*Tips For a Flawless Technique

A truly effective belly dance technique that serves you well requires a strong and precise FOUNDATION to build upon.  Think of your foundation as you would the foundation of a building.  If your foundation is weak, not level, or built on a poorly constructed surface, the chances of you creating  a strong, tall, beautiful, durable building is slim.   On the other hand, if your foundation is strong and precise, you can build a very tall building  that is functional, beautiful and durable. When you begin to add 3-dimensional moves and layering to your belly dance, that is like adding floors to make your building taller.  The more complicated the step (the more floors you add), the stronger your foundation must be to support it.

1.  Isolations    Belly dance is built from isolations, that is moving one part of the body while the rest of the body remains motionless. This is a crucial aspect of your foundation.  If you cannot isolate properly, you will be limited in your ability to layer movements.  Your movements will lack clarity, perhaps looking as though you are just wiggling. Sometimes this elicits comments such as, "I can do that" from the audience. If your isolations are not pure, you may indeed be just wiggling. If you have trouble layering steps or shimmies, or if you seem to not progress, even though you are continually taking lessons, you may need to work on re-training your belly dance isolations.

2. Strength and Flexibility     The ability to move in a precise isolation is crucial to layering the belly dance. This takes muscle strength and flexibility. If you have a movement small in range, or muscles that cannot hold the isolation as you layer, you will not be able to execute precision of movement and clarity will be lost.

3. Center of Gravity     Dancing within your center of gravity is a skill that takes much practice and repetitive drill. This is because each time you try to move a body part while holding the remainder of your body in place, the effort tends to pull you from your center of gravity.  The result is that your movement lacks clarity and, again, you will have trouble layering movements.  It is not that we never move out of our center of gravity, we eventually do, but it must be a choice and not an accident. We do not move out of our center of gravity until we can dance within it.  The fastest and most effective way to learn this skill (as well as other crucial skills) is by means of what I call training devices. These are postures and movements we drill for results, but do not use when we actually dance.  These training devices are highly effective and speed up the learning process considerably. 

4. Coordination     A problem we often see in a belly dance performance, or experience ourselves, is an awkward or jerky movement in another part of the body when we begin to add new steps or layering to our repertoire.  Sometimes this is manifested in the arms which tend to jerk or just "hang out", resulting in a lack of "Frame".  If you have ever seen the difference between a poster tacked on the wall, and a print in a lovely frame, you will realize how important that frame is. What many teachers and dancers do not realize is that the mind must be trained to operate on many different levels at once in order to appear smooth and graceful, and to create a complete picture. The whole body must BE the belly dance all at the same time. It is not just physical coordination. It is also an electrical connection via the nervous system that can be rapidly trained to submerge some movements into a place I call the "Automatic Pilot". This is a very good thing, because as certain drills create this link to the Automatic Pilot, your learning accelerates rapidly and your dancing becomes smooth and very poised, and your Frame polishes the appearance of your dance, easily and dramatically.

5. Posture     The proper posture for learning belly dance is not always the same posture we use while dancing.  Again, devices can be used to accelerate learning and increase skill dramatically. Posture is intricately connected with Isolations and Center of Gravity, and is no less important. Certain postures can make or break your ability to dance. If you are coordinated and dance well, a limited concept of what posture is or can do for you, can dramatically decrease your ability to layer steps.

 I don't believe there is a right or wrong way to teach belly dance; all teaching is valuable and effective by degrees, but some directions will bring more choices, opening up heretofore unknown opportunities and a new vision of what you can accomplish.

Misc. Helpful tips: