How to Do Hip Lifts & Basic Shimmy | Belly Dancing Steps

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Belly dancing is fun, and burns up a lot of calories to boot! In this video, belly dancer Irina Akulenko teaches you how to do hip lifts and a basic shimmy. You'll be shaking it like Shakira in no time.

So, now, we are going to go over the basic hip lift. Let's assume our basic belly dance posture position. So, the legs are right under the hip bones. Knees are bent. Lower abs are tucked, chest lifted, arms out. And now you are going to bend the knees even more than before and focus on lifting one hip at a time by straightening one knee at a time. So, as you straighten the right knee, the right hip will come up and it is going to shoot straight up into your body. So you want to think about meeting your hip bone up to the ribcage coming back down to center. Switching over to the other side, straightening that knee, coming back down. Make sure you're keeping your heels on the floor and you are not lifting up with any point. And again, lifting the hip up and back down to neutral position, the other side back down to position. Now, skip that hold in the middle and you're going to go up, and up and up, and up. And, the closer your are to the ground, the easier it will be to find that isolation. Let's try that with music. And a little bit faster, keeping your heels on the floor, chest floating out, arms relaxed. Make sure you are not moving in space and your head is not bopping up and down. And faster. And full speed. And that is the basic hip isolation.