Belly Dancing Breathing & Isolations

Video Transcript

"The next thing I want to talk to you about is breathing and isolations. Two very important things also in belly dance. The isolations in belly dance when you're learning a move you really want to concentrate on just that move. For instance when you're doing a chest circle you want to have just the chest moving. Not your lower body and not your shoulders, you really want to keep it isolated. Again if you're doing a hip lift and drop you want to make sure you're not bouncing with it, you want to keep it very isolated. Just right there in the hip, hip, hip, hip. Another thing that is very important to go along with that is many people concentrate when they're trying to isolate one part of the body at a time, something we're not used to doing until we're trained that way. What I find a lot of my students will hold their breath when they're trying to make a move, when they're trying to do a move. Do not hold your breath, when you go to perform later on this will not enable you to be able to dance and move freely and you could even pass out. So when you concentrate your moves such as the chest circle make sure you can breath. Sometimes I'll have to go over to my students tell them to talk. Make sure you can still talk even if you have to test yourself that way, make sure you're still breathing. Make sure you try practicing talking while you're doing a move. Again with the hip, hip, make sure you can breath and you can talk at the same time. You want to make sure you have enough oxygen in your body."