music is loud enough to hear, but doesn't overwhelm the narrative. All in all, the production quality is excellent.
The level of workout is aimed at someone who is totally out of shape and needs to ease into exercise gently. The music is slow to medium speed and generally soothing. The movements tend to be gentle on the body, so even if you're not used to exercise you should be able to keep up. Over the course of the half hour, the exercise routine covers most of the major muscle groups in the body.
I was disappointed that the video didn't make any opening comments about appropriate posture, particularly with respect to avoiding injury.
I found the explanation in the narrative to be reasonably clear and easy to understand. It matched well with the movements being demonstrated, and the camera angles made it easy to see what was being shown.
One flaw is that the exercise routine uses both "real" performance moves and "just exercises that you wouldn't perform in public" moves, but doesn't tell you which are which. I don't mind that the "just exercise" moves were included because they are appropriate to building strength and flexibility in the muscles used for belly dancing, but I wish they would have been identified as such.
This video is aimed at people who have never belly danced before. Although the moves that it uses are appropriate to brand-new beginners, there's too much ballet influence in some of the moves for my taste. The explanations and demonstrations on how to do them were pretty good, and I think most people will be able to keep up with the pace.
From an exercise perspective, this fitness routine is fairly mellow. It's low impact, and therefore should be easy on the joints. All of the movements are presented at either slow or medium speed, and transitions from one move to the next are reasonably smooth.
If you're already reasonably fit and you're in the market for a high-energy, fat-burning, metabolism-raising, and cardio-vascular workout, this is the wrong video for you. But if you're totally out of shape and you want to ease your way into better fitness through a workout that will be gentle on your flabby body, this video is probably exactly what you need.
You don't need to know anything about belly dancing before using this video. However, if you ARE taking a belly dancing class, you may find that this video provides a useful framework for practicing the moves you learned in class and turning them into a low-key exercise workout.
Don't buy this video in hopes of seeing good dance performances. There's a one-minute duet performance in costume at the beginning while the opening credits roll, and a 2.5-minute solo performance in costume at the end while the closing credits roll. In both performances, the costumes are lovely and the dancing skill is competent, but it's annoying when the credits are superimposed over the dancer.
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