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Belly Dance Crash Course | 
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| Director: Michelle Joyce
Actor: Michelle Joyce
Studio: Cheeky Girls Productions
Category: DVD
Buy New: $19.95
New (2) from $19.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 29266
Format: Ntsc
Language: English (Unknown)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 90
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 5.4 x 0.2
UPC: 884501045933
EAN: 0884501045933
ASIN: B001FSHM7A
Release Date: October 6, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Belly Dance Crash Course is a multi-level DVD that starts at the absolute beginner level and becomes progressively more difficult. Once you have mastered the basics you will move on to advanced-beginner and intermediate lessons. For the absolute beginner: Michelle provides comprehensive breakdown of each movement. She uses her experience as a personal trainer to break down the physiology of the movements and to provide safety tips throughout. She also discusses common mistakes made by beginners. For the advanced-beginner: Each of the movements is extensively drilled so you can get it into your muscle memory. During the drills you are encouraged to work at your own level as you are gradually shown more difficult variations. For the intermediate dancer: In the second half of the DVD we crank up the difficulty level by putting the movements together into combinations. Each combination is slowly explained, then practiced first to slow music. Once you are comfortable, we pick up the pace and practice it at full speed.
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| Customer Reviews:
Fast becoming one of my favorite top dancers December 6, 2008
The previous reviews said it all. For someone like myself, I love the way she instructs and hope that I can go to a workshop. Keep them coming, Michelle.
Learn and practice absolute basics and move on to combinaitons November 13, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's become very difficult to review belly dance basics videos. When I began dancing four years ago, there were some that everyone strongly recommended. Today there are lots more and not only are they very good, they bring something unique to the learning process. In fact one of Michelle Joyce's own videos competes with this one!
No instructional video teaches you all of belly dancing. Typically, learning dancers who use videos have a big collection of them. So if someone were to ask me whether I'd recommend this (or any other new basics video) I'd first quiz them in great detail about lots of things. Like video collection so far, how in depth they want to get into belly dancing, whether they go to classes otherwise or not, etc.
So, who is this video for? Funny thing is, it depends on which half of To take the beginners' section first, I'd have to say that this really is a crash course. It's quick and gives you the absolute fundamentals. Hip bumps, pelvic tilts, circles, figure eights, and undulations are explained nicely. But what's really nice is the little drill section after each chunk. These are gentle and short enough for beginners to practice with - and an option for more knowledgeable beginners or intermediate dancers to use if they feel they don't want to work too hard on some days.
Many moves that others consider basic - the one-hip circle, chest circles, variations with side to side hips, hip downs - are not taken up here. That makes it ideal for someone who wants to learn a bit of "light" belly dancing and get on with it and take it to the dance floor. If you are the type who can't bear to miss out on a movement even at beginner stage (like me) you'll need more in depth instruction. I'm seriously thinking I will lend it to my brother in law who's tickled pink with belly dancing and wants to try it out. I don't see him concentrating hard and getting a maya right, but I definitely think he'd be able to shake it a bit with this short but safe instruction.
There are no combinations for beginners, and that's in order since the drills will be enough work in themselves for a while before moving on to the intermediate section.
I do think though that a warm up would have been good after the posture section. Or before for that matter.
There are no combinations for beginners, and that's in order since the drills will be enough work in themselves for a while before moving on to the intermediate section.
The section for intermediate dancers (or really advanced beginners) gets right into combinations and has you practicing faster versions of the movements taught in the beginners section. There are four combinations in all and these are very nice and usable. Modifable as well. Right from the start you can see that they fit different kinds of music, as Michelle changes tracks for fast and slow versions of the combos. The music, by the way, is really nice. Much of it is from Suhaila Salimpour's Shehrezad, which I have to get hold of. Thankfully, the combinations are not disappointingly short or anything, and each distinctly gets into separate types of movements. Nevertheless, you could combine them and mix bits of them all up to make your own choreography. I like the combinations a lot and experimented a bit just today, mixing them with some from Jillina's pop choreography video.
Combos in detail
The first combination goes best with a medium or fast tempo. It's full of hip drop, drop kick moves, a turn and a shimmy. It's not a difficult one on the face of it, but the challenge will be remembering when to drop kick, when to drop sit, drop and turn etc when you're moving fast and repeating the combo on both sides. The slow version is done to Keyboard Solo from Arabian Musicals Vol 2, Suhaila Salimpour. The fast version is done to Bongo Funk from Suhaila's Shehrezade.
The second combo is shorter but more challenging than the first one. It's the body wave combo and has some roll ups and roll downs done quickly to worry about. There's also a deep deep dip and a hair toss which you'll have to practice to get right but not practice that much as to hurt your back. Some safety tips here would have been in order. There is only a slow version of this combo and it's done to Arabian Gold from Suhaila's Shehrezade.
The third combo, the figure 8 combo, uses up eights, mayas, and a flat eight. It's a slow sexy sort of combo and it has two moves new to me (though I'm no one to go by). These are a pivot with an up eight and a bounce added to the trajectory of the flat eight. Slow to Keyboard Solo again and fast to a nice modern Turkish sounding piece that hasn't been named.
The hip circle combo has medium traveling circles, large hip circle with a dip, and snake arms. This one is rather short and maybe the easiest of the lot - except for the deep dip. Arabian Gold and Bongo Funk again.
So there we are. Another basics video for belly dancers. To sum up what I think this video has to offer: a quick get-down-to-dancing instruction on absolute fundamentals, gentle short drills food for beginners and doable for non beginners who want to take it easy, and - four great combinations to play with.
Tailer September 17, 2008
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1WZ4XBJKEWV3W
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