What an amazing class on Thursday!!!

Week 2 of our 6 week Belly Dance Intensive and it is going great!

We have covered our Basic 12 moves and are ready to start the drills, layering, and combinations!!!!

Want to follow along at home? Here is what we've done in the last 2 weeks!

Basic 12 (Core Belly Dancing Moves)

(Staccato Hip Moves)

• Hip up/downs
• Hip Snaps (bump)
• Hip Twists

(Rolling Hip Moves)

• Horizontal Figure 8 (infinity loops)
• Mayas (Vertical Infinity loops)
• Hip Circle

(Ribcage CIrcles)

• Camel (vertical ribcage undulation)
• Chest Circle (horizontal ribcage circle)*** doing this next Thursday
• Diagonal Ribcage undulation (Came to right and left)

(Arm, Shoulder, Head Moves)

• Arms: Temple arms (palms down/palms up/palms together), cross/back arm slide, 
• Snake Arms (rotating shoulder curls with arm waves)
• Head slides

(some lagniappe moves)

• Shimmies: Hip and Shoulders
• Belly rolls (vertical belly undulation)
• Drop Kicks 
• Hip drops
• Cross Step/point
• Travelling hip snaps
• And dear to my heart... my Belly Dance Goddess salutation (step to the right/arms up/hand circles down, step to the left/hand circles down, step forward/offering hands, step back into home pose with egyptian arms)

Other stuff we've covered in class:

• Zaghareet: lalalalalalalalalalalala The high-pitched ululation done with the tongue. It is a sound of celebration associated with joyful occasions. Within the context of belly dancing, it is used to encourage a dancer or express approval for whatever the dancer is doing at the time, and sometimes dancers themselves will zaghareet to express how much fun they're having at the moment. The reason we put our finger over our lips is because it is believed to be a powerful sound, the finger keeps the bad out only letting the positive and good energy in.
• The song we will choreograph: Warda Warda (Start listening to it!!!!!!)
• The cool down final song is "Bountiful, Blissful, Beautiful" by Bachan Kaur
• The Kundalini Protection Mantra from this Thursday was: Aad Guray Nameh. (this is chanted by many artists but my absolute favorite version is by Jai Jagdeesh)
• Anjali mudra (prayer hands) gesture of salutation/benediction/reverence. (Anj: honor/celebrate Mudra: seal)
• Namaste: The divine in me honors the divine in you (and when we are both in that place, we are one)
• Om (Ohm, Aum): a little more complex... but... in short: It connects our breath, our awareness, and physical energy in one moment, one sound. Spiritually: represents the universe, the begging, the end, the all. Physically: all the root sounds A, U, M use full expansion in the tongue, the throat, the mouth to create the sound sending powerful vibrations to the body.These also vibrate through the chakras. Cosmically: creation (A), preservation (U) and destruction (M), there is also a dot and a crescent in the OM symbol that represent transformation. OM is also the mantra to open the Third eye chakra (our intuition). Lots of fun stuff :)

don't forget the rubber band!! Place a rubber band on your wrist, each time you have a negative thought about yourself or your body, switch the rubber band from one hand to the other. The goal is to keep it on the same hand for 21 days!!! Honor and love yourself. Honor and Love your body. and remember "if your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete: - buddha

love, light, and happy shimmies!

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