Belly Dance - Turns

Diana: Hi! My name is Diana, and I am a belly dance Middle Eastern dance instructor. I work in the Northern Virginia area, and I am going to, this section I am going to concentrate on turns. It's important to be able to turn, when you are performing this dance. So, one of the essential things, so we don't get sick, when we are turning is to learn how to spot, and to spot, what we do is we look at one section of the room, and we turn, and we flip our head around, and we look at it again. So, I will look at this spot, I will turn, I will keep my head there as long as I can, and then I will flip around and look at it again.

So, I would do the same and then flip, and flip, and I keep my hip there as long as I can, and that way, that means I can spin for a long time without getting sick, otherwise, you end up feeling not really well and dizzy and out of control. It's important when you are spinning, that you look in control, and you are able to spin on the spot. So, to start this process, what we do is we look at this front wall, we turn to the back wall, and then we turn to the front wall again. So, I look at the front wall, the back wall, and then we turn, front, back, turn, and all of the time, I am turning my head, but my body is turning to the back and then to the front. So, I keep my head there as long as I can, and that will keep your spins nice and controlled, and at the same time, we have to remember our posture, that we lift it all the way up through here, we are nice and pulled up here, and we sink up tall, and that will keep us, and our body and straight as well. So, there, there, there, turn, one, two, three, turn, one, two, three, turn, good, one, two, three, turn, great. So, that's a basic three step turn, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, great.

And then we could advance on to a four point turn, where what I am going to do is I am going to spot, in every four corners of the room. So, I am going to spot on that corner, that corner, that corner, the back corner, and I would do four turns, and I will be able to travel around the room, and look in control. So, I am going to turn one, two, three, four and in, great. So, I can do that again, go in the same direction, so I spot to that one, I turn to that one, to that one, to that one, and to, great. And then we can practice. Sometimes one side will be harder than the other, but it's good to practice both sides, because that makes you more versatile, and you can spin, and keep your spins in control.

So, this time, I am going to go in the opposite direction, same way, turn that way, that way, that way, that way, and stop, and then ground it when you finish. So, we do that again, one, two, three, four and stop, great, and then we will do -- the other one is a turn, a pivot, on top of that step, so, we go forward to the back, to the front, to the back, to the forward, to the back, and all the time there we spot, and we stop spotting from here, and I go little bit dizzy, but anyway, and then we just do it in a little spot here, great. And that's what we call as a Pivot Turn, and we should be able to do that for a long time, and keep on a same spot, I hope you did. Anyway, and that concludes, this belly dance section on turning.