Tribal isolations
I have the tribal belly dancers to thank for whatever success I’ve had so far with muscle isolations. While some videos have shown me exactly how to work on them, it’s the tribal fusion videos that have actually got me working – almost every day since I got them. Well, definitely thrice a week anyway.
These are the videos, in chronological sequence, that I went through from a couple years ago to now.
American Tribal Style 1 and 2 – Kajira Djoumahna
Kajira, who won an award for her instruction on this video set, teaches isolations in a style that is somewhat different from the “regular” belly dancing isolations. The muscle work is essentially the same but there are subtle differences in emphasis here and there. I bought these videos before a series of tribal fusion DVDs began to be produced by World Dance New York. The teaching on this “ATS” set is painstaking, detailed and patient. There’s a lot of emphasis on cues because this is a style danced in groups. For beginners looking for information, this is not the same style as what is now called tribal fusion although here are similarities. ATS is considered the parent genre. It was working with this video that the maya was finally demystified for me. This set is however not as “drilly” as the tribal fusion that came later are. It’s also three times as expensive while not necessarily being three times as good. The DVD has ATS combinations and is great for someone exploring American Tribal group dancing. For isolations, there is much else available now.
East Coast Tribal – Sera
I’ve had this DVD for a while and am just as impressed with it as the day I first watched it. Sera is a fantastic, polished instructor and leads you through the workout and combinations on her video at an expertly smooth pace. She has a nice method of getting you to do an exaggerated form of a movement or isolation so that you “get it” and work through the full range of motion. And then she reins it in so that you can get control and precision as well. This video is fantastic for beginners who want to drill isolations because the workout is varied and movements are not hard and forced like they are in more advanced videos. The risk of injury, in my opinion, is way lower. I’ve worked with this video a lot. It’s helped open up the body for later work with isolations. The 30-minute workout here is not only a gentle way to ease into muscle drills, it’s a wonderful everyday dance warm up. There’s even a 10-minute shimmy drill. A little bit of everything to warm you up head to toe (yes, there’s an ankles warm up too) and an unstressful way to do isolations without pain. The combinations on this video are also very funkily lovely.
Tribal Fusion NYC — Darshan
I’ve so enjoyed working with Darshan’s video. She’s instantly likeable and has a way of engaging with you one-on-one so that the entire instruction is between you and her. She may be on video, but she still has a way of being with you, as an equal. And that’s rare. Darshan has a nice, active workout which, now that I have so many tribal videos to compare with, I can see has several unique aspects to it. Her workout is more isolation based and there are no yoga and Pilates moves. Her short arms drill is totally different from others’ and isn’t about plain old snake arms. She gets you to understand your dance space as you move and gives you exercises that will give you balance and posture. Darshan’s four long combinations are like isolation exercises in themselves – apart from being very attractive. Every now and then I feel like pulling out Tribal NYC and working with it.
Contemporary Tribal Bellydance and Yoga Conditioning – Ariellah
No matter what went before it and what came after, Ariellah’s video was a godsend. Through three hours of gentle and warm teaching, she leads you through a yoga strengthening warm up (available in short and long sessions) and then 35 minutes of basic drills followed by another 35 minutes of more advanced drills. I’d recommend these for any belly dancer of any style and any level. The pace, which I consider very important, is perfect and without frenzy or anxiety, the reminders on posture and safety are invaluable, and gives you what amounts to a whole workshop on disk. I’m not using this DVD these days but have done so for months on end and it remains one of my most treasured. Her tribal combinations – six of them – are easier than on most other videos, and are nice-looking and also make good practice, even if you don’t intend to dance tribal style. This is the one video in the whole that should be winning a bunch of awards.
Fluid Precision — Kassar
The tribal twins as I like to think of them – though they’re not – took the strength and conditioning workout to the next level. And that’s what I like best about their video. The isolations they take up are specific to the combinations they teach on the DVD. But the yoga-Pilates workout was a good challenge. I worked with this for a short while before progressing to Asharah’s. Kassar’s combinations are disappointingly short but very cool and smooth. They even take up two floorwork combos. All of these need you to have no knee problems because they love abrupt level drops. It’s a specialty for them and the way they combine this with smooth mayas and half mayas is wonderful.
Modern Tribal Bellydance – Asharah
The DVD I’m using most often right now is Asharah’s. She too has a solid three-hour programme but these three hours are a lot more hard work than Ariellah’s three hours. The whole programme is pretty much hard work, in fact. And I love it. The strength workout is a whole 50 minutes or so long and is pretty much what Suhaila does in her Fitness Fusion videos. After that, Asharah goes on to take you through the isolations which you’ll find yourself doing on your toes, on one foot, seated, etc. And most of it with your arms up in 2nd or 5th position. This is no workout for the fainthearted. Because I’ve stuck to this workout for some months, there’s a visible difference to my strength, flexibility, precision and sharpness. Which is why I’m so grateful for this DVD. Asharah also has a big special section on breaking up the isolations into tiny parts which is amazing to work with. You may not like the automated and robotic elements that modern tribal uses, but the isolations will certainly give you no end of control over your movements. The combinations are a shade boring but again, make great drills – not that there’s a shortage of drills on this incredible video. I work with this video about three times a week – and don’t seem to be getting bored with it.
Then there’s a bunch I own but don’t work with.
Tribal Fusion Bellydance with Sharon Kihara
Sharon Kihara is an extremely exotic looking woman and it’s a pleasure to watch her dance. I’d say the combinations on her video are some of the prettiest. They have an Indian tinge to them and are even set to a Hindi song, Chhaiya Chhaiya. The ATS parentage of tribal fusion shows in the combinaitons too. She teaches them rather rapidly though, so you’d better not be too much of a beginner for this one. The isolations and warm up however, don’t match up in depth and duration to those on other videos. I never seem to work with it for isolations.
Tribal fusion bellydance with Nara and Jala
This would have been good for a beginner if it had only been made better and cost less. At the time I bought it, it was even more expensive, so it was a shock to find that the write up seemed a whole lot of more promising than the content turned out to be. I’ve seen it exactly once and put it away in utter disgust. Sometimes dancers make videos imagining that none others exist in the world and that anything at all that they put out will be lapped up. Well, it wasn’t.
Tribal Fusion — Yoga Isolations and Drills for Bellydance: Rachel Brice
I’ve never worked with this video. Well, maybe for a few minutes. This just isn’t the content dancers really really wanted from Rachel Brice. One can learn yoga elsewhere. And the isolations… well… Personally, I found Rachel Brice cold and closed up. She didn’t try to relate to the learner, she didn’t even look like she expected any learners around. Flat-voiced and matter of fact over a few drills.
Suhaila’s videos
I only have a few of Suhaila Salimpur’s fitness videos and they include yoga and pilates and isolations that the other videos actually draw from. So her videos would be like working with the source. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that others will have mixed in other stuff as wsell. Like combinations.
Here are some of my nomination to sum things up a bit;
Most fun instructor – Darshan
Best drills – Asharah and Ariellah
Best warm up – Sera
Best workout — Asharah (Suhaila, by implication)
Best combinations – Sharon Kihara
Easiest combinations – AriellahMost beginner friendly – Sera
Most hard work – Asharah
Most comprehensive — Asharah
Most of these videos are available from Amazon, where you’ll find more detailed reviews, including mine for some of these. If you’d like to go with my favorite seller, that’s Oceanstate Media oceanstatemedia dot com .
(Photographs are used with permission from World Dance New York)
Great reviews!! you made me want to work with East Coast Tribal
this morning
Thank you so much for breaking down the content of these tribal dvds in such excellent detail. It’s often hard to tell whether or not a dvd is really what you are looking for by reading the product descriptions – which can often be quite deceiving. It is so much better when someone who has has actually used the dvd details the content and offers an opinion on their value. You’ve inspired me to take my Darshan dvd off the shelf and work with the combsos. I had forgotten how pretty they are until reading your blog!
Hello Mala – yes great great summaries
Because of your suggestions I ordered myself Sera and Darshan’s dvds. I am curious for them – although I fear they will be kept in the shelf with my approximately 40 (my biggest character flaw – I tend to rush in and exaggerate things, ordering a load of things rather than 1 to start with) other dvds, as I am only practicing with Amira s 101 at this point to really get the movements right
But well I ll have the tribal videos waiting for me once I feel my technique is reasonable for basic moves.
One dvd I found missing was Rachel Brice s arms instruction. you mentioned in your very interesting amazon review you were writing it from a “previewer”‘s stance without having worked with it a lot. Would you like to share your experience with this dvd?
I am thinking about getting it because many reviewers stated the benefits for people with a sedentary day time occupation..
Hi Dina,
I wouldn’t really have recommended buying both East Coast and Darshan’s Tribal NYC at the same time, but well, such advice is for sensible people and none of us is very sensible where DVDs are concerned!
But now that you’ve bought them, I’d start with East Coast and move to Tribal NYC later. I don’t think you need to wait until you finish with Amira Mor’s 101 but can go stright into East Coast as well. East Coast has a wonderful warm up and workout. The workout is very balanced, covering a bit of everything from head to toe, without using the moves in a way that can give you muscle pulls or sprains. I’ve used this workout for a long, long time before graduating to the more challenging tribal workouts (like Ariellah’s and Asharah’s — Asharah’s is essentially Suhaila’s). I still use East Coast as a quick warm up (35 mins) when I don’t want to get into a strength and conditioning type workout which will last anything up to 2 1/2 hours. East Coast will develop your range of motion and rein movements in to be isolated. It’s the first steps in isolations. Darshan’s makes a good next step. In fact, I think that’s pretty much how I sequenced it. Or it sequenced itself.
Rachel Brice’s Arms video is not soemthing I’d recommend if you are only planning to buy a few videos at this point. It’s something of a disappointment. If you’re getting into tribal full fledged, it might be nice, else there’s so much else to explore that will give you more. I don’t think it’s the ONE video to counter the effects of a sedentary lifestyle. That goes for every single bellydance video around. They all counter the effects of sitting around all day — provided you put in a good chunk of dance time. In short, there’s nothing earthshaking about it.
I m SOOO greedy I cant help it
No, not sensible at all
I believe I tell myself it will be encouraging to have this LOOOOAD of dvds standing and waiting for me, stupid as that might be LOL
Actually I have Amira from Las Vegas, not Amira Mor.. I think I saw you say somewhere you liked one of Amira Mor’s videos? I had a look at a couple of them, especially the first which is bellydance your way to fitness there should be an excerpt on youtube with Amira in a pink skirt and her students in royal blue… Hmmmm to be honest I found her only so-so.
Not very Mideastern, very jazzy, Latin-inspired.. and well I did not like the constant jumping and hair tossing that much.. but well a friend of mine took her classes in NYC and said it s something different and energetic, and I absolutely believe that judging from the videos, she looks very nice personality wise. I just feel a bit awkward imagining New Yorkers believe THIS will be authentic Mideastern dance when there s so much better out there, and absolutely not only from originally Mideastern ppl 8-(
Anyways, I think it s good you give me the push of progressing to something else. I might be too much of a coward at this point. It s just soo nice to go through something without feeling like an untalented idiot
but not much of a challenge of course!
; buy THE magical shoulders dvd to ease back/shoulder pain etc.
With the arms workout you are right.. I think I liked the idea of having this one video healing my shoulders and neck after a long day at the computer. You see I m a bit too much after the easy solutions – buy loads of dvds, and they will magically transform you into a dancer (while you stick with the easiest and have them shove off their glamour just from being there on the shelf
It s great to have someone more focused and realistic to counsel
by the way, I was surprised to see you are actually a fair-haired lady!
I should really know better not everyone in India will be dark haired – how many times have I heard “you re from Austria, I thought you were all blonde over there” (me having coal black hair). Uff..
Well, you may not call me realistic if you see my video collection!
Dina, I’m not too fond of Amira’s videos. While I think she’s energetic, I don’t much like her teaching style. But she dances well and I’m sure is as qualified in Middle Eastern dance as any American or anyone else in the world for that matter. Not sure what the Middle Easterners think of all this, of course. I’d say don’t bother with “authentic” . As long as you like it, you like it.
You know what I was glad when reading your reviews your reference to your shockingly large collection – I felt relieved and thought “well there s others like me” with collection-mania
)
Well whenever speaking with other Arabs in NYC (distant family I visited) and in Europe most ppl were shocked of Amira Mor. There s a performance video I was offered as a gift – do not get me wrong, I find her attractive, and she comes across as a lively personality, but her dancing shocked me quite a bit, too. Have you seen the performance video? Actually on the instructionals she comes across skilled, I agree. Because she CAN do the movements – it s just when she does “her thing” it turns into something a bit too sleazy. Too much of the “aaarrrr I m a tigeress” exoticism if you know what I mean
But to be fair, much of the criticism online by Arabs is due to her being Jewish from Tel Aviv (I think).
Still, even if she were American I think she d put Arabs off with the overly sexual rather than sensual dancing style
The thing with “authentic” – I’d like to dance like in the old movies I watched as a child, not understanding much of them (I m bilingual with French, my knowing Arabic only poorly is an “open wound” to be dramatic
. So while I did not understand much, I understood the dancing 
– it will be a long way for me though 
So my primary motivation is to learn the classic Arab dance.. But you are right for getting the movements any good American dancer is a great reference, since they all place emphasis on the right muscles and mechanics, and I do not care much about whether I d love watching their performance or not, personally, as long as I can get something from them technique-wise. I have my Amira Mor cardio video waiting for me which looks SOO undoable right now my shimmy being “out of command”. I can do them while dancing at parties – pretty well when in the mood, but do you think I could get him going in class or in my living room? Nope :-s
So I will give her teaching a try, as well as all the tribal isolists
Do you have performance videos too by the way? Or do you just keep in shape dance-wise with bellydance?
Take care Mala
Hi Mala, I’m a fan of your reviews, although I usually buy from Ebay because they accept Paypal. I have Ariellah and Asharah’s DVDs, and I personally found Ariellah’s toned figure intimidating because I couldn’t figure out whether I was doing things wrong because I wasn’t getting the move correct or whether my tummy was too flabby. So I actually found Asharah to be more encouraging.
Keep on writing! I wish you would copy and paste your Amazon reviews here so your readers could have a one-stop reference.
Hello Sajia! Thanks for visiting my blog. I do indeed mean to put the Amazon reviews (or rather, modified or rewritten ones) all here so that they can be accessed at one place. In fact that’s the reason I’m careful to keep the title of a post the same as the actual DVD. That way you can search quickly. Of course, that would change if I do a comparative write up or a list of some kind. I just need a bit of time to get it all organized.
Both Asharah and Areillah are wonderful to work with. I think in both cases, their figures are a matter of heredity — on top of which they exercise, of course. I know that Asharah is actually an athlete and is probably just as fit as Ariellah, but she just happens to be built differently. So anyway, if you have Asharah’s video, you’ve covered everything that Ariellah has on hers. I’ve actually graduated from Ariellah’s do Asharah’s and don’t use Ariellah’s DVD any longer. I tend to stick with one of these programs for a good long time, which is when I think you really see some benefits. With Asharah’s workout (essentially Suhaila-inspired), I’m totally thrilled with the increase in flexibility.
I *love* Chaiyya Chaiyya! In fact, I taught my first mini-lesson to it! It was on the soundtrack to Bombay Dreams, a musical I saw in London on my way to a summer in Poland, and (it being the only CD I had with me), I used it when my roommates in Krakow asked for a lesson!
I’ve performed to it as well – I occasionally get hired to belly dance at a Desi club night in Boston, and I was thrilled when they asked me to use that song.
Wow, so do you do a tribal style piece to it? I’m always so amazed at how some of these Indian songs are so popular outside of India!