Gentle Dance Workout For ALL AGES – Boost Energy & Confidence! 🔥💃 #bellydance #workout

Little chicken, look at these cuties, mom daughters. Come, look at this mom daughter. Come on, how cute is that? To dance belly dance with your mom. I love it. Glad you guys are here. Glad you cuties are here too at home. Okay, let's get started. Today's class is gonna be all about figure eights. Figure eights are infinity signs, okay? Like an eight that fell over, okay? So some are gonna be easier than others. Be gentle, have patience, okay? With time, you will learn this new language. And before we actually start music, take a deep breath. Exhale, set your intention. What's your intention? I just wanna do something fun, I wanna exercise. I just need a break from life, whatever it is. Set that right now, because you're with me, all right? All right, let's start with our warmup. Open up the feet, turn them out on a diagonal. Soften the knees a tad. Tuck the tailbone under, lift the ribcage up. Shoulders back, arms cross, cross, plie, inhale up. And exhale, sit down, good. Inhale up, beautiful. Now you see how I'm going low with my plie? You don't have to do that. If it doesn't feel right, or your knees feel like a little bit of pressure, don't do it, you can do this. I'm gonna show you the modification. You can go like this. Just a little bit goes a long way. Okay, hands on thighs, open chest. Roll down four, three, two, curl it up, up, up. Can you do that again? Let's go, roll, roll, roll, and reverse. Curl, curl, I want two more. Looks like this from a profile view. Cat-cow if you're a yogi. Up, beautiful, more time, so we're thoroughly articulating the entire spine. Chin to chest, roll up, beautiful, into shoulders, lift up, and sit. Lift up, roll back, sit. Super gentle, good, but have a little bit of an awareness, a little bit of a connection here. Hold yourself proud, breathe, get your body ready for dance. Last time, and hold. Tuck, tuck, lift, lift, roll. One, two, three, we open, we close. So first, I'm just gonna show you the arms. So we're warming up shoulders and pectorals, okay? Now I'm gonna incorporate the ribcage. So I want you to explore that, okay? Depends on what feels right for how big you go. Only go where you feel good, okay? Changing arms looks like this. Open the door, close the door, open, close. Here's four, three, two. Last time, you're gonna hold, freeze. Smack yourself against a wall, reach up, pull down. What do I mean? So imagine your whole body is pressed against a wall, and your arms are skimming down the wall. Belly button sucked in to your spine. Three, two, hands on thighs, roll down, inhale. Exhale, roll up. Nice, beautiful. Check me out. Bend, soften hips, rock the pelvis side to side. Good, just bring some life now. Bring some life into the hips. Gentle, yeah? Just play around. Here's four, and three, and two. We're gonna tuck, release. Tuck, release. Now this one takes a little bit more connection, all right? Why? Because we have to now engage our lower abdominal wall, and think about tilting and tucking that pelvis, okay? What I don't want is too much initiation here. So I don't want you to squeeze your butt too much here. And you girls know this if you've been coming. I want you to connect deeper here. So instead of thinking, squeeze my butt, squeeze my butt, no. I want you to think instead, suck my belly in, suck my belly in. Four, three, we're gonna wind it, follow me. Circle, circle, yep, just wind it, loosening up. Now we tend to have a tendency to let our ribcage collapse. I'm the worst one at this. Look, I want everyone, including me, your teacher, to fight to keep the chest lifted and out of the way. Here's four, three, two, hold it, other way, switch it, circle. Good, we're just warming up, be gentle, be kind. Good, loosen up, wind it, circle, circle. Four, three, two, cross, cross, plie, inhale, grow tall. Exhale, spine, roll down, curl it up. You, okie dokie, check me out. Soften, tuck, lift, roll, one, side. So we're gonna go into the legs. If you feel pressure on your knees and it doesn't feel good, here's your modification. You won't do the legs, but you'll only do the upper body instead, okay? So you have to be your own advocate. You have to decide what move is right for you. Check out arms, circle, one, two. Hey, Ms. Cheryl, happy new year, cutie. Ms. Cheryl's here. Here's four, three. I'm gonna bring these arms fuller now, mira me. Boom, yup, up, down, reach. So you have that option of going small if this doesn't feel right. And why do I say that? Because sometimes we have shoulder injuries and limitations and I don't wanna aggravate anything. Good, so there's nothing wrong with doing this, okay? Let's go, here's four, three. Rush your hair, frame your face, lunge, lunge. Good, again, if your knees don't feel right, you modify by just doing the upper body and that is okay. All right, good, four, three. Check out arms, snake arms. Rush, rush, nice, good. And if you say, Portia, I've never done snake arms or what are you doing? Just think about waving, hello, goodbye. Yes, here's four, three, two, cross, cross, plie, inhale, deep breath. Last spine roll and we're diving in. Roll down, roll down. Curl up, curl up. You heel toe, heel toe, heel toe, heel toe. Arms, feet parallel, belly button in, pressing one and two. Let's finish warm up and jump right into our isolations. If you just came in, figure eights of the pelvis and the rib cage are on our hit list today. Super deep, super thorough, very sexy. Figure eights are very sexy, okay? They're like a sexy kind of move. Good, arms up, palms up, press up one and two. Good, this one's my favorite one. I think I've told you that. This one, I like it, it feels like I'm stretching. Good, now I'm gonna challenge you to continue but to plant your heels down. See how my feet are flat? I'm still sucking my belly in so I'm not doing this, right? I'm still sucking my belly in. Last four, three, two, rest. Just the hips, hips. Check out your feet, look down, arms down. Make sure your feet are parallel. Sometimes one foot slides in front of the other because one hip is higher. I want you to be aware of that and just gently try to fix that. Good, chest up, make a fist, hands on the knees, or excuse me, on the hips, pumping the knees a little faster. One, two, one, two. Now, a typical person would do this, right? Na, na, na, na, na, na, ha. But I don't want you to move your chest because we're doing Arabic dance which celebrates the pelvis. So we have to learn how to separate the chest from the hips. So grab your ribcage, hey girl, lift her up. Not your breast, your ribcage. Yeah, just a little. Just by bringing your hands here, you get a little connection. Extend the arm up, the other arm up, heavy in the heels, pump your knees, rock your hips, suck your belly in. So I'm not here, this is no, okay? Open, shoulders back, palms down, speed it up. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. Speed it up, hop, shimmy. Let's go, let's go, shimmy. Bent knee, inhale up, and up, and up, cross it down. Again, inhale, grow tall, exhale. Looking good, cuties. One more time, please. Up, and down. Check me out, arms straight, knees straight. Let's change our shimmies to the straight leg. One e and a two e and a three e and a four e. Now all of you've been here, but if there's anyone new watching, this now is a different way to shimmy, a different method. Legs are straight, knees are gently alternating back and forth, creating a vibration, literally like a motor, like a motorcycle in your knees. And that vibration comes up into the thighs, let that jiggle, yes, yes, let the jiggle be. And into the belly. So ultimately, the straight leg shimmy is about glorifying your belly, and meaning shaking all of this. It's a little different Arabic dance sometimes from Latin dance, ballroom dance, hip hop, ballet. We want to jiggle, right, certain areas, but not in a inappropriate or raunchy way. It's more in an ownership way, in a celebration of the womb or the pelvis. So although twerking is cool, it's different energy than twerking, because twerking is also about jiggling. But this is a little bit more refined. It comes from deep, it comes from the womb, from the navel out, and it's cultural. So it's a dance that's been around for a long time. Inhale up, take a deep breath. Excellent, we should do a belly dance twerking class one day, see how we can do. I know it's really hard, I've tried it, my back hurts, I can't do it. All right, listen up, let's change. We bend, we tuck, we lift, we roll. Hold a beach ball, 10 o'clock, two o'clock, relax, push, push. Okay, so we're done with warmup, we're done with shimmies. I got you to shimmy to kind of warm up even more, get your heart rate a little bit going, and a little sweaty around. All right, when you're sweaty around, that means your body temperature's going up, you're warm, there's blood flow, there's oxygen exchange. You're ready to exercise, you're ready to dance. All right, chest up, shoulders down, arms. Okay, you've all been with me, so you know what we're doing. We call them hip slides. But don't knock the hip slide. This is such an important foundational move. Without it, many other moves cannot happen, or they don't happen properly. So let's just break this down, because this is our base for all of our figure eights. This right here is like super-duper important, okay? Chest is up, shoulders back. Suck your belly in and shift the weight from side to side. Now, Arabic dance, we dance barefoot, and we dance from the ground up. So first, instead of thinking of your pelvis, can you, for just a moment, think about your feet? What do you feel in your feet? Spread the toes, suction the floor with the feet. Heavy in the heels, deeply rooted in your heels. Do not lift your heels. We are heavy grounded. Feel the transfer of this heavy bone, of this lower body weight going from one foot to the other. Okay, this is the art of connection, the art of Arabic dance. Shoulders down, good. Belly button is in, so this is nice and strong and activated. Do not give me jelly belly, bloated belly. I need a firm, controlled belly, not only to protect your spine, but to perform the movement properly. Good, push, push, nice. Now bring your attention up to your knees. This is the next super-duper important concept. The knees are not locked. They are not locked. They're not super bent, okay? They're in the middle. They're what I call soft, okay, soft. Tranquila knees, suave, soft. Push, push, yup. Now bring your attention to the good stuff, the pelvis. Imagine your pelvis made of gold, this heavy, brilliant, shiny, expensive, beautiful pelvis, and you're shifting it side to side so it has some weight to it. Gold is really heavy, okay? Bars of gold, pelvis made of gold, super heavy. So dance and perform this movement like it's heavy. Feel that. If you feel light, I don't want light. I want, oh, boom, push. This is the essence of Egyptian Arabic dance and culture, coming from the womb, the pelvis. There's an ownership, there's a heaviness, there's a voluptuousness, all right? Good, all right. Enough of all that pain, ready? First move, figure eight, check me out. Twist back, twist back. Egyptian figure eight. Now I went right into it because most of you've been here before, so we're gonna go right into it. I'll walk you through it if you're new. Ladies at home, good. Twist and twist. Now check me out. Keep the knees soft. Remember we said that? What students often do in the beginning is they lock. As they push back, they lock. Try to avoid that. Sientate, sit down, twist, good. So let's go back to what we had talked about, dancing from the ground up. What do you feel right now in your feet? Connect with your feet. You should feel heavy, suctiony, like a suction cup. Both feet suctioning the floor, yeah? And you feel the weight transition from one foot to the other. Four, three, knees are soft. What do you feel in the hips? Ooh, a full twisting, nice. Here's what I don't want you to forget. Remember that slide? Make sure you slide out, slide out. Oftentimes, my beginners give me actually a Polynesian dance movement, a Tahitian, a Hawaiian movement. They don't push out. Instead, they lift up, and they give me this. You see it? Ah, beautiful, but it's not Arabic, so I need a weight change. All right, did you see the difference, yeah? So weight change, I'll show you from the side. Weight change, here's when I get rid of the weight change. I'm still doing a figure eight, but it's lifting and dropping, and I don't want that for right now. Good, here's four, and three, and two. Straight leg shimmy, recover, reset. Parallel heels and knees and feet. Inhale, exhale, good, pump it. Don't knock it like I need it, ready? Go, don't give me like half, give me 100%, yes. Why, because this is gonna teach you how to shimmy super duper quick, super duper quick. Repetition, muscle memory, muscle memory, and rest. All right, so that was move number one, Egyptian eight. Move number two, sit, tuck, lift, roll, beach ball. 10 o'clock, two o'clock, relax, shoulder blades down. Push, push, okay, here it is again, the slide. Same thing, knees are soft. If you lock your cute little knees, you close the move, it won't happen. So don't lock at all, stay soft, yes, good. Okay, check me out, I want push out, come home. Push out, come home. We're gonna focus on this side, on this quadrant right here. Shift out, come home. Shift, do not lock that knee. I know you want to, because it's easy to just do this. But you have to sit down, and the muscles have to learn how to coordinate to produce that shift. Here's four, three, other side, please. This quadrant now, we're going to shift, come home. Beautiful, shoulders are getting tired. You can lower the arms, you can frame the hips. All right, whatever you need, no problemo. I don't want to do arms now, we'll do it after water break. I want to focus here, all right? So arms just for balance. Last time, beautiful, come center. Fix those feet, parallel again below the hips. Knees bent, we tuck, we lift, we roll. Check me out. One, two, beautiful, sit down. High heel shoe. Lift, drop, lift, drop, lift, drop. Now put that back, check me out. Lift, foot flat, lift, foot. Now try not to teeter-totter. That's why the hands are here. I want you to bring some awareness to the upper body stays in place. So what are we doing? Well, we're lifting our hip up towards the ribcage, tightening the obliques, quadratus lumborum, psoas, transverse abdominis, all here. Good, two more. Last time, other side, switch. Lift up, come down. Lift up, strong feet, no wibble wobbly, weak ankles. This is no, I need fuerte, strong ankles. Squeeze, let's change arms, lengthen up to fifth position. Lift up, flat, lift up. This is a great exercise for that core, but also we're gonna learn a move. Next on our hit list, open arms, is the sway. Palms down, last time, other side, follow me. Shift, come in, shift, come in, shift, come in. Other side, please. I want you to reference your shoulder and slide that hip past your shoulder, okay? Now hold it here, listen up. Push, lift, pull in, foot flat, again. Out, up, in, down, releve, pull it in, drop down. Push out, lift up, pull in, down. Last time, slide, releve, up, smooth it out. Out, up, and in, circle, circle, arms, circle. So bring me and give me all of your attention here, and you're drawing a circle on the wall in front of you with this hip, out to in. Listen up, flat foot, releve, flat foot, high heel, shoot. Flat foot, high heel, flat foot, high heel, flat foot, high heel, out, in, scoop. Make sure there's no weakness or wibble, wobble in the ankle, I need strong ankles. Here's four, three, we're getting workout too, right? Two, last time, one, shimmy, straight leg, breathe. Power in the knees, inhale, exhale, good job. One more time, deep breath, up, up, going to the other side, looking good. Sit, reach up, we lift, roll, arms, push out, come home. Remember everything we've been working on, the feet, the knees, the pelvis, chest up, nice. Let's break it down, out, up, in, flat foot, push out, high heel, pull up, drop down, make a square on the mirror in front of you with that hip, last time, out, up, in, smooth it out. Out, up, and in, arms out, up, and in, beautiful. So if you're a visual learner, you're drawing a circle on the wall in front of you right here with this hip, like as if there was a pen right here on your hip facing forward, good. And in, out, arms, four, we're gonna put it together, looks like this, push, sit, up, sit, then sit, out, up, and sit, circle into the midline, circle into the midline, out, up, and in, push up, flat foot, releve, flat foot, ladies, speed it up. Up, in, up from the feet, knees are soft, dance from the ground up, grab the arms, grab the hands, stretch, if this is uncomfortable, you can bring your arms down, no problem. We go eight, seven, six, there's like a snake in your hips, we call it the sway, figure eight, vertical inward, four, three, two, open arms, four, three, two, straight leg, shimmy, woo, not bad, inhale, good work. Exhale, nice, again, inhale, grow tall, and rest, fantastic. Shake it out.