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Learning Belly Dancing from Books and the Web

© Shira

The very best way to learn belly dancing is with a teacher who can show you the movements from different angles, correct your mistakes, and guide you through putting them together into a finished dance.

But not everybody can find a class. If you have tried, but haven't been able to find one, first try reading my article How to Find a Belly Dancing Class in Your Community for ideas on how to find a teacher. If that doesn't help, or if you simply refuse to consider going to a class, whatever your reasons, read on!

This article is Part 2 of two parts. In Part 1, my focus was on how to use videos to study belly dance. Here in Part 2, I'll talk about web sites and books that may help.

If you can't find a teacher, I urge you to try videos. They're better than books and web sites because they show you how each move looks in motion. Even a talented writer can't convey the movement as effectively as seeing it executed in front of you.

But if you aren't finding what you need in the form of local classes and good videos, this article will take you on a tour of web sites and books that may help.

How to Structure Your Study Sessions

I suggest allowing one hour for each study session. This allows time to:

• Warm up.
• Review what you already know.
• Study new material.
• Practice putting the new moves into your dance.
• Cool down.

See Learning to Belly Dance from Videos for details on how to do all these things.

When I teach my weekly belly dance classes, they last for one hour and contain all of the above components. In a typical one-hour class, I start with reviewing the ones I taught the previous week, and then I teach no more than 4-5 new moves. I find that most people can't retain more than 4-5 new things from a single class because the brain starts to become fatigued.

Web Sites

There aren't very many web sites that provide instruction on how to belly dance, and the ones that do provide information don't have a lot of it. It's easy enough to understand why - in the first place, video is a much better tool than a web page for teaching dance because it enables you to see a real human being performing the moves. In the second place, it's very time-consuming to create a web site that explains how to do moves and includes pictures or video clips. Most teachers don't see a lot of value in putting so much time into a lonely activity that won't earn them any money - they'd rather go out and teach classes in person.

The copyright of the article Learning Belly Dancing from Books and the Web in Middle Eastern Dance is owned by Shira. Permission to republish Learning Belly Dancing from Books and the Web in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.