::more than somewhat::

1. Instant Belly Dancer
2. Jenna’s Belly Dance Basics and Beyond
3. Shamira: Sensuous Workout I
4. Shamira: Sensuous Workout II
5. Sadie’s Complete Guide to Belly Dance
6. Belly by Sandra
7. Virginia: One on One
8. Jehan’s Sacred Bellydance
9. Hilary Thacker: Beginner’s Guide to Egyptian Belly Dance

Instant Belly Dancer
The absolute queen of beginners’ DVD, translated into many languages, uses a unique, effective system of graphic overlays on screen to teach the precise way to do a move – safely. This is a two DVD set covering every basic in the dance. The fabulously creative Neon doesn’t leave you in the lurch without actual dance moves, but gives combinations at the end of each move explanation, so that you have something to work with immediately, if you chose. Includes more material than almost any beginner’s DVD. This video set has done a lot to bring new dancers from the general public into belly dancing.
Pros Simplified anAd friendly gentle instruction, totally ingenuous in the way it ueses little moves that you can dance anywhere, at the club or at a party even before you master isolations fully.
Cons Purists complain about the style not being traditional belly dance and being too club or party oriented.
Recco Too much content for a beginner to ignore. Use it to get your precision and combine with a more traditional belly dance video if that is what you’re after. Usable by someone who wants to take the moves to the dance floor without getting deeply into the isolaitons because the graphics and explanations tend to stick visually in one’s mind and keep the moves safe.

Jenna’s Belly Dance Basics and Beyond
Encylopedic. Makes up a complete syllabus. “Beyond beginners” will also find it a great reference and move-corrector. Painstaking detailed instruction with the dancer giving it her all.
Pros Covers all basics, drills, combinations and features a choreography one can pick up from – all on one DVD. Very thorough and analytic. Leads beautifully to the next in the set “The Next Level”, also a massive resource.
Cons Totally “talky” with music and dancing only entering towards the last 25 percent.
Recco Serious dancers-to-be don’t miss out on this one but combine with something with more actual dancing and music. Should make a refreence if you’re taking classes as well.

Shamira: Sensuous Workout I
Even today, this video is unique in its selection of content and could, if marketed more, give more recent DVDs a run for their money. Shamira authoritatively leads learners trough a warm up and the most fundamental basics. But, she uses little combinations and beautiful arm workto move you through a pretty dance workout.
Pros: Dancey right from the start. You use your arms from the beginning. Enjoyable, inspiring and wonderfully cued and instructed.
Cons: None.
Recco: Anyone looking for an easy-to-do introduction to belly dancing should consider this. For more serious, comprehensive and in-depth belly dance instruction, choose something else, but even advanced dancers have tended to like this relaxing, feminine dance basics session.

Shamira: Sensuous Workout II
Independent of Workout I, this too is a DVD that would hold its own on content, instruction and ease of working. Shamira leads you through 22 little chapters, each of which takes up a belly dance basic movement. A few repetitions are included within each for practice. Three choreographies put all the moves to use. These are not performable as such because of the repetition, but they’re almost there and give the learner very real choreography learning skills.
Pros: Filled with content. Well instructed and cued basics, very nice choreographies of different types to different rhythms. You get basics, some basic rhythms, choreography learning skills, and a workout.
Cons: Leaves out the maya and some basic upper body moves. These could have easily been included.
Recco: Beginners find this video very easy and Shamira wonderful to relate to. Advanced dancers love working with this video when they want a drill or to be led through the isolations without too much hard work.

Sadie’s Complete Guide to Belly Dance
After many advanced instructionals, impressively skilled Sadie Marquardt  covers the main basics, including traveling steps. Three combinations make up the practice session.
Pros No nonsense, efficient, focused. Includes safety tips. Anticipates learner’s problems.
Cons Dancing to learning ratio sub-optimal. Too brief on some moves. Claustrophobic studio and oppressive lighting. Combinations set to an uninspiring practice track. Missing in fun.
Recco Better for those considerably serious about belly dancing. Consider combining with simpler more fun combinations practice.

Belly by Sandra
Inspiring, beautiful music, very watchable instructor This video is fun and unhurried. But it’s only half the lesson and an arbitrary selection of moves.
Pros Fantastic to watch. Relaxing and unstressful to work with. So many moves done a touch differently by Sandra. The music makes a huge difference. Sparkling picture. Nice practice moves.
Cons Deeply unfair to the learner in that it has broken the instruction into parts and there is no sign of the remainder months after release. IMassive syllabuses fit – so why make the learner wait?
Recco Would be well suited to a beginner if one knew when the rest of the lesson will be available. Sandra explains moves beautifully and uniquely. She makes you want to dance.

Jehan’s Sacred Bellydance
This two-disk approaches belly dance from a holistic point of view, making it interesting for both beginners and intermediate dancers. It’s absorbing, unhurried and involves dancing with your whole body and mind. It’s also earthy, goddessy and culturally rooted, in Jehan’s style.
Pros Encyclopedic, teaches fluidity and depth of movement, full of flavor and richness, quite unique
Cons Not quite the dance-along that gets absolute beginners up and dancing, no practice combos or choreographies to play with. Overdose of mother goddess feel.
Recco For serious to-be belly dancers, this is a great set. Even watching will show you how your whole body works in a dance move. It’s an encyclopedic reference. For “light” dancers, it may be overkill.

Virginia: One on One
Virginia is pleasant enough but a little self conscious and staccato as she instructs you through the basics of belly dance. She covers all the primary basics fairly well. She pays more attention to weight changes than most others. There are enough nuances to make the moves very much her own style. She also has a good warm up and stretch section.
Pros: Comprehensive, moves at a good pace, replete with tips on weight changes and more.
Cons: It would have been nice if some short combinations had been included.
Recco: No particular reason to either recommend or de-recommend it. Not inspiring, but will definitely do the job.

Hilary Thacker: Beginner’s Guide to Egyptian Belly Dance
Covered here only because dancers who have started out with this video may recommend it. Now too dated to stand up against more modern competition.
Pros: Completely outweighed by cons at this point.
Cons:  Dated, terrible sound quality, bad production, black costume against dark background, delivered with flat passivity and perfect lack of expression.
Recco: Forget it.

As if it weren’t bad enough that an Air India flight caught fire not so long ago, and a bunch of the top pilots went on strike not so long after and a rat made itself at home on the Maharaja’s airline, now we have the crew involved in a game of fisticuffs in the aisle? Excuse me?

This illustrious timeline probably makes aviation history, for heaven’s sake. While I fully respect the beleaguered airline’s right to go ahead and dig its own grave, I do hope it doesn’t plan on taking its hapless passengers along with it.

Who cares what the crew was scuffling about. Who cares what interpersonal dramas were bubbling under the surface. Who gives a single hoot about the crew’s behavior and sense of decorum? All I can say is thank god the auto pilot held out. If one little thing had chosen to go wrong during those ten whole minutes, they’d have all made it to the next episode of Nat Geo’s Air Crash Investigation.

There are a dozen theories of what really ails Air India and who’s to blame, but what worries me is the sneaky thought that the shameful scuffle incident could just be the symptom of an overall malaise up in our not-so-safe skies. Why is it that the crew of Flight IC884 came to be so uninhibited in their expression of conflict? Are they overworked? Underfed? Under-trained? Or just plain unhappy? What prompted this ready air rage?

What I find even more alarming is how the fact that everyone has been drawn into the who-did-what first drama. Police complaints and cries for justice are all just detracting from the one question everyone should be asking: what would happen if an emergency were to happen along right then? An air accident is usually a whole chain of events, each problem spiraling into the other and a combination of factors finally resulting in disaster. Well, to me, the whole crew slugging it out while the aircraft flies itself definitely sounds like it could be one of the events in a lethal combination. If the auto pilot were to go off, like it did for another plane in long ago aviation history, the Maharaja’s chief guest, the rat, would have to do the job.

Well, another lovely DVD discovery! “Facial Workout: Because muscles don’t end at the neck” is a beautifully created video, filmed in a lovely place, with exercises demonstrated by two women with two women beautiful youthful girl-next-door faces.

This video sets out to give you a facelift. But it’s not like you just there and don’t do any work. The whole theory here is that we get lines on our faces because we don’t exercise our face muscles enough. Give those muscles a workout and you can prevent or at least lessen the lines, depending on how long you’ve had them and how deep they are.

The video starts with a short explanation of its basic premise. But before you can think of getting bored, we get into the exercises. These are divided into short segments for each part of the face – forehead, eyes, mouth, and neck. There are many exercises to each segment, except perhaps the neck which only has one, disappointingly.

All the exercises are taught in a single format. First, a girl demonstrates the exercise and invites you to hold the pose with her for two rounds of 5 seconds. You get a brief explanation of what we’re doing and why and see anatomical diagrams on the side, leaving no room for confusion on which muscles we’re working. You are guided by a clear voiceover. Next, you go through 10 repetitions of the exercise. And finally 10 faster repetitions. That’s the format followed throughout the teaching segment.

The exercises themselves are great and doing them just makes you feel better and more relaxed! Here’s an example or two of exercises for the yes — and there are quite a few of those. Put your fingers at the sides of your eyes and pull them towards the temples gently making them sort of oriental. Gently,, but firmly. Now try to close your eyes without closing the lids. That is, constrict the muscles. Hold for 5 seconds. And then do 10 quick 1-second repetitions. If you’re doing it right, you’ll feel a slight pull on each finger from the muscles. Become aware of which outer eye muscles are being exercised.

The exercises are taught in the first two thirds of this video. The last third involves a quicker run through of the exercises in a routine that you can use everyday. You could also make your own routine of course but I found it nice to be guided through them. I’ve put the video on to my ipod and am mow tending to do them when I lie down. Well, all except the neck slide, which i don’t feel confident is going to do much to take away the lines for me now.

I’ve known myself to have almost toppled over just standing around. And weave dangerously when walking. No, it isn’t the margaritas but some problem I seem to have with balance. It’s a balance malfunction that caused me to fall smack on my face in jazz class some four years ago, ending in a bit of a fracture and a cut in the corner of my eye. That was the end of jazz for me, unfortunately because by the time I recovered, I’d lost momentum. The abrupt cessation of exercise also kick started weight gain.

But to my major delight, I chanced upon a DVD with a balance workout. Led by Kaitlin Rodriguez, it’s from The Method series and called Standing Pilates Blend. However, I think of it more as a ballet workout. Apparently the exercises are related to those done on the pilates reformer, but because I haven’t worked with that, I can’t confirm this either way. All I can say is, the workout is wonderful. Like Element: Ballet Conditioning, it’s divided into two major segments: standing work and mat work. And both are “seaside videos”, meaning they’re filmed on the beach, where I’d love to be. Knowing me though I’d topple over in the sand!

I’ve been working with this video for a few weeks now and finally, today, I completed the standing balance segment doing it right through without a stop. I am exhilarated. My balance has improved re-mark-ably!

The standing work, which makes up most of the DVD, is made up of lovely series of exercises that include a variety of foot circles and sweeps, attitudes and left lifts/kicks, passe while doing arm work, courtesy lunges and more. For most of these you’re on one foot. Quite a challenge, which is why I’m so thrilled to have been able to do the whole thing. I stumble now and then, but it’s getting better each day.

While you attempt to balance, you obviously have to hold your stomach in and strengthen the core or powerhouse. That results in toning, hugely improved posture, and grace. The instructor teaches along with two other companions who echo her moves but with different ranges of motion. All of them look great. The instruction is clear, no nonsense, no stupid cheerleading at all, and is well-paced. The exercises are all connected in one big flow and this, I think, very much adds to the whole balance challenge. When you go from one series of exercises to the next smoothly, it takes concentration and control. I just totally love it and have a bunch of favorite exercises from among the lot. For example, the very first exercise has you standing on one foot and swinging the other leg back and forth in a walking movement, with your arms outstretched and swinging in opposition. You stay stretched right to the fingertips and your foot brushes the floor very softly at the midpoint as it swings  Without a break, you move to the build up exercise for this series which is arms up in fifth and tendue foot taps with an extended stretched leg in front. So your foot doesn’t settle down on the floor throughout this series. Not until you’re switching to a new lot.

The mat segment is more like the pilates I know but somewhat modified here and there. It’s fairly gentle, actually. The pace goes very well with the standing segment but I switch to another video for pilates because I’m trying to do an intense and complete pilates routine.

Lovely workout and highly recommended for anyone who wants better balance and grace. It’s just got an average of 3.5 stars on Amazon from 16 reviews, but one of the reasons is that the title led people to expect something else. It’s not a new DVD – from way back 2003. But I have so enjoyed the balance exercises!

Thanks to Rania Bosonis for discovering and sharing this mad birdie.

Oh my god, that bird is not a one off. Thank you, Dina

And this is the ultimate. Having a wonderful time, shakin it to Britney Spears, singing along… oh my god

Irresistibly funny

And this dog is doing the best he can!

I am an absolute, confirmed fan of Ellen Barret’s now. Her Pick Your Spot – Pilates was so easy and smooth to work with and made a great introduction to Pilates. Now, I find her Bikini Ready Fast equally clear and straightforward to work with. It’s a 40-minute workout from Self Magazine’s fitness series and focuses on strength training and sculpting using light weights.

It’s only after working with Ellen’s DVDs that I realize how important it is to have an instructor who tells it like it is without making a whole lot of noise. In other words, Ellen’s signal to noise ratio is rather good. An occasional “good job” is about all the cheerleading you’ll hear, and yet she keeps you motivated and going. Quite possibly it’s to do with the flowing pace and clarity of instructions.

I worked on Bikini Ready Fast today for the first time. And loved it. In fact, I feel like having another go at it now, a few hours later, am thinking I’d better not push it. Obviously the Bikini Ready workout is set on the beach. How wonderful it must feel to work out there… but for those of us who can only but dream of that, we’ll have to remain contented with just looking.

The workout starts with a good warm up. It uses lots of wide plies and reaches, which keeps it close to the moves you’ll actually be doing in the main workout. You pick up your weights straight after the warm up. Now, Ellen and her two companions keep to a restricted set of exercises. To add variety, challenge and to target more muscles, they introduce variations on the same exercises. That makes easy to learn the workout. I managed to do the workout straight through without watching it first — and that’s saying something.

The exercises include lots of squats (with the weights), expansive arm moves, curls and reaches, plies. Nothing goes on long enough to become boring, though overall I can see that one will need to move up to something mroe challenging soon enough or perhaps add it to a collection of favorite workouts to do now and then.

Have a look

The beach girls then move on to a segment of the workout in which you do a few easy enjoyable jumps and one-leg squats. That’s minus weights, thankfully.And then you slow down and cool off.

But before the end of the DVD, there’s a 10 minute bonus workout. This is a pilates section targeting the abs in particular.

Ellen gives some solid and good advice on exercise and diet. She says to lose weight, you have to add cardio aerobics to this workout. Walking, cycling, aerobics, dancing.. anything that keeps your heart reate up and keeps you moving. Also, a sensible diet, which doesn’t mean giving up stuff so that you go about craving it but rather, eating what you want more carefully, now and then, in nice little quantities.

Another advanced tribal fusion video, this one looks like the next step on from Anasma’s 2-dicc set. I’m not likely to be able to do any of it – I haven’t even worked on any of the combos from the beginner tribal videos, for that matter. But I do like looking at them and when possible, working with the isolations.

Rubylooks beautiful as she dances, and she also looks like she knows what she’s talking about. I’m not a hundred percent sure I can manage a lot of floorwork, but I like the look of her approach and conditioning.

For the past two or three months I’ve been exercising more than I’ve been dancing. And having reduced my legendary tummy somewhat through pilates, ballet basics and guided walking,, I must say that I’ve become more than little skeptical of just how much a light bit of belly dancing can do in this department. All I can say is, I’ll see it when I believe it.

Rania’s Belly Abs DVD is typical Rania. I haven’t been overly familiar with her videos, but do own about half a dozen and can tell signature Rania when I see it. The moves, the format, the instruction – it’s all very Rania. Nice-ish. But, as an exercise program, I have several quarrels with this sort of thing. Actually, I have a problem with it as a dance program too. Here’s why:

First off, I think dancers and video-makers had better move on from giving a tiny handful of combinations as content. There should either be lots of them, or there should be a challenge to them. I say this because there are videos out there now that have changed the rules. Neon’s Bellydance Rhythms workout gives you 40 combinations – none of them simplistic. Well, maybe  a few. Videos like Luscious and Love Potion are sprinkled with tons of little combinations. Aradia’s Rhythms video has just a few combos, but all challenging and complex. And I was working with Michelle’s Killer Ziller combos and find these too quite complex.

The combinations on Belly Abs, on the other hand, I can learn in one session. And while you might say well, what about newbies, the video does not seem to be aimed at beginners. There are 5 (or maybe 6) little combinations on Belly Abs. They’re not unuseful at all – but if you know your basics, all you need to do is see them once.

Now you may argue that the simplicity makes these combinations more easily repeatable and that’s what will give you a good workout. I’d agree if only I felt really really working the abs. Unless you’re unexercised, I’m not sure they do much. At least I believe that it would take more than these six little conbos to put a sizable dent in a self respecting stomach. A few undulations, very light hip drops and kicks, pelvic tucks, a twist or two – my tummy would laugh at that. The workout needs to be tougher, more varied and sustained for a good long time. I did round after round of these combos and couldn’t feel the slightest tiredness. I also am very skeptical about Rania’s breathlessness at the end of it all. She’s done some highspeed performances and must be used to a hundred times this level of activity.

Of course, the combos are not the only thing on the video. It begins with a warm up. This is really your typical dancer’s warm up with plies and reaches etc. Just more abbreviated. Again, if you want your abs reduced, it’s going to take more. We then move on to a few crunches. Very few. My problem with these is that they are all from the same category. They seem to me to target the obliques. They’re standard crunches and side crunches. This again is too short and unvaried a stint to do much.

And that’s really it. There’s a cool down at the end, but that’s neither here nor there. This video is about 43 minutes in all. It’s errrr..okay. If you’re doing no other exercise and have a lot of weight around the middle to lose, it won’t be enough. If you’re slim and just have a hint of a paunch, this – or any exercise – will surely help. If you haven’t been exercising, this is a start. But it is not a full-fledged and solid exercise program.  There are too many alternatives, both in the fitness category and in the belly dance category – that will do a better job. In fact, other than Rhythms, Jillina’s Shape Up ‘n Hip Out comes to mind. That’s a whole cardio routine (120 minutes) and it would give your abs a thing or two to think about though it’s not targeted at abs alone

So yes… this is overall a disappointment for me. It needed to be way tougher to do some real damage!

Thank you, Dina, for this alert. This looks quite fun!

I didn’t know there were videos that actually get you to walk for exercise, right at home, in front of your TV or computer! As it happens there are dozens and dozens of these – and they’re quite effective.

Walk expert Leslie Sansone has a huge series of walking videos, each of them introducing variations in method, time, “distance” and muscle use. I’ve tried two of these, “Muscle Mile One” and “30-Minute Walk”. I must say, I totally enjoyed both!

This is how it works. There’s practically nothing to learn. The basic movements are a) marching in place, b) a side step (out-together, out-together), c) a gentle kick forward, d) kick back, e) knee raises and f) a few varieties of arm reaches.

So why do you need the video? Well, because instructors like Leslie get you to damn well move.

Check out this deskside walk, for instance:

Very nice concept, except in offices like mine, everyone would stop working to stare. They would then proceed to give each other blank stunned looks that clearly say “What’s WRONG with her?” You’d have to record the audio from this clip and take ie somehwere where no one can see you – and I can’t imagine many places in an office where that could be. Still, it’s a nice concept.

It’s easier of course to do this walking session at home And for that you have a big variety of videos to pick from. Leslie has one that breaks up the walk into morning and evening sessions. She also adds an abs and lower body mini workout to these. She has videos in which she changes the movements. For example, “Walk and Kick:” She also has some in which she uses various bits of exercise equipment, like light weights, resistance band or medicine balls. I tried the one with light weights yesterday and enjoyed it thoroughly.It was a quick 15-minute 1-mile walk and for me, it worked like a warm up. I need to look for one of the more challenging ones.

Leslie ups the challenge using different intervals for the step and by varying the temp. There are segments where you’re doing a light jog, and then you slow it down to normal again. Then you could be doing a few different arm reaches wih weights, and then you go back to normal walking. The tempo of the music can double each segment until you’re jogging. It’s not very listenable or motivating music, but you can’t use your own because you won’t be able to do the tempo changes. And no one will keep telling you when to change moves.

The nice thing is you actually don’t have time to get bored. She does a very good job of keeping you motivated and just as you begin to wonder if it’s too much of one step, you change. The cuing is excellent and you quickly get used to her jokes when you know that this is doing you good. So far, I’ve found msyelf more than willing to finish the session and quite eager to take it up the next day.

This light bit of cardio can be very nice for those who don’t want to bother learning any complicated exercises and just want to quickly get moving. When it’s time for more challenge, work with a tougher video or move on to other exercises like aerobics or pilates or dancing. But do-along walking is the quickest.

I particularly enjoyed wearing the right gear for this. It helps get you in the mood. I wore tights and a spaghetti thingy and my Nike shoes and did my hair in a swishy pony tail. That made me feel very sporty indeed. Loved it.

Here’s Leslie’s 5-Mile Walk.