Welcome to 

         Saminas Bellydance  

                  where the fun

                        begins

Taking the mystery out of the steps and learning to dance. For choreographed dances look to the bottom of this page

There are many ways in which you can learn to dance. It does not matter which you choose to learn from or which teacher to go to, in fact its much better to gain a more rounded approach in order that your dancing takes on a personal style. 

I remember an old saying that was used by one of  my Dance Teachers (jazz) years ago who said, ''you can learn all the steps precisely but learning the steps alone does not make you a good dancer''.

I personally think she was correct. Whatever type of dance you are studying, listen to the music and let yourself go. If you find this hard to do close your eyes and try dancing again.

In my classes I have come across many ladies who in their nature are quiet and reserved. This is easily seen when they are dancing as their movements are very rigid and restricted. 

This is exaggerated even more when we practice solo dancing in the class. The normal responses I get are: I can't dance, I have no co-ordination, I'm embarrassed, or, I'm not good enough.

 What I tend to do with these ladies is to ask them to dance with their eyes closed, then listen to the music and just dance without concentrating on steps or movements. I have been very surprised how doing this makes such a difference. The dancer, who a few minutes earlier refused or stated they could not possibly dance, was now  dancing naturally. What makes it even better is that most of them turned out to be beautiful natural dancers.

I have yet to find someone who cannot dance after a few classes. 

Another thing that we tend to find hard when learning to dance is, what do we do with our arms. Yes these funny long things dangling from our shoulder blades that get in the way while we are dancing. What should we do?.

There is a lot of arm and shoulder movements to learn, however at the beginning try and slow down your arm and shoulder movements.

This is very hard to do especially if you are dancing like mad to your favorite song on the radio. It is natural to have your arms waving around at the same time as the rest of your body in a rather unorganized and unflattering manner. 

Take it from me It looks much better if you slow your arms down.

When you dance make your arm movements 10 times slower that what you want to do, and keep telling your arms to slow down. If you find this too hard at the beginning try adopting a arm pose and start dancing whilst maintaining  the arm position. After about 20 seconds place your arms into another position and carry on doing this during the dance. This will feel alien to you but persevere it will make a big difference to your dancing.

Whatever you do, don't look in the mirror as it may put you off (personally I can't look in the mirror when I'm dancing).

I have sectioned off the next three pages into Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced. This is only to give you an indication of the level of the steps. Some people find different steps harder that others so you may want to go through all the pages. You cannot practice too much. I practice the basic steps nearly everyday and I still find little changes that I can add in.

If you find something that you would like explained further please let me know as the more I hear from you the more I can put on the website. I am in the process of trying out my new camera that takes little video clips. If I can fathom out hoe to use it properly I will put some clips onto the website showing some basic moves.

Good luck and Happy dancing

Samina

For fun dancing try out my choreographed dances

Dance steps for Beginners

Dance steps for Internediate Dancers

Dance steps for Advanced

Darius Colourblind

Shakira Dance Routine

Shakalaka baby

Baba Baba

Wala Liyiah

Samina's Turkish Delight