Belly Dancing Shimmy: Shoulder Drops

Video Transcript

"You ready to add a folkloric layer to your shimmy? My name's Karen, and this is Johanna. We're with Hip Expressions Belly Dance Studio, in Saint Petersburg, Florida. We're going to add the ever so popular heel, shoulder drop, and it's going to go down to the downbeat. Let's first practice that, because it's an a folkloric move, we want to make sure that we get the beat in the right place. Have your feet slightly apart, your knees soft, your belly in, your chest lifted, and we're going to pull the shoulders up and let them drop. Lift and drop. Now, let's hear that downbeat. That's it, down, down, down, down. So, that's where our accent it. Now, don't make it very mechanical up and down; lift and let it drop. Try and make it look as natural as you can, good. Make sure you keep your chest lifted, and everything else is going to be right where it needs to be under you, so this is separate from your shimmies. Now, let's get that shimmy going, and we're going to layer on top of that, so lift and drop; lift and drop. A little faster, drop, drop, drop, drop. Keep that shimmy going, so we have a vertical move and a horizontal move going at the same time. Practice this in the mirror, and make sure you keep your shoulder drops nice and easy, and they'll look real pretty on top of your shimmies."