Dance Challenge 1/50: Belly Dance Intro

To start off the new year, I've taken a page from the burly book of Red Snapper and challenged myself to do 50 dance classes over the year to expand my horizons as a performer. Why only 50? Well...

1. I want it to be a challenge, but within reason.
2. Time and money are an issue.
3. There are surprisingly fewer opportunities for dance classes in my neck of the woods than you'd think.

Since I obviously can't always go to legit dance classes, I'm also allowing myself to use dance DVDs, which can only count towards one class, no matter how many times I may watch or use them.

On Saturday, Bre Von Buxxxom, Ro Manic, and myself went to the open house at MidSouth World Dance Center for their open house, where we could take a free half-hour intro to belly dance. When we got there, we were given coin belts to wrap around our hips and put in three lines (the class was really big! almost 30 people!). LaVinnia London talked us through posture and pointed out the muscle groups we would need to focus on for the next few moves (mainly the obliques). We learned several hip bumps, both vertical and horizontal, and some upper body/torso movements that could be used with several arm positions. By the end of class, we combined all the moves we'd learned to perform a routine with an entire Rihanna song (fun!).

I loved this. It worked muscles that desperately needed to be worked, and it really got my heart rate and breath up. Plus, I loved concentrating on isolating the movements in one part of my body at a time to draw more attention to it. I definitely want to check out a few more instructional books and DVDs, especially after talking to Bombshell LaBoom at Saturday night's show about how many varied types of belly dance are out there. (On a side note, she got me very interested in checking out Bollywood dance as well!)

In short, great workout, great experience, and will definitely look into further.