There’s something very likeable about Hannan Sultan. So I’m very pleased to see her on another one of her DVDs, the ¾ Shimmy portion of her intermediate syllabus for belly dancers.
She’s in class again and those of you who like to see how moves look on different body types will be happy to see Hannan’s group of differently sized women.
Hannan is dressed in black with a nice stringy white hip scarf, which makes her moves nice and visible.
This video kicks off with a nice condensed little warm up. And then, interestingly, the class does a few rounds of Kegel exercises and cat stretches.
Hip work begins with everyone doing some nice sharp hip swings or hits in a slow practice session. This is a real class because you have questions and corrections and all. I don’t like class-based videos, but Hannan’s are an exception. As with her other videos, she takes the trouble to explain everything, from weight changes to fingertips to hip joints. From the hip swings you go on to hip up-downs. Sharp and precise. And then you put the two together. You drill this for quite a while before you move into the medium-slow segment.
The medium-slow segment obviously picks up the pace and adds a step to the ¾ shimmy components. Hannan gives you tips all along as we get into a largely unbroken drill. She steps up the footwork with a step back and a step forward and soon you’re doing the shimmy on a forward-place-back-place pattern.
In a medium tempo segment, things speed up and you can see the students aren’t doing a bad job at all. I can’t get over that one student who’s dressed in all black with an all black hip scarf. Not smart at all. The difficulty level steps up here as the shimmy is then layered entirely on the back-place-forward-place footwork. Up to speed with one full shimmy for each step. Hannan details the way the feet must look. She also gives you tips about what not to do. She’s very encouraging and does all she can to make it easy. This is a nice long session and you can get quite tired so make sure you warm up your hip joints well if you have problems.
The class goes into deep concentration on the fast segment. She keeps you entertained though. After a long drill, the students move into a super-fast speed and I don’t blame everyone for being worried about whether they can do it or not. Funnily, it does turn out to be too fast, so they all slow down again a bit. I told you this was a real class. She puts in a few reps of side steps to vary things a bit. She doesn’t always follow her own advice, I must note. After warning you not to take big gappy steps and lift your knee too high, she does exactly that. Oh well, we’re all human.
The class finally does speed up though and you can see they’re getting it. They vary speeds,, slowing right down to a crawl and again speeding up.
Doing the ¾ while walking in a circle is also taken up, thankfully. Moving with this shimmy really does need practice and drilling, so that’s a good thing.
I’m surprised also that she didn’t choose to take up the ¾ shimmy on the down in this video. May as well have, really. If you take that up too separately, it’s difficult for a learner to switch modes, but if it’s taken up right at the beginning it’s easier.
There’s no proper menuing on this video. You often transition from segment to another a little abruptly. I didn’t find that too much of a problem though because it lends to the whole flow.
Another minor complaint I have is that she ends up yelling too much and too often. This is possibly because it’s a real class and you need to be heard and to motivate. On the video, it’s one little microphone and you need to tone it down slightly.
I haven’t looked at any other ¾ shimmy videos of late. Offhand, I do remember Yasmina Ramsey’s video. That was more advanced than this one is and had a lot of layering. At the same time, that was no drill or even a proper dance-along. I remember being very disconcerted by Yasmina’s breathlessness which made me think she wasn’t one bit well. That distracted me no end. Many other videos take up the ¾ shimmy but this is both beginner-friendly and a long, long drill.
There’s a much-need cooldown at the end.