All in all, keeping my New Year’s resolution to exercise more than I did last year is becoming quite easy as my collection of exercise DVDs slowly piles up, providing me with an array of exercises that target different parts of my body as well as appeal to my various tastes and moods. The most recent addition to my collection is Acacia’s Step-by-Step Bellydance with Leilainia, which is said to tighten and trim the entire body, to burn fat and calories all while having fun and consequently feeling good.
And yes, however terribly cliché that sounded, this is quite the fun workout. I don’t quite know how efficient it’s going to be to tighten and trim my entire body, as I only started using it last week, but it definitely provides a top to bottom workout.
For those of you who have never belly danced, the DVD provides not only an introduction (well it’s quite a brief one; you’re better off reading the Wikipedia entry about the topic if you want to learn more about the origins of belly dancing), but also a tutorial on the basics of belly dancing, starting with the belly dancing posture, then basic moves such as the hip lifts, moving your hips side to side, the shimmy, the hip up movement, and the arm snake movement. I would recommend taking advantage of this tutorial by doing it a couple of times before heading onto the workout, as it ensures that you do not strain either your back or your knees. It also helps to have a little idea of what is coming up, thus avoiding frustration.
A great feature of this DVD is the fact that you can choose if you’d like to have both the music and the instructions running at the same time or only the music (for once you have grasped the basics and can just follow Leilainia rather than have to listen to her instructions). This seems to be a basic fixture of many of Acacia’s recent dance/fitness DVDs that I have come to appreciate.
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Article comments
1 - A Geek Girl
OMG! This sounds like fun. I bet it's harder than I would have expected though. Sounds like a real workout, not just fun and games.
2 - Cindy
GG,
There is a show on Fit TV called Shimmy. It's great for learning as they break every movement down. They repeat each movement until it is comfortable and then they speed up after practice. So you are doing a little dance at the end of each half hour show. I like it. Definitely a real workout.
3 - Cindy
I was just looking around and I found this link to a short video from the Shimmy series that will give an idea how the movements are broken down into manageable segments.
And here is video 1 of 4, that someone put on Youtube of the series.
The scenes are also very relaxing and often feature water (rain, beach waves). The narrator also has a very soothing voice. As you can see, I am really enthusiastic about this as fun and relaxing exercise and I highly recommend it.
4 - Sahar
A Geek Girl: it's a lot of fun but definitely quite the work out at the same time :P I just had a mini workout party with some friends, and it was even more fun. It was also a lot harder, since we were laughing our heads off most of the time - hello, extra ab workout ;)
Cindy: The show Shimmy is great! But it's not as high energy as this one imo. However for a relaxing workout rather than an energetic one, it's definitely much better. Thanks for sharing!