dance – Page 2 – a t i s h e h

Quickie Review of Balletone – Center Moves

I picked up Balletone – Center Moves a few days ago at Half Price Books, and was disappointed when I got home to find it had been poorly reviewed on Amazon. Too fast, they said, too many unexplained ballet movements.

Well, since I have no background in ballet, and I am the *worst* at moving quickly or anything like, well, center moves, I worried. But I did the video yesterday anyway, and was delighted to find it a really graceful, dancey cardio workout, which had me gleefully moving and stretching for a sweaty forty minutes.

Balletone Center Moves standing ballet exercise

Actually, there are very few ballet terms used in this video, and those that are are explained. The workout is basically composed of a series of movements which are gradually added on and rehearsed, until by the end you find yourself doing an entire little routine. In that sense, it can be a bit boring, since you do the same movements many, many times over. However, that’s also a chance to learn the movements better, and to get to the point (if not on the first viewing, then on the second) where you don’t have to think about them anymore.

Balletone – Center Moves also incorporates little strength moves (especially leg lifts) and side stretches into the routine. This does mean that you don’t have non-stop movement, but you do get to work on balance, which is also part of being fit.

In short, I liked it, I can see myself doing this video again with pleasure, and I think it’s a great companion to the more static ballet-based workout programs.

Quickie Review: MaDonna Grimes’ Urban Street Heat

Let’s face it: the ultimate test of a workout video is whether you want to keep doing it.

MaDonna Grimes’ Urban Street Heat has the tight structure of a typical cardio dance workout: she adds on a move at a time, adds arms and styling after the footwork, and repeats the whole thing from the top. To help you remember the choreography even further, Grimes gives each move a name that she can call out.

While I’m not sure that I’d pull out many of these moves in a club, they’re definitely “dancier” than those of other cardio dance workouts. Enough of them are doable the first time around, and enough of them are hard enough, either because of the arm work or because of their speed, that you can still grow into the program. Still, the most important thing is that the workout is *fun*. Grimes is sassy, teasing the male dancers in her group. The dancing requires your entire body, which makes it hard to sleepwalk through it. You’ll break a sweat, but the entire workout is short enough to fit in your schedule and leave you energized rather than tired. And, after doing the video twice, I find that I’m still looking forward to the next time.

Quickie Review: Marie Forleo’s Cardio Dance Blast

At first, Cardio Dance Blast seems pretty cheesy — the moves are a little silly, and Marie Forleo likes to give themed encouragements along the lines of, “You’re on the island, mon!”

Still, it’s very well-structured, and it’s perhaps that same cheesiness that makes it fun to work along with. Aside from an effective warm-up and cool-down, there are six dance segments. Each one starts with a simple move, builds on that with more moves, until you have a mini-choreography. You then do each move in the entire choreography twice, and finally, the whole choreo with only one rep of each move. Forleo always introduces the basic footwork, then adds stylizations like twists or hip bumps, then arm work, and finally chest or head stylizations. This is makes it easy to pick up the moves, and you can work at your level.

The variety of dancers/exercisers in the background is really nice. Some are more into the dancing, some have less athletic bodies, some do smaller or imperfect versions of the moves.

I tend to find cardio boring, but Cardio Dance Blast is a great way to stay mentally as well as physically engaged throughout a workout.

Review: Sera’s Bellydance East Coast Tribal

I finally worked through Sera’s Bellydance: East Coast Tribal after owning it for a while, and I was stunned at how excellent it is. There are a few flaws (which I’ll get to later), but those aside, it’s a superb video.

First things first. This is not a beginner’s DVD. Sera neither gives the kind of explanations of basic movements a beginner would want, nor does she present all the basics of bellydance. No way. It is, however, a great DVD for intermediate dancers. Sera goes over some basic movements (especially in the warmup), but in such a way as to help you increase your flexibility and power.

The 20-minute warmup and the 10-minute drill section get you doing some basic stretches, focusing on your isolations, and quite importantly, working on powering moves from particular muscles. The dancers mirror your movements (so when she calls “left,” they actually move to their right) which I prefer. Sera is extremely thorough about calling out which muscle to use for a move, and always managed to remind me as soon as I forgot. I *was* worried about the neck stretch, since she moves the head all the way back, and some moves also seemed quite hard on the knees, so I modified them. In the choreography Sera is careful to point out which sections are knee-unfriendly, and sometimes offers a modification, but this is not the case in the workout. She does, however, tell you when certain moves are difficult for beginners, so you don’t get discouraged.

I would say that, considering how cheap the DVD is, the warmup is worth the price alone. I know I’m going to use this (with some extra stretching) as an introduction to other bellydance videos.

Next comes a demonstration of the combinations to be learned, and then very detailed instructions for each of six movement combinations. I had watched the video before, but only by doing it could I see what a brilliant teacher Sera is. She has that uncanny ability to know *just* when you’re relaxing a certain muscle, or doing a movement lazily, or forgetting about your posture, and to give a perfectly-timed reminder.

On the other hand, the combos themselves are challenging and, to my eye, beautiful. It’s not hard to get the basics of each, but to do them right, with the correct arm movements, good timing, and perfect form, is hard. This is a major strength of the DVD: you can grow into it a little. Both the warmup and the dance instruction are basically doable for an advanced beginner/intermediate, but they have enough layering and little details that you have a reason to go back and do the video again.

As you can probably tell by the length of this review, I am impressed! I do want to say though that it’s not the right DVD for you if you just want to pop something in the player and shake your hips around. Some of the muscular movements can be quite strenuous. You need to pay attention to the instructions, you need to listen to your body to avoid injury, and you may even need to pause it and practice a movement slowly and carefully on your own. And you need to stretch thoroughly at the end. But this is what makes it so good.

Review: Jehan’s Sacred Bellydance

I bought Jehan’s Sacred Bellydance on the recommendations of other reviewers (like Mala), so in a sense, this review should be superfluous. However, I wanted to write one anyway for two reasons: first, to address certain aspects of Jehan’s belief system that may be offputting, and second, to add a few notes about who I think this set is good for.

First, the “sacred” stuff. If it’s your bag, great. If, like me, you’re pretty convinced you’re not a goddess (just a decent human being), you might be turned off by Jehan’s beliefs — which do, indeed, come up throughout the video. I urge you to overcome this aversion. It’s a great video, and you don’t have to pay attention during the goddess stuff. On the other hand, I also have to say that I respect Jehan because I get the sense that she is communicating something she believes deeply, not just putting on a trendy pose. And her positive remarks on women really are pretty appropriate for bellydance!

Now, who is this video for? I actually wouldn’t recommend it for learning the basic dance moves, but I think it’s great once you already know the moves, and want to add finesse, power, and expressiveness to them. If you want to work on your arms, following along with Jehan’s flowing movements is great. (And your arms will HURT, incidentally. In a good way.)

The brilliance of the video is that, although it’s an “encyclopedia,” the segments flow together nicely. For this reason, I’ve used it more as a stretching workout than to learn from. And here is why I want to suggest that EVERYONE, dancer or not, buy this video. If you have been sitting in a chair for too long, if your body is tired and tense, Sacred Bellydance is amazing at stretching and relaxing it all out. And not just the back and arms — the neck, fingers, hands, feet, toes, everything! I’ve pretty much only used Sacred Bellydance in this way, and it makes me feel amazing.

One final thing. Although bellydancers come in all shapes and sizes, the ones publishing videos are usually on the commercially thin side. Jehan is a womanly woman, and I think this is important. You might feel more comfortable watching her if your body is like hers, but more importantly, it’s good to see how correct posture looks on a body which is rounded… well, where women’s bodies *should* be rounded.