::more than somewhat::

In this brilliant one-and-a-half-hour show, BBC host Robert Winston examines common sleep problems. To help him, there are six volunteers and various sleep experts and health professionals.

Although the show is Britain-focused, the advice and tips apply to anyone anywhere who has sleep problems. BBC has a bunch of documentaries about sleep and dreaming, but this one is unique because it’s designed to be a practical guide. Very well done and very watchable right through.

Over the show, they put volunteers through several tests, determining what kind of sleepers they are and what levels their executive skills (concentration, attention, reaction time etc) are. Everyone also goes through sleep profiling – including us viewers. The volunteers get customized advice and try and act on it by making changes to their environment, routine or pattern of sleeping. And finally everyone goes through the tests again to compare. Everyone showed improvement except for one person who was disqualified because he changed his situation halfway through by quitting his night job. [Read more →]

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“If only I could say, it’s over, you only die once…”.

The words of 14-year-old Rutka Laskier living in Bedzin, Poland as the Nazi noose became tighter and tighter around her family and the Jewish people.

If all were well with this world, this beautiful child should have been worrying her head about little more than whether it’s a good idea to let her school friend Yanek kiss her or not. Instead, she spent whatever time she could get chronicling the incomprehensible blood chilling events taking place around her. In a little notebook later hidden carefully under the double flooring of the staircase, Rutka wrote of life in the ghetto in Bedzin. Just three months of it. After that, Rutka and her family were deported to Auschwitz. [Read more →]

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The Luscious and Love Potion experience continues through one more delicious bellydance feast, Hard Candy. The preview explains it all in detail, as always. “Two candies in one wrapper”, Neon calls it. Fitness and bellydance. The music is particularly lovely and sounds quite inseparable from the dancing. I totally look forward to it.

Tags: Belly dance videos // 3 Comments »

I’m thinking back to when Combino-graphy was first announced, long ago. Without meaning to, I formed a set of expectations about what it should contain. What I wanted to see was instruction and ideas on how to take combinations and come up with my own variations on them – choreographing combinations. The concept of Combino-graphy, on completion,  actually turns out to be broader. It also turns out to be remarkably like the Improvisation Toolkit, created by Nadira Jamal, earlier. Meanwhile, videos with lots of smaller combinations, like Luscious and Love Potion, go some way to showing me how to create variations on a theme.

A few minutes into Combino-graphy, I found myself wondering if this was a remake of Improvisation Toolkit. Further into the video, It turns out it wasn’t; but there still are many descriptions, phrases and exercise formats we saw first on Improvisation Toolkit. [Read more →]

Tags: Belly dance videos // 4 Comments »

It’s been almost a year since this video was released. In my mind, it will always be the very first instructional to focus exclusively on improvisation. When she announced its release, dancer and teacher Nadira Jamal said she thought this was the “year of improvisation”. She was probably right because the year saw many videos that opened up the secrets of how it is belly dancers just dance spontaneously to any music. Two that come to mind are Ranya Renee’s Baladi set and Sarah Skinner’s (to a lesser extent) Opulent Motion.

I had reviewed Nadira’s video in December last year and am echoing that review here, in preparation for a review of a similar video, Combinography, led by Bahaia.

[Read more →]

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Thanks to Joy for this new DVD alert. I have this piece of music! It’s an interesting piece and I think at one time it was a free download from Amazon.

What do you guys think: does it look promising?

Tags: Belly dance videos // 8 Comments »

World Dance New York’s first salsa video arrived as a reminder of such how much I always will love this spicy, saucy dance. I haven’t danced salsa in a long while but seeing the three attractive dancers in their flirty dresses doing these once-familiar steps made me pull out my favorite salsa music and dance wildly – and not very well – for a bit.

Salsa Solo is a total beginner’s instructional. It takes you through the basic steps that make up the salsa dance and then a bunch of patterns or shines. You can dance the lot on your own (which is what I love about shines) or you can spice up your partner dancing by breaking away for a moment of extra style. And because salsa is full of constant footwork and arm movement, it makes a good low-impact aerobic exercise – provided you keep it up long enough. [Read more →]

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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.

Tags: Belly dance videos // 21 Comments »

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.

Tags: Belly dance videos, Fitness // 6 Comments »

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!

Tags: Belly dance videos // 16 Comments »