Beautiful Belly Dance Your Way To A Sexy Figure

Most gyms across North America offer aerobics classes called belly dancing or baladi, and if you haven't heard of or tried them yet, you will fall completely in love once you do.

Belly dancing focuses mainly on the mid-section of a woman's body, but includes elements of arm and upper body movements that will make you feel like you had a good run once you're finished.

You will sweat, you will laugh, but above all, you will have a good time enjoying a belly dancing classes filled with women from all walks of life and different shapes and sizes.

Beautiful Belly Dance Your Way To A Sexy Figure

Origin of belly dancing

Belly dancing, called Raqs Sharqi in Arabic and Oryantal Dansi in Persian, is believed to have originated in the Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa, and dates back as far as the 4th century B.C.

What you need for belly dancing

Although typical belly dancing requires a full frock including scarves to tie around your hips, a veil and an outfit, you do not need to have any of these things for an effective workout.

Some classes offer a box of scarves with sequins, but most don't. You can invest in it yourself or opt to learn the moves without seeing the full effect of what you look like doing it.

A typical belly dancing class

Belly dancing classes start out with a warm up to heat up the muscles. The warm up consists of performing each move for the class individually.

Don't worry about not being flexible or having the ability to isolate certain muscles in your body. Slowly but surely, you will learn and adapt the moves to your body, and perhaps even tighten your core while doing it.

Common belly dancing moves

Belly dancing is not easy by any means, but it is a lot of fun and will help you get to know your body much better, as well teach you how to isolate and control certain muscles and joints.

Some common belly dancing moves include:

Belly dancing moves

Hand & arm movements

You will feel the burn in your shoulders and increase flexibility in your wrists as you sway your arms up and down by your side and in front of you.

Belly dancing moves

Shimmy

Just about every woman enjoys this maneuver, which consists of keeping your entire body still except your shoulders. As you alternate them back and forth at a rapid pace, your breasts will shake as a result. Wear a good bra, the last thing you want is for your breasts to be swinging around painfully.

Belly dancing moves

Hip articulations

You will learn how to isolate your hips and move them one at a time. You will be shown how to move them up and down, and from side to side. This is incredibly difficult to learn, but you probably won't be discouraged because most of the class will have the same issue.

Belly dancing moves

Traveling steps

Once you learn how to isolate certain body parts, the next step is learning how to continue these body specific moves while walking backwards and forwards. It's quite trying to learn but you will laugh and have a good time in the process.

Belly dancing moves

Rib cage movement

There are 3 rib moves, or undulations, that you will learn: the rib cage slide, in which your rib cage protrudes from the top and is brought in by making a wave with your back; the rib cage circle, in which you stick out your ribs out as far as they can go toward each of the four corners of the room, eventually working it into a circular motion; and the rib cage figure eight, in which you attempt to draw the number "8" with your ribcage.

Belly dancing moves

Abdominal moves

Ah the belly, the heart of the dance. Learning how to control your stomach muscles and make your stomach protrude in a wave is quite difficult, but the beauty of this move is that it's preferable to have a bit of a tummy than not. And we like that.

Belly dancing moves

Neck slide

Easy for some, more difficult for others, the neck slide will have you moving your neck from one shoulder to the other all the while hold your hands above your head, palms facing out. Think "Walk Like An Egyptian."

Learn belly dancing

Belly dancing is a fun and unique way to learn how to take better control of your body, increase flexibility and have a great time doing it all.

As the weeks go by and you continue to get better and better at it, before you know it, you'll be showing a certain someone all the fantastic moves you've learned - dressed to the nines.

The History Of Belly Dancing In Japanese

To talk about belly dancing in Japan, we have to first meet the history of belly dancing.
Japan is not the first country in the word to have belly dancers in. In fact, when you combine the words "belly dancing Japan" people look at you as if you were totally mad. In fact the phrase "belly dancing Japan" has a lot of sense because there are really good belly dancers in Japan, so to speak. But let's see where and when belly dancing originally comes from.
The history

Belly dance comes from Arabia in Asia. In Arabic (raks al-baladi) it means dance of the people. It is an art form with a long history. The origins of Bellydancing can be traced back some 5,000 years. Belly dancing was originally for women only. No men were allowed to participate or to watch the dance. It was for women and only for women. It helped women in childbirth, as the intense undulations helped to more or less remove birth pains. Later still, belly dance moved to the harem of sultans.

There, beautiful ladies danced for the pleasure of the sultan (Arabic king) and his bezyrs( Arabic ministers). When there were diplomatic guests from China and Later (During Osman's empire) from Japan, coming to sultan's palace, they had to watch and finally they started to love the dance. That's how, firstly by vague, unsure descriptions, "belly dancing Japan" started to make a little more sense. But it was really hard to make it just from being a spectator. The girls, even, in Japan were considered as "exotic dancers" which is not true nowadays anymore.

Because opium in Japan was very very popular. It was very probable, when in Japan, when a visitor wanted to try their opium, it was served by a beautiful Japanese woman, who, as a bonus, as a belly dancing Japan girl, offered the stranger a belly dance. As belly dancing propagated in Europe too, European prostitutes often offered them a belly dance as a bonus, as something "exotical", as something "Japanese". So western people started to call belly dancing "Japan" girls exotic dancers and more offensive things, while it was exotically only for them.

Beautiful Belly Dancing for Fitness of Mind and Body

No matter what diet you follow, rather you sweat it out on a treadmill, in a spin class or sweatin' the oldies, one indelible truth remains: to get in shape and stay that way you must exercise. No matter what pill claims research and science to stop carb absorption, block fat hormones or decrease hunger, the fine print is always the same: "use in conjunction with a sensible diet and exercise".

The problem with that is most people hate to exercise. And the majority of those who do it consistently have simply submitted to the inescapable obligation to do so.

The quest now is how to make exercise enjoyable . dag on it, make it fun even. The best way to do that is to do something you enjoy. Something different., something that challenges your muscles, gets your blood pumping, and your laugh lines stuck. And if it makes you feel confident and sexy at the same time, it won't hurt none. Belly dancing is just the activity that will give you all those benefits and some more to boot.

The History of Belly Dancing

Belly dancing is often looked at as the secret dance of the bronze skin beauties. But in fact this is a secret that has been revealed. Belly dancing has been done since ancient times. Some for of it exist in many countries around the world from the Middle East to East Asia, its performance in entrenched in culture and tradition.

Although belly dancing is viewed in western societies as a sexually exotic dance done by women for men, that's not the traditional view or practice of belly dancing. As a dance that is performed in societies where women and men have socially separate interaction (ie women over here, men over there), it is a dance that is most commonly done for women by women. In ancient Egypt, when the mistress went in labor, her harem would gather around her and do undulations of the belly, also known as belly rolls, to symbolize the birthing process, and distract her from labor pains.

During bridal parties when the bride had her hands and feet covered in Henna (a mud-like paste to dye decoration on the skin) the women would belly dancing to pass the time while the henna dried.

Interestingly enough men belly dance as well. With firm, earthly moves that often includes stomps and sharp movements, instead of the graceful flows of the female version, men celebrate among them selves.

The uniqueness of belly dancing

Belly dancing is a type of dancing whose base is isolation moves. You must move your torso while keeping your lower body still and visa versa. For most people in western society it is a muscle challenge because we are not use to using our muscles in the way belly dancing requires. So even the women with a six pack can benefit from the unique muscle techniques required to belly dance. The muscle control and technique required while implementing the very deliberate moves (yeah it's so much more than just trusting your pelvic bone around), will make you admire the graceful moves displayed by belly dancing performers. Even if you do not plan on gracing the stage to move your "lovely lady lumps", it is an activity every woman should try at least once in a life time.

Indian Belly Dance Girls

When one conjures up the images of belly dancing it is most commonly female Indian belly dancers that saturate the visions in the mind however there is little known about Indian belly dancing men or the fact that they even exist. Indian belly dancing men do exist in fact and there are still many of modern day male dancers that exist in all areas of the globe from the Americas to Turkey and Egypt. The practice of men belly dancing has been going on for hundred of thousands of years and has even been traced back to the very beginnings of belly dancing.

Naturally the mind flows to cross dressing males that try to masquerade themselves as women however that is not typically the case and certainly it wasn't the case when belly dancing was just being introduced to the world. It is not uncommon to see Indian belly dancing men or to read of men from the ancient years that had amazing stage props to assist their dances. Many times they held such things as swords and wore capes and it was all part of the entertainment personality that the Indian belly dancing men would demonstrate.

Of course, there are also the cross dressing men that to try to try to be like women and the dances that they perform are very often extremely feminine and beautiful. In fact, the Indian belly dancing men do such a fantastic job of setting out to impersonate women that most often the audience has no idea that it actually is a male dancer. This is the exact goal of the Indian belly dancing men is to not be noticed as a male while they perform the most amazing dances with the demonstrations of physical dexterity, suppleness and abdominal strength.

The original reason the Indian belly dancing men first began is due to the fact that the origins of belly dancing began in the Middle East where society do not view women as equal to men and most often are separated from the men. In fact women were not even allowed to belly dance in the presence of men and as a result the Indian belly dancing men would impersonate the women belly dancing in order to still have a performance to provide the royal men. There are still many Indian belly dancing men today that perform and in fact there are several all over the world however they are for the most part, no longer dancing to replace women dancers in the presence of Girls.

Beautiful Arabian Belly Dance

While many different forms of dance seem to reach height of popularity for a mere year or two. There are few that have moved throughout the ages, and have lasted throughout every diverse culture and society within the world. One of these seemingly timeless dances is the art of Arabian belly dancing. A form of dance that is speculated to be as old as the human civilization itself. Not only was it popular throughout many different cultures, it has begun to conjure the imagination of many modern-day belly dancers as well. However, despite it's popularity among the belly dancers in the western world, as well as all across many great nations. Many people still aren't quite sure what the differences are, and what Arabian dancing really is.

The form of Arabian belly dancing has been around for many a year, however just begun to be called Arab belly dancing within the late nineteenth century. Otherwise known as Raqs Sharqui in the Arabic culture itself, it is also sometimes referred to as Raqs Baladi (folk dance). Regardless of it's name, it has been passed down throughout the ages as a ritualistic dance. It can even be traced as far back to the time of Alexander the Great, and Egypt. However; it has stemmed from many of the different belly dancing traditions throughout the world.

It's popularity didn't reach the western civilization until the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Often times the Arabian dancers would be called upon to show their mesmerizing dance to the world at fairs and large gathering. Often times becoming more and more popular as people began to enjoy watching this dancing art form. Unfortunately Arabian belly dancing did hit a slow period in it's popularity. Of course when everyone's morality seemed to be in question, when they began to watch this risky dance. It had been forbidden in many different parts of the Arabian world for years. However, as you can see it has returned full force in popularity.

Much like any other dance, the Arabian belly dance has it's own wardrobe. While many of the costumes that are available today wouldn't resemble that of the vintage dress. They are still breathtakingly beautiful. Often times seen as a bra top and pants or a slender hip-belt; or a skirt. The style seems to vary. However, they are extremely touched by the part that Hollywood has played in making Arabian belly dancing's comeback However despite the costumes, Arabian belly dancing still has the same basics of any belly dance. Giving the belly dancer the ability to control her body's movements, all while offering an almost hypnotic experience for the viewers.