Belly Dancing Shimmy: Downward Figure-8

Video Transcript

"You ready to add some spice to your shimmies? My name is Karen, and this is Johanna. We're with Hip Expressions Belly Dance Studio, in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Let's take a horizontal figure eight, and we're going to layer that with our shimmies. I'm going to stand to the side here, so you can see the movement a little bit better. Let's first review our our figure eight. Our feet are going to be slightly apart, our knees are bent. Pull that belly button in, lift your chest. Now we're going to do a pelvic drop, and then bring it, bring your pop back, and tuck in at your belly, and push it forward. Now pull it back, and bring it forward, and back and forward, and back; make sure your chest stays lifted, so you don't come down to it. You want this motion nice and isolated right under your rib cage, and if you need to at first, you can separate your feet slightly so you have a little bit more balance, and your body line stays right in between your two feet. Now, let's get our shimmy going, all right? Get your nice, strong shimmy going; back, pull it in, and back, pull it in, and front, back, pull it in, and front, back, pull it in, and front, keep that chest lifted, a little faster, good. Practice this in the mirror, and you'll have a nice vertical figure eight shimmy for your layers."