Belly Dancing: Twist Shimmy - Women's Fitness

Belly Dancing: Twist Shimmy - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats. Today we are going to learn how to do a Twist Shimmy. In the belly dance world there are many ways to shimmy but today we are going to focus on the hip twist. So what I am doing is I am just sort of pushing the right side and the left side, forward, alternating and I am not engaging the knee. If I do engage the knee I wind up doing some sort of Elvis impersonation. So what I really want to do is have the knees soft not locked straight but not particularly bent somewhere right in the middle. Keeping the upper body very lifted. I am going to engage the abs really strongly because I want a release in the glutes. So I am going to twist and as I feel comfortable I press my feet firmly in to the floor, I can speed it up. And all it is is a twist. So I am not engaging the knees at all, I am just twisting. Right, left, right, left. Right, left, right, left. And the more I squeeze the abdominals in the front, the more I can have a relief in the back. So here is your basic Twist Shimmy. And again, the really hard part with the Twist Shimmy is that the upper body is working so hard to be steady. So I see a lot of times students, their hands will shake and this will happen. So one thing you might want to do is just sort of hold on to the back of a chair, you can have a chair on either side of you to steady the hands while you are learning. You can also touch a wall for some stabilization. Just give your hands a little bit of help so they are not grasping for something. So keeping the hands at a nice, pretty position. Learning to keep them stable, twist as fast as you can. Once you are comfortable with this movement you can take it on the road. What I mean by that is I can have my hips over to the right and over to the left. Again, being very mindful not to look hysterical it is all calm up top, ideally. I can also push it forward and pull it back. Forward and back. And if I combine those actions I can go side, forward, side and back. Truth be told, one of the hardest things to do while your shimmying and twist is talk. So I am going to do my best and try to create a wide hip circle. Layered with a Twist Shimmy.