Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Slim Down

Buy This Item Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Slim Down by Cerebellum Corporation  Available from Amazon  $9.98  on 11-27-2008     This has to be my favorite workout dvd of all time. Please note that this is a WORKOUT and you will not be learning a choreography or a lot of technique! If you're looking for an instructional dvd this is not the one for you! <br /> <br />Now, with that said, this is a great workout video for a beginner/intermediate exerciser (advanced people will probably find this too easy). Another reviewer mentioned how the workout can be modified to your fitness level very easily and that is absolutely true. When I started using this I weighed 220 lbs (I'm 5'3") and for several of the segments I simply had to keep doing the "Genie" because I could not do the jumping parts. If you have bad knees or are very overweight do not feel that you have to be as bouncy doing "the genie bounce" as what the girls are, simply stepping back and forth is moving and it's getting you somewhere!! For those who have never tried bellydance before, there are a few "real" bellydance moves, some of them are more folkloric style, and some are simply aerobics moves. That said, this tape can benefit anyone wanting to take bellydance lessons because it does work the muscles that you need to perform the dance correctly. <br /> <br />At first I found it somewhat disconcerting to have a disembodied voice coaching me along, but the person narrating has a pleasant, soothing voice and gives pretty good cues. She is not overly perky and you don't have to hear "FEEL THE BURN!" and other tacky cliched nonsense the whole way through the session. <br /> <br />The movements are easy to learn, there is enough repetition to allow you to get into how to do things, but not so much that you're completely bored before moving on to the next move. The twins' outfits allow you to see what they're doing with their bodies (no big bulky pants hiding legs and feet and no blending into the background), and the background gives you that bellydance sort of feel. The camera focuses pretty much on what you need to see (bad camera angles are an issue with many bellydance style videos). <br /> <br />I would actually give this 4.5 stars if I could for 2 reasons. The first being that during the sections where they have you doing hip lifts the girls lean waaay back to do them. This is really not good for the back. You will get the same benefit by standing upright and using your obliques to do the lifts (rather than simply pushing off with your foot). The second issue with this video is there are a few parts where the splicing isn't done quite accurately and/or the voiceover doesn't quite match the video. There are about 3 parts where it is a little "off" and can be a bit disconcerting at first, but once you get used to doing the routine it's easy to just ignore it. <br /> <br />Like I said, when I started using this video I weighed 220 lbs and I have been overweight most of my life. Well what's that mean if you don't know what I weigh now? I am currently at 145. I started out using this video 2-3 days a week, because I was tired all of the time, easily winded, and I found out my doctor informed me that I was in the early stages of high blood pressure which scared me. I had always wanted to try bellydance and so I though perhaps I'd actually stick with this routine. I enjoyed it so much that I started using it 3-5 days per week within the first month. I couldn't do all of the moves at first, so I just stuck with doing "the genie" or even marching in place for anything I could not do, then I slowly started doing the more difficult moves, maybe 1 or 2 jumps here and there, a few seconds up on the toes, whatever I could do. By the end of month 4 I could do the entire tape without modifying anything (except for leaning back during hip lifts which I mentioned before is not good for you). Within about 3 months I had lost 35 lbs and hadn't made any major changes to my diet. The only thing that I changed was the portion size of my lunches on the days I worked out because I knew I'd feel icky with the bouncing around if I ate too much. With this video I made it down to 150 without any other diet modifications than the smaller lunches. Now I'm to the point where I'm making small changes in my diet to lose more weight as my BMI is still a bit too high. <br /> <br />I don't know that there is anything particularly special about this video, if you use any video consistently you should lose weight and firm up. However, this is the only video I found that I can really stick with. I've bought other videos to vary my routine, and some that are strictly choreography and technique, but I keep coming back to this one and still do it at least once per week. I highly recomend this to anyone who is looking for something interesting to try, especially if bellydance appeals to you at all. If you commit to using it you will see results, and those results can definitely encourage you to keep with it! Reader Reviews This was one we did not have from before and my wife likes teh more hopping aspect of it, as it has more motion in it. She has to cycle through all the tapes but she really likes this one. I've seen her practice with it and she seems to follow it pretty well. She has been doing the other videos from Neena and Veena for about 1.5 years now. She has most of the basics down and this adds to it. Again I don't see any weight loss from this but some toning. Also this one crashes on the PC a lot but not on the regular DVD player. She gets a good sweat up doing this which is good and except for the format where you have to rewind many times to see what you missed. It's a decent video. The belly dance style used is my wifes favorite as it combines so many styles.

Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Slim Down Available from Amazon Price: $9.98 Updated on 11-27-2008.

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