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Step 1
Stand straight up, with your feet about shoulder width apart. Bend your knees slightly, tuck your hips in, engage your abdominal muscles, lift your chest gently and relax your shoulders. Raise your arms out to the sides at shoulder level, or hold your hands at hip level with your elbows slightly bent. This is the basic posture for belly dancing, because it helps to isolate movements in the torso.
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Step 2
Bring your chest slightly forward, then lift it, then pull it back, then drop it. Start by doing each of these motions in isolation. Practice the forward, lift, back, drop sequence until you feel very comfortable. When you perform these motions, try at first to move your hips, arms and head as little as possible.
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Step 3
Smooth the motions out so that you are making a continuous circle with your chest; this is how you perform an undulation. Keeping the same isolation in mind, practice this move at different tempos once you feel comfortable. Also practice it on different scales. You should be able to do a small undulation in almost complete isolation, while a very large one will probably move your head. That's fine, as long as you keep any extra movement to a minimum.
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Step 4
Practice a coordinating motion with your hips. They will move forward, make a motion as though they were scooping up water, move back and tilt to dump the water out. Repeat this movement also in stages and then in a smooth continuous cycle.
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Step 5
Do a full undulation by combining the motion in your torso and your hips once you feel comfortable with isolating. This becomes an "s" shaped motion. Your hips and chest move in basically opposite directions. Move your chest forward, up, and back, then as you drop it, move your hips forward and scoop them up. As your chest moves forward again, allow your hips to drop naturally. This definitely takes some coordination, but it should come with practice.
