Discover Bellydance: Basic Dance

Rating:
Summary: A good supplement to classes
Review: I bought this DVD to give me a practice guide at home, since my "real life" classes are only once a week. Overall, I found it helpful, and I think that it would be helpful to someone who just wants to get a "feel" for belly dance. While it's not going to be as effective without feedback from an instructor, it's done in a way that is easy to understand, especially if you watch it a few times. So I would certainly recommend it to an absolute beginner. That said- the pace can be a little uneven; there are times when I feel I am getting a good workout but moments later, it's going so slowly I get impatient. Also, while the steps are taught slowly and can easily be followed, when they are put together into a choreographed dance, there's no instruction as to the transitions, which can be irritating. Worse, instructors Veena and Neena wear skirts when they execute the dance, so it's difficult to see what they are doing and follow their examples. I do like watching them, though- they seem to be having a fine time and not getting impatient the way I am! Until I can afford to take classes several times a week (read: never) the DVD is a good, fun workout. I plan on purchasing the two follow-ups in this series.

Rating:
Summary: A good supplement to classes
Review: I bought this DVD to give me a practice guide at home, since my "real life" classes are only once a week. Overall, I found it helpful, and I think that it would be helpful to someone who just wants to get a "feel" for belly dance. While it's not going to be as effective without feedback from an instructor, it's done in a way that is easy to understand, especially if you watch it a few times. So I would certainly recommend it to an absolute beginner. That said- the pace can be a little uneven; there are times when I feel I am getting a good workout but moments later, it's going so slowly I get impatient. Also, while the steps are taught slowly and can easily be followed, when they are put together into a choreographed dance, there's no instruction as to the transitions, which can be irritating. Worse, instructors Veena and Neena wear skirts when they execute the dance, so it's difficult to see what they are doing and follow their examples. I do like watching them, though- they seem to be having a fine time and not getting impatient the way I am! Until I can afford to take classes several times a week (read: never) the DVD is a good, fun workout. I plan on purchasing the two follow-ups in this series.

Rating:
Summary: The video for the beginning dancer
Review: It is best to buy the Discover Bellydance set, as each video builds on the first and the tapes are wonderful. Anyone interested in learning to bellydance should work with this video, particularly if formal instruction is not available. These videos are geared towards the beginnig dancer instead of a workout video, which is a refreshing change for the student of bellydance.

Rating:
Summary: How would a beginner would learn from this DVD?
Review: The twins are fine dancers, but the "teaching" style in this DVD is basically the old "I dance; you follow." The twins do the movements and a voice over tells you what they are doing, but doesn't really tell you *how*. There was no break down worth speaking of.
To make things worse, often voice-over "instructions" are out of sync with the movements on the screen. For example, in the hip circle segment, which instruction consists of "front, side, back, side", when she says "Front", she's moving to the side, when she says "side" she's already moving to the back. How is the poor beginner to know what to do? This segment especially bothered me because it didn't address a big safety issue. On the forward portion of a hip circle, it is necessary to clench the buttocks muscles to protect the lower back. Nothing was said about this.
Another example of how this DVD could seriously confuse a beginner: during the Hip Drop segment, one twin was doing a hip lift. A perceptive student closely analyzing the movements would be perplexed: is the focus on the down or on the up? They don't really say.
There were also things that were just wrong: like they started the movements slowly of course, then increased the speed. The narration said, "Now let's try that at double time" and then increased speed from half time to full time.
I confess, I didn't watch the entire DVD. I was too annoyed at how [hard] the instruction was to be able to pay attention to it all the way through. I also got bored. Issues that if they were discussed at all, were hidden in the 2nd half of the program: safe movement, weight changes, connecting the dance to the music, and posture.
Production matters I didn't like were the inappropriate close-ups (like a close up on a face while demonstrating the hip circle), annoying artistic camera angles, and the alienating voice over. I like a teacher to talk to me, even if it's on a video.

If all an "instructional" video is going to do is show you what to do, without telling you how -- that is, leaving you to teach yourself -- you might as well buy a performance video of your favorite dancer and teach yourself how to dance like her.

Rating:
Summary: Good, not great, for beginners.
Review: This DVD was mostly good. It was slow enough for me, a complete beginner to ANY dancing, that at times it was too slow. The voice over was a little annoying, I was hoping Veena and Neena would instruct as well as show the moves. There were a few times the camera would be on their upper body when I needed to see what their legs were doing. And when you finally get to the choreography part where you do the dance, they're wearing skirts, and you can't see their legs and what they're doing and I got lost in the first 10 seconds, went back three times to the beginning of the dance and gave up finally.

Overall it was good and definitely worth it. I'm using it as an introduction so I can learn the moves and then work up to the fitness tapes to use bellydancing as exercise. I haven't exercised in years, and it was the perfect amount of exertion for a beginner. It also gave me confidence and it's so fun when you get a move down they're showing you. Nearly every move is easier than it looks.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Service!
Review: This was the first time I ever ordered and was thrilled with the DVD I received! It was perfectly packaged and I received it very quickly. I highly recommend using DeeVeeDees.com Thanks again! Char Teddy