Okay, so Volumes 2 and 3 of Belly by Sandra are here. In my review of Volume 1, I had said that all of the basic basic material should have been together, either on one disk or a set of two. It seemed strange that many upper body moves were not covered then. A learner shouldn’t have to wait for the such a large chunk of basic instruction – this would mean she would turn to other DVDs. I’m also surprised to see no strong continuity from Volume 1 to 2… such as in the menu style, the way variations and combinations are handled, etc.
Well, now it’s here and with it is Volume 3 on which Sandra teaches a choreography. I’d have opted to start a new set of volumes for the choreographies. But let me stop nitpicking and get down to having a look at Volume 2.
The strength of Belly by Sandra, right through from Volume 1, is that she manages to put an extraordinary amount of advice, explanations and tips without getting boring. On Volume 2, we start with a pretty and neat menu.
Instruction
The neat and logical structure in the instruction section divides everything into explanation and practice sub sections. For all sections and subsections though, Sandra gives you corrective advice. She tells you what you could do wrong, what you need to be careful about, what you can do to make the movement look better, and what to avoid to make it look bad. All of this advice, as I’d said earlier, isn’t tedious because even the explanation sections begin with demos and breakdown and you can start working with her.
Arms: In her arms section – which is always a good idea on a beginner’s DVD, Sandra gives excellent tips. She shows you a breakdown of the iconic snake arms, but she also you how to make your arms look longer, how to prevent shoulder injury, and more. She takes up a variation or combination which uses folded in snake arms and a large S curve pose. I wish there was more here, but well, the practice drill would help a beginner with building in the lift of the chest and arms and making movements graceful. Perhaps one variation which gets another move going…say a pelvic circle in addition to the arm move, would have been useful because that multitasking is something important to try out right in the beginning – more so than the Turkish Drop demonstrated on this video, in fact.
Shoulder shimmy: This is an excellent section, mercifully different from the usual and replete with tips I haven’t seen before, including how to keep the shoulder shimmy a shoulder shimmy. The variation is clever because it will make the learner use different speeds and isolate better as just one shoulder is used for a small portion. There are also good safety tips here.
Undulations:First there’s an undulation prep section. Here, Sandra explains the segments of this whole body move and shows you how to bring in different muscles. She shows you how to activate the diaphragm muscles for this move by inhaling, and by using a few tricks. She also explains in detail how to engage and strengthen the middle segment of your abs.. This prep section even has a practice session of its own and some challenging variations with level change.
The main full body undulation section goes in-depth into this classic belly dance move. I find a few of the poses a bit awkward here though I understand there’s some extent of exaggeration to teach the dancer how to really engage right to the depth of the pelvic floor for this move. I find Sandra does this move a little differently from others — or so it seems anyway. This is specially for the lower half of the move. I am a little uncomfortable with the undulation here, but opinions and counter opinions on this are welcome.
Variations on undulations and the traveling camel include a version that uses the releve plie, a dipping undulaiton that many will be familiar with, and the second has a lift lift and dip right down with a big level drop to come up rolling. Watch out if you have bad knees.
An undulation combination is a rather nice addition here. However, the whole undulation section has the same slight awkwardness that I am not comfortable with. This photo from the combination shows what I’m talking about:
Reverse undulations of course have their very own section. It would take a while to put her tips into action. It’s a short section which goes on to the practice to a very upbeat piece of music. Variations, in their own section, include walking with the reverse (forwards and to the side) .
The reverse combo has pelvic drops and some footwork, shoulder pushes and chest drops with the reverse undulation.
The Turkish Drop!
Sandra doesn’t say you need to actually do the Turkish Drop but she includes it if you’re curious to see how it’s done. She also believes that it has elements used in other moves that need to be done correctly. That said, I still believe it doesn’t belong on a beginner’s instructional. In fact, it would have done fine as a bonus on the choreography DVD. I won’t give it away by putting in a picture and spoiling the surprise.
Large Hip Circle: Sandra’s favorite move is covered in some detail. Here again, I find she dips her chin into the chest almost on every repetition. I don’t know if this is a stylization and again, that’s something I’d welcome inputs on. Variations include traveling with the circle and some very nice arm variations. I haven’t seen some of these before in fact. Also some variations on how the chest is used. Deep hip circles are also shown. The large hip circle section actually has the most variations of any move on the video. There’s one final and absolutely beautiful lean with the large circle. I don’t want to spoil the surprise with a photo of it. All the variations together with music make for a wonderful large circle session – except for the chin-to-chest part.
The large circle combo actually begins with some medium circles before getting into some of the more exotic large ones. It’s a danceable combo that includes undulations and more.
Twists: This section begins with some safety tips because you can get injured if you’re too enthusiastic. There’s a nice upbeat practice segment. The short combo for twists focuses on weight change. This is also a nice one you can take straight into your dance.
Finally, there’s a big practice section where you can go through the whole lot of the previous practice segments together. Cues appear on screen.
Sandra’s performance here is to a lovely Latin sounding piece of music. It’s a live performance, evidently not filmed for this video in particular. Sadly, they have the camera on her hips some of the time without showing the whole figure — common problem.
hi Mala
I love how your reviews are so honest and balanced – you will say everything you like or do not like. I am more curious about the dvd now than before
Hi Mala!
Guess what…IE has decided to let me see your blog! I suppose the problem was I had been using an outdated version of IE and now that I have actually moved into the real world the problem has fixed itself.
Anyway, I agree with Dina (Hi Dina!) that it is nice to read a review that openly discusses the good and not so good points about a DVD. I too am very curious about this one.
Rose, how nice to finally see you here.
hi Rose!! how are you
I liked your review Mala. My review on bhuz was a lot more gushing than yours, but I don’t feel I’ve developed that much of a critical eye yet. That’s why I always like to see what you’ve written. I learn. Though, I still think it has something that other beginners don’t have.
I too wished there was more to the arm section. I got turned off of Aziza’s and Sandra’s seemed more accessible to me.
Helen, perhaps my critical eye comes from the fact that I used to run a technology magazine and we had to be careful always with product reviews. Very very careful indeed.
It looks like the lot of us got turned off Aziza’s DVD on getting to the middle of it. I’ve totally put it away, sadly. Another one with a lot of interesting arm work, by the way, is Ballet for Bellydancers, which I also must review one of these days. She has combinations with quite a lot of arm involvement. thing to do is pick up “arm-y” combos from different videos and work with them.
Certainly Sandra’s DVD has something. It’s workable-with factor is strong because it has the right mix of talking-dancing. But I couldn’t help seeing all the problems I did. Sandra looks down a lot for some reason, so you’ll see a lot of chin to chest during the big circle, for example. For arm work, her combo covers the face a little and again, beginners need to know not to do that. Anyone who’s a beginner-plus will know how to get past all these things and work satisfactorily with the video.
@Dina… what hairdo? Was there something special about it?
To me yes – her hair is open, but the part close to the head is pinned down in a lovely way. I kept trying to get this exact look in the past – not achieving it. For me I never seemed to get it all down with the hair pins without parts sneaking out, and at a certain point my head looked “loaded” with way too many pins (even the black ones showed).
Will ask my hairdresser the next time I go there if he can show me how to decently get this “pinned back, open ends” look
Not necessarily, Mala. Depends on what kind of teacher you have. She does criticize and correct. But, maybe mine realized a long time ago that 98% of her class just wants to have fun. I really like my teacher, but rely heavily on dvds or bhuz. to educate myself.
It wasn’t until Luscious that I got and felt a glimmer of what dancing is supposed to be. That feeling wasn’t coming through in class or elsewhere. Vol. 2, regardless of it’s faults, does the same thing for me as Luscious. It inspires me. Th music inspires me. Shamira Vol. 2 did that for me when I was a baby beginner. I was comparing both Vol. 2′s for Dina. Now that I look back, Shamira’s 2 seems simplistic in comparison, like comparing a teenager to her sophisticated college sister. I still find value in Shamira 2 and have no intention of trading or selling. It will be interesting to look back on Sandra’s Vol. 2 in a couple of years.
Ive started doing the same thing about arms. Youtube, various dvds. etc. It would be nice to have it in one place. Sigh.
oops I meant the hairdo for the Faddah performance? did I not specify? sorry
Hi Mala, I’ve seen quite a few of your reviews, and as a very new beginner, I guess what I’m wondering is this: Considering all the beginner videos you’ve seen, do you consider this one worth working with over others? Say, compared with Jenna’s or Autumn Ward’s or Ariellah’s Tribal one? Or how about Shamira’s, which I understand is much more dance-y? Thanks for all your thorough help!
Hi Alexa. Ah, tough question. No, I think that this one is worth it after a few others. One thing we’ve found is that one never manages to work with just one video. Each dancer seems to bring her own strengths to the teaching and personally, each of us feels comfortable with some and not with others.
Jenna’s video is very very strong on technique, and it’s very comprehensive. However, it’s got a lot of talking up till about 75 percent of it is done. So, you really have to have the patience and as an absolute beginner who is in the process of developing a passion for the dance, that’s tough. So again… I keep recommending to people that they take up Jenna’s if and when they find they’re getting serious about belly dancing.
Ariellab again has very strong technique, but hers is from the tribal fusion genre, so if you haven’t yet become interested in that, all the hard work with muscle conditioning (3 hrs of it, if I remember( will be tough. Ariellah is a must — sometime. Sandra is easy to work with because of the varied instruction. But if you want solid solid muscle conditioning, work with Ariellah. No harm working with both, of course.
Autumn Ward is similarly very in-depth but is also a great option for sophisticated technique after you’ve worked a bit with others.
Now Shamira, I happen to think is a very good choice for an absolute beginner. She doesn’t spend a lot of time on technique and doesn’t even feature the maya on her two Sensuous Workouts, but you get started enough to get further interested in the dance. And that’s when you start to look at other videos for whatever direction you want to develop.
Very complicated answer, sorry. In short, Sandra will combine with any of the others, but not on her own. Well, Vol 1 yes, but Vol 2 along with something else because I spot a few things that worry me. Others may feel differently!
Oh, Luscious inspired me too. it’s really very pretty and the moves look so beautiful despite being simple. Simple meaning not layered etc. I must say, I’d recommend Luscious for a beginner any time – along with something more in depth that just focuses on isolaitons.
i got more of the inspired feel from Sandra’s first DVD. But I’ll probably know more when I’ve started working with it. The problem with these reviews sometimes is that they’re previews. I have to go back revise the Aziza review, which I pulled off of Amazon altogether. That’s a first for me.
I wonder if you can ‘stitch” a bunch of arm combos together using this utility called HJ Split. That’s an interesting thought. never tried any such thing though. Else, just play a whole list off youtube at one go while you’re online!
@Dina…yes take the video or screenshot with you. That should help the hair dresser figure it out.
I agree with Mala.
Well, I don’t have Sandra Vol. 1, but all of the other dvds. I agree with her advice where to start.
I’ll absolutely do that (take the screenshot to the hairdresser
)