**Before you get started, be sure you’ve discussed your exercise plans with your doctor.

Always be sure to drink enough water throughout the day, and especially during your workout. A minimum should be 8 8 oz. glasses of water per day, and depending on your weight and training schedule, you may want to drink more than that. A good rule of thumb is 8 oz. per 20 pounds of body weight for starters.

Dress warm during the warm-up (but no socks – they slip!) and take off layers as you warm up. It is not a bad thing to be a little too warm during the warm-up. It will help your muscles loosen up to better support your workout. Do not wear a hip scarf or belt during the warm up. You want to feel free to move in every way, and your clothing should stretch easily with you.

You may feel mild to fairly intense muscle soreness and fatigue when you start a new exercise program or when you start to take it up a notch if you’re already active. You have two choices when this is the case: ease into it slowly, or go for it, knowing you’ll be sore for a few days. While most people use the slow method, I don’t think there is any problem with jumping in, as long as you’re not pushing TOO hard. You’ll have more muscle fatigue and soreness, but if you continue to work through it, you can get up to speed quickly and get the ‘burning in’ part behind you. A good method can be alternating push and no-push workouts, so your muscles have a little more time to recoop, but not enough time to lose the work you’ve put in.

Keep in mind that belly dancing is going to be an entirely different kind of workout than what you’ve done before, UNLESS you’ve belly danced! It uses the delicate muscles that run down your ribcage, upper and lower abs, pectoral muscles, scapula muscles….basically, belly dance uses all your muscles, but in a much different way than your typical gym workout. If you’ve had other kinds of dance before, you’ll have some similarities, but belly dance is all about isolation, then combining movements back together, and working the muscles against each other. That will create an entirely different dynamic in your body than what you may be used to.

There are certain areas in the body that work hard in belly dance, and you may need to work up some strength before the moves really start coming together. You might take a look at my body conditioning video if you really feel you need to get up to speed faster. Honestly, just do the workout clean and ALWAYS warm up – never go straight to the moves. The warm-up is designed to prepare and strengthen your body.

BE CONSISTANT in doing your program. Once a week at the very minimum, more if you have the time. The more you do the moves, the faster they get into muscle memory and become much easier to do. Keep in mind that since this dance uses muscles you may not normally use, you will find areas in your body that refuse to move. Don’t give up or get frustrated, just be patient and take it slow.

If you are working upper body and your hips keep moving too, try this:

1. Really bend your knees.

Tuck the pelvis under, pulling your tailbone down.

Tighten your glut muscles (top of back thighs) and lower abdominals (under navel)

2. Try doing the movements sitting in a straight chair where your feet are comfortably flat on the floor.

   Keep your ‘sit bones’ pressed down on the chair seat, and do your upper body moves.

3. Kneel on the floor with your heels under your gluts, with your toes out behind you. You can separate your legs a couple of inches to give you more stability if you need it. Do your ribcage work here, and the hips are also well anchored. Make sure you’re not getting any hip sway – a few people don’t get enough stability in this position so it doesn’t work well for them, but it does work for most people so is worth mentioning.

When working hips and the ribcage keeps moving:

Find a normal inside doorway.

Bring your arms up until your elbows are even with your shoulders and hands are up.

Walk yourself into the doorway so the arms become ‘locked’ into position by the doorway. Make sure your knees are bent before you lock in.

Check your tuck – make sure the tailbone is pulled down and your lower back is nice and flat.

Now you can work the hips without worrying about upper body.

You can also use this if you feel you have too much shoulder involvement either with hips or ribcage work. If working ribcage, keep in mind you are anchored, and will not get the same range of movement you would if you were not locked into position, so do not push into your movements. Pay attention to your body and you’ll be fine.

During your workout, if your muscles get ‘crampy’ feeling, stretch them out a bit before continuing. Also be sure to drink enough water.

For knees: Pull foot back and grab with same side hand, pulling back behind you.

Calves: Step foot forward (2-3 feet), put your weight forward and bend front knee, pushing back heel to the floor.

To stretch hamstrings, stay in same position but bend back knee.

Back: Cat stretch your back – clasp hands in front of you at chest level, pull your back into a C curve pulling away from your hands, then extend arms up overhead and arch your back in a nice long stretch.

Tops of shoulders & Neck: Stretch arms up overhead, release head back.

If you consistently have muscle pain during workouts, try taking an antioxidant supplement with selinium, chromium, calcium, magnesium and zinc. This helps with muscle recovery and also helps alleviate muscle cramps at night.

As you’re doing your workout, start slow for the warm-up, but put energy into it so your muscles warm and you start breathing deeper pretty much from the beginning. As you start to feel your muscles relax, extend further into all the movements. In my Intermediate warm ups, we’ll start looking at perfect body positions in each stretch and how to get more from each movement, but for starters, just breathe deeply as you move, and reach out with your fingertips.

As you move into the isolations section, be sure to breathe all the way down into the abdominal area – don’t breathe from your chest, breathe from your stomach. Chest breathing is too shallow to support the work you’re doing. You want to fill your body with air, and release. When you first start with isolations, you’ll have some you just don’t feel like you can do. Relax. It takes a few sessions to get your muscles sorted out. What will happen is that after you do your first session, you’ll work a lot of the details out in your sleep. Your body and mind communicate while you’re resting, and next time, they’ll have a better plan how to make your body do what you’re asking. Every session gets easier, until you forget about the struggle. Allow your body to work it out, and it will be fine. Oh, yes, you absolutely TRY to do the move, but know it will get easier without you getting it perfect the first time.

Belly dance is a progressive style of exercise. First you stretch and start the limbering and strengthening process, start the basic isolations, then the body gets looser and stronger, the isolations get easier, we add more to them. Then you work at a higher level to stretch and strengthen, learn more complex movements, focus on cleaning up the movements, making them stronger and faster. Fast, however, does not mean proficient. I’m going to tell you a secret that most dancers never think about: Only REALLY good dancers can dance well SLOW.

What? Slow?

Yep. It’s a hundred times harder to do a movement slowly and clean that it is to push through fast move after fast move. No kidding. Newer dancers, or those who just aren’t too good, will always choose fast numbers because it covers up a host of problems, such as body weakness, sloppy moves…momentum carries the moves. How can you tell if a dancer doing a fast number is doing it to cheat? Watch the moves you’ve learned. Does the umy come up as it moves across the front? Is the hipwork clean and countable? Are the arms up or down? If down, probably a beginner. Not always, but often. My perfect test: ¾ shimmy. If you can’t count the hips going 123 123 123 123, it’s sloppy.

If you really want to become an excellent dancer, WORK IT SLOW! Every time. Then speed it up too so you have that, but always start your moves slow, focusing on making them big, clean, pretty and strong. Put TENSION into the moves, using muscle to resist the movement a bit – that creates so much interest. Now, as you speed them up, don’t lose the range of movement, strength or cleanness. Just release a bit of the tension to allow the moves to work faster.

As you get into the drilling part of the workout, really breathe deep into your abdomen. Check your tuck, keep your energy up. ENJOY the music! Once you’re sure you’re doing the moves correctly, focus on fullest range of motion, then allow yourself to play with the moves a bit. There is no such thing as a bad move – just one that may or may not look good and work for the dance. In choreography, that’s a different case, as you’re going for conformity, but when drilling or dancing freeform, experimentation is great.

When you’re done with the session, I really suggest you do a cool out stretch session. There isn’t time on the DVD’s for me to do one without increasing the cost of the product, but you can make up a stretch out on your own, or repeat the first few minutes of the warm-up. I also have a great cool-down on my body conditioning video.

Cover up again immediately following your workout – do not wait for your body to ‘cool off’ or you may have muscle contraction that could lead to injury or unnecessary stiffness. Try to continue to stretch a bit as you cool down – it will really help with muscle recovery. If possible, take a hot shower or bath after your workout, especially when you’re just getting started with belly dance, to reduce soreness. Putting some epsom salts into your bath water is a great way to relax out the muscle fatigue. You should not have any PAIN, but muscle fatigue and some soreness is to be expected while you’re learning any new form of exercise.

If you have any body issues – old injuries, strained muscles, weak spots – feel free to email me for some tips on how to slightly revise movements to work better for you.

Just remember to relax, have fun with it, and know it will take about 6 weeks of consistent work to feel like you’re getting the moves. The more you practice, the easier it will get.

This article is the property of Jana E. Beeman, copyright 2006, all rights reserved.

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Jana E. Beeman

Enchantment Unlimited Entertainment & Essence of Egypt Dance School

360/ 263-5800