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Have any of you ladies ever (or are currently) taught a belly robics class? I am wanting to start to put together a routine for myself to help me lose weight. If it works, I will probably want to start marketing it to healthclubs in my area. My question is, where do I start? I know a little bit about creating a cardio routine, but I want to ensure that this is highly effective, and very safe. Any ideas of resources I can use to help guide me? Where did you go (if you did at all) for the info before you started? Thank you!
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Milwaukee
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Tue, December 2, 2008 - 8:58 AMYup- I teach two weekly Belly'Robics classes and I mostly format after the A.C.E. guidelines for developing a group routine. www.acefitness.org/
Also - I employed some of Hadia's teaching techniques with regard to this.
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Tue, December 2, 2008 - 5:57 PMBellyrobics is so much fun! The greatest thing about belly dance is that it's so low impact - it is very rare to get a serious injury from belly dancing. One of my troupe members is over 200 pounds (loosing it fast!) and has danced with us regularly for about two years, and no injuries. My greatest injury from belly dancing was a pulled oblique that healed in about two weeks.
And while you may be looking specifically for bellyrobics, belly dance itself is a cardio style workout. Getting any belly dance exercise style DVD should provide you with what you need, and there are some specifically for loosing weight on the market. Check out Amazon! Since belly dancing works so many muscles at once, it's a great calorie burner. Just with a shimmy, you're giving your thighs, abs, obliques, glutes and lower back a workout! My best advice is to keep moving continuously - go from one movement to the next seamlessly, and do a lot of moving around! What I do in my class to get the heart rate up and calories burning is footwork. Yep! The grapevine is a step that everyone loves, and we do it back and forth across the room quickly, and it really gets you going! (The grapevine is step out to the side, cross the other foot in front, step to the side, step the other foot behind and repeat) So whatever you're doing, do it big and do it fast to induce weight loss.
Good luck! I hope my little rambling advice can give you some tips!
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Wed, December 3, 2008 - 8:14 AMI did a bellyrobics class for a while a few years ago, it did help me develop a better warmup that I still use; however it bored me to death & I gave it up after a few sessions. The sad part is, people really seemed to enjoy it, and it drew from non-bellydance market as well. I started with foot patterns & arm patterns (together), going on to level changes & isolations. Also made music sets at two tempos so we could switch to faster when appropriate.
Good luck to you! -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Wed, December 3, 2008 - 8:25 AMI'll agree with Anthea on the "Boredom" part. It can become quite boring if you don't have enough time to commit to figuring out ways of keep yourself as amused as your students. I don't know, maybe not everyone has this problem.
Right now I'm in the middle of making up new class music set-lists so that we can have a "new flavor" every week. Like, maybe one week we'll focus on North African, the next week Turkish, the next week Egyptian or Fusion, etc, etc.
And yes- "the market" does seem to clamour for something they can just follow along and dance without too much thought (unless you *make* them think.)
I would love to hear what others have come up with...if you've been doing this for a while...to get out of the "boredom" rut???? -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Wed, December 3, 2008 - 11:47 AMThanks for posting this thread.
I've been teaching for about 3 or 4 years now and I'm thinking of switching my format for my beginner class to more of a "Bellyrobics" type of format. I'm finding this hard to do as I don't like aerobics as a rule and am not an aerobics instructor. I'm also concerned that I will still need to teach the proper posture and breakdown of the moves before putting them into a fast moving class (to avoid injury) - further delaying the start of the actual "bellyrobics".
However, I do believe that this will generate more interest. Although they all say "I want to try bellydance, it looks like such a fun thing to do", I find that the women coming into my beginner class are looking for more of a fun exercise routine, rather than an actual "dance" class, and tend to get discouraged and overwhelmed and then I start losing a few. When I keep things more fast paced and less technique oriented, they seem to enjoy it more.
When I have enough students who have the technique knowledge so that they are comfortable and fairly proficient enough, I run an intermediate class, then I find the students are actually more interested in the actual "dance" class, rather than just an exercise class. The object is getting them to this point. Had a few, then for various life reasons, I lost them (military active duty and spouses that move).
And yes, I agree with the "boredom" thought. I get bored repeating the same thing over and over again. However, putting myself into the position of the students, they are happy with a bit of repetition because that's how they learn. If you keep changing it up on them, they always feel at a loss and have a hard time keeping up. It is not so repetitious and boring to them, but rather it becomes a routine that they can learn and follow along with and then as they get comfortable, make minor changes to keep the challenge.
I guess it all comes down to, as Shamsi said, the "market does seem to clamour for something they can just follow along with...without too much thought". We just have to accept that not everyone is as dedicated (or as crazy) as we are about this dance. Which, in a way, is a good thing, because if "everyone" did it and had the same dedication that we have, it wouldn't be as popular, and "novel" and we'd be out of jobs as instructors. True? -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Wed, December 3, 2008 - 12:09 PM"However, putting myself into the position of the students, they are happy with a bit of repetition because that's how they learn. If you keep changing it up on them, they always feel at a loss and have a hard time keeping up."
I believe THIS this the basis of it all. Yes, our beginning (and even intermediate/advanced) students do appreciate repetition, especially when introducing new moves. It gives our students the opportunity to see it, take it in, perform it, absorb it (to some degree) and take it home to work with on their own. And the "changing it up on them, they..feel at a loss..." sentiment is *dead ON.* As a teacher, I feel it's my job to make sure a student can execute with or without me standing there doing it, but if I just 'show-off' then they never pick up on a movement fully and then feel they are 'failures' for not figuring it out.
I was having the exact same discussion with another instructor at our studio a couple of weeks ago, and this prompted a whole other level of dicussion about, "for whom do we teach?" Are we teaching for ourselves...or for our students? It's a discussion in and of itself that doesn't belong on this thread, but definitely worth the thought. -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Thu, December 4, 2008 - 5:50 AMI know it's a different topic but you are so right, that never comes up & it's really the BIGGEST question of all!!!! Thanks for posting that: "WHOM do you teach for, yourself or your students?" Something for teachers to ponder.... -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Thu, December 4, 2008 - 6:34 AMjust a suggestion on the repetition & boredom issue- In my world dance aerobics class (so not just bellydance, but it should still apply!)
I keep worrying that my students will get bored, but I think it is because *I* have heard that music a million times! so, I work on 4 to 6 week intervals, looking at the class and what they specifically need (some folks need more work on arms, others on just putting one foot in front of the other, etc) and pick my 'choreographies' accordingly. Now, I am using a VERY loose definition of choreography- basically I choose a piece of music and a set of movements we can drill to that song. When I introduce a new choreo, we might take 2 lessons to get to all the movements I am introducing to the sequence, but we are constantly moving. 10 minute warm up plus 10 minute cool down leaves 40 minutes or about 6-8 songs. so, every 4 weeks or so, I drop 2 or 3 old songs and introduce new ones- that way we always have some they are familiar with, plus something new & challenging. We work a little bit on technique during warm up and when introducing a new choreo, but it is not a technique class. They do get some technique (I'm not about to let anyone hurt themselves with poor technique!) but they will not 'progress' as fast as they would in a focused technique class, partly because a technique class (in addition to more detailed breakdowns) contains a lot of concepts that help link movements into dance, etc.
I would love to see a bellyrobics class as an addition to a technique class, but I'll take whoever I can get into class (ah, the gateway class...)
Anyway, this way I do not get as bored and it definitely keeps me in good practice state as well. I find I have to talk a LOT- I am constantly correcting as we go & I have gotten better at explaining while dancing. now if I could just talk, dance & zill at the same time... -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Thu, December 4, 2008 - 6:37 AMoh yeah, and my biggest challenge with this method is finding enough steady music at the right speed- 120-140 bpm
you just won't find it with traditional music (too many changes) so I rely a lot more on pop & fusion stuff. -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Thu, December 4, 2008 - 7:05 AM"oh yeah, and my biggest challenge with this method is finding enough steady music at the right speed- 120-140 bpm"
Yup - which is why when I pushed my sig-o into producing an album it was with this classroom situation in mind. Pretty sure that was how Rhythms of the Dance by Solace came into being as well. -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Thu, December 4, 2008 - 9:00 AMoh, do tell- what album? I was familiar with Solace's contribution, & Saqra has a CD out too... -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Thu, December 4, 2008 - 9:03 AMIt's called Gulf Cost Bellydance - available....www.bluelotussociety.com - cdbaby.com/cd/bluelotussociety -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Tue, January 27, 2009 - 5:03 AMFollowing your link I went and purchased the CD (it has not arrived just yet) but I wanted to say how adorable the confirmation was - I don't generally read every word on those things just check the pertinent data, but this one was so funny I plan to keep it!
Thanks for the tip.
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Thu, January 22, 2009 - 8:20 AMJust have to jump in to say how much our troupe has enjoyed using your sig-o music in class. -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Fri, January 23, 2009 - 6:50 AMAwe girl..thanks...I'll make sure and let Shelly know.
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Sat, January 17, 2009 - 11:06 AMMy classes have recently changed from traditional belly dance to the more exercise oriented format as that was what the students prefer. It is very recent so I can't say that boredom has happened, but the way I am doing it should really prevent that.
What I have done is make playlists of mostly belly dance music (with a few songs like "Kiss Kiss" "Rich Girl" "Hips Don't Lie" etc.) that start with a slow warmup, build to the tempo you mention and then go back down for a nice stretch at the end. Once I put on the CD I just lead the class in simple moves and steps having them add arms, or shoulder shimmies, or hip accents as they get more comfortable and the speed increases. The steps I choose do not go much more than forward and back or side to side in 4 or 8 count sets and I remind them often that if they are having trouble following or keeping up to just keep moving doing step touch in place with or without arms. As these are not set routines I need to keep more in the moment and think that is less likely to lead to boredom.
Truthfully, it is quite a job to go through your music library and determine the beats or measures per minute to make a useful playlist, but in the long run it is well worth the effort. Recently I purchased a CD from Amazon titled "Best of Bellydance - the art of love" because it was inexpensive. The cover art nearly put me off as it shows a very scantily clad young dancer but the sound samples tipped the scale in favor of buying it. The reason I mention this is that the CD contains 11 tracks of what I consider "traditional cabaret style" music (compared with Egyptian style that has many breaks and changes) with consistent tempo throughout making many of them very good for a bellyrobic format.
Hope this helps with music choices. -
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Re: Teaching Bellyrobics
Mon, January 19, 2009 - 5:37 AMI appreciate this discussion and the music suggestion as well.
Here is another music suggestion, Moon Moth Mixes, by Solace, it is designed for a class or workshop starting out with a slow tempo (60bps) and slowly builds to (145 bps) and then includes a slow tempo again to cool down. It is one long unending song that makes it easy to use .
An old video, Fat Chance Women Power Workout,has a fun aerobic veil section that can easily be used to an aerobic class, it uses uptempo music and lots of arm movements that are easy to follow, the students can bring pieces of fabric, beach cover ups or you can provide veils,
( retail opportunity?) It has worked out well and livens things up. The video also includes a great cool down using Hindu Temple moves and gestures, something else to add to mix things up.
We all have some of the same issues, I thank everyone for their input and insights!
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