The workout itself includes a seven-minute warm-up, a seven-minute cool down, and three 15-minutes sets. The first is a cardio workout, the second is mostly a toning workout for your core, and the third and last one involves more stretching and is the most ‘danceable’ one by far. All three are set to original, upbeat Arabic-inspired music that I didn’t feel compelled to replace with my own music.
For those of you who know how to belly dance, Step-by-Step Bellydance with Leilainia will serve more as a guided dance exercise regimen, as you can do away with the simpler steps while at the same time paying more attention than usual to tightening your abs and your glutes so as to achieve the most from your workout.
Bonus features include a dance performance by Leilainia, an extract from Hemalayaa: Bollywood Dance Blast and one from Dance & Be Fit: Brazilian Body, a history of belly dance (interesting, but I still prefer the Wikipedia page, to be honest), Leilainia’s biography, and a little blurb about the music composers.
Yet another great addition to the growing Acacia library of dance/fitness DVDs, Step-by-Step Bellydance with Leilainia is a great workout option for those days when you don’t feel like working out and just want to have some fun.
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!