The Belly Dancing Press Down

Video Transcript

"In this arm movement, which we're calling the "press down", we're going to bring the arms up above our body and then press down. Now you want to make sure that your belly button is pulled in, your knees are bent, your chest is lifted, and your shoulders stay down the entire time. You don't want your shoulders following you up, and you don't want to lose your tuck, here. So keep pulled in. Lift the arms. And from here, palms down. And you're not just bringing them down the front of your body. You want to press them down. So, engage the elbows so they're sticking out to the sides and push, as if you really have something heavy that you're pushing up, or if you're coming out of a swimming pool and you're trying to push yourself up out of the pool. Bring the arms up and push down. Good. Use that energy. Up and push down. A variation is we can go out to the sides with it. So we're going to come up and press down the sides of our body. And up, keep that belly button pulled in, and lift. Now this move is used very nicely in conjunction with a shimmy or up with an undulation."