I love Love Will Grow Prejudice ebook
I have a whole library of bellydance dvds and this is by far one of the best. Rachel's instructions are very clear, the camera is focused on where it should be, and the pace is fast enough so that you are not bored but slow enough that you don't feel like you're doing "speed yoga" or are trying to learn a choreography in 4 minutes or less. As others have mentioned, the choreographies are probably not going to work well for someone who hasn't ever taken a lesson. If you are totally new to bellydance I would still recommend buying this set, just because disk 1 will prepare your body to dance well and you'll gain flexibility you never knew you had. Still, for a total beginner (or someone whose only instruction has come from videos) I would recommend taking a good class to learn proper technique, posture, and basic dance terms before doing disk 2. A good instructor will be able to watch what you are doing, keep you from injuring yourself, and I really do think that disk 2 will be very frustrating for someone who has never taken a class. And HOORAY for the backbending instruction! I have not found many instructors in my area who want to teach laybacks and such, and this is a very informative section that I will be watching over and over again.
Like one other reviewer I'm not really fond of the music chosen for the 1st choreography. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Any dancer who hopes to someday be part of a dance troupe will probably have to do a dance that they don't like or dance to a song they don't care for, so just because I don't really like the music doesn't mean that I will not bother to learn it. Sometimes learning to dance to a song has caused me to learn to like it just because it becomes familiar and I'm having FUN!
The only problem I had with the yoga/exercise portions of this video are that the instructions flip-flop. At the beginning, when she is facing you, the voiceover will say something like "move your right arm...." and she moves her left so she is mirroring you. Further on into the workout the voicover will say to move your right arm/leg ands she actually uses her right arm/leg and therefore you will have to either do the opposite of what she is saying if you want to mirror her movements, or actually go the way she says which will NOT mirror her movements. I think they could have done a LOT better with the voiceover as far as that goes. It is confusing to most people to hear "move left" and see someone move to their right, especially when the instruction starts out so well. Other than that this is a great dvd.
Preferably free. :) thanks!
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