The Snake Arms Move in Egyptian Belly Dancing: Free Online Dance Lessons

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Sahira and I’m here on behalf of Expert Village to tell you a little bit about belly dancing. Another very common belly dance motion that is done with the arms is called snake arms. This movement initiates in the shoulders and travels all the way down your arms, it looks something like this. If you’re going to break it down from the very beginning you want to imagine engaging your arm in the shoulder, pulling up and letting that energy travel into the elbow, eventually pulling up with the wrist and your fingers are the last to engage, I sometimes think I’m standing in a big doorway and as I pull up with my shoulder, my hand is touching the inside of that doorway, the back of my hand on the way up and the front of my hand drags down the doorway on the way down. So once you get one side going, when the right arm goes up the left arm is down and then vice versa. Now my left arm is pulling up the doorway back of the hand to the door jamb and then the right hand pulls up. So they’re always in opposition, palm down as the arm comes up and palm out as the arm comes down and these are snake arms."