Warm Up Chapter from Teaching Belly Dance

Teaching Belly Dance on Amazon

I've been following an interesting discussion on Facebook about warm ups and I wanted to share a chapter from my book including examples of the warm ups that I use.  Teaching Belly Dance is available on Amazon : 

EFFECTIVE WARM-UPS 

 Your warm-up has a number of aims:

• ·         To help you identify any injuries or limitations in your students
  


• ·         To set the tone of the class
  


• ·         To lubricate joints
  


• ·         To relax nervous students
  


• ·         To provide a workout
  


• ·         To prepare the mind and body for the class
  


• ·         To prepare or warm up the muscle sets to be used in class
  


• ·         To release adrenaline into the body
  


• ·         To gently increase the heart rate and oxygen intake
  


• ·         To allow time for the teacher to mentally adjust the lesson plan to suit the attendees
  


• ·         To introduce basic versions of moves or concepts to be used later in the class
  

You will notice that I have not listed stretching as an aim in the warm-up. Although we still see teachers stretching their students before class, it is generally considered to be unsafe to stretch before the body is fully warm. Advanced ballet dancers, gymnasts, and martial arts experts sometimes stretch to prepare the muscles, to avoid “ripping” the muscles during extreme moves. If you are teaching your students extreme moves in your belly dance classes, you may want to reconsider your lesson plan! Even professional ballet dancers do not need stretching before a belly dance class, because belly dance doesn’t require the dancer to move outside her natural reach. Most of our students are not in that 0.1 percent of top athletes or dancers who may need to stretch their muscles before placing extreme demands on them – and these people generally have professionals keeping on top of the research for them. If you plan your lesson well and teach new moves later in the lesson when everyone has had a chance to fully warm up, then you shouldn’t have any problems. If you want your dancers to be more flexible, the best way to help them is to repeat the basic moves regularly in class, which will gradually increase their range.

Warm up the body gently, taking into consideration the room temperature and your students’ fitness levels as well as the kind of day they have already had. If you teach in a very hot country and your students have to climb four flights of stairs to get to your studio, you won’t want to start with squats. If, however, your students have just walked through snow to come to your class and the heating isn’t working, you would be better off allowing them to keep their coats on and to jog in place (or sending them home).

Set the tone of your class and help everyone to relax by picking music that is soothing, gentle, and positive. Move with soft, flowing movements, and take time to talk to the group and perhaps introduce some of the ideas for that day’s class. The joints are lubricated with synovial fluid, which protects them from wear and tear and acts as a shock absorber and cushion during movement. Distribute the synovial fluid by using gentle circling movements at each of the joints. I find it best to start at the bottom of the body and work up in order to not leave anything out. Watch as your students move to see if anyone is favoring one side of her body or pulling a face as she moves a joint. They may not be aware of any aches or pains until they start to move.

Once the body has been gently warmed up and the joints lubricated, then the warm-up can become more intense and upbeat. Pick music that is joyful and lighthearted with a regular beat throughout. Once your students know some belly dance moves, you can use them as part of your warm-up in a very relaxed, follow-me style.

Unless someone seems likely to injure herself, warm-up is not the time to correct any movements. Better that they bounce around and get everything warm than tense up and try to do a perfect hip drop. For new students, a simple step tap or walk in place is enough to warm the body. Add arms, hand moves, shoulder rolls, and changes in the size of the step to add variety and interest and to make sure the whole body is working. The body tends to glow – that is, sweat – once the muscles have reached a good working temperature, so take this as an indication that you have worked your students to the right level of intensity.

Practical Tip: Before your first class, practice your warm-up every day for a week so that you don’t run out of energy halfway through or sweat more than the students! Speaking while working out is so much harder than it looks and can mess with your natural breathing patterns. You want your students to feel like they’ve had a workout, maybe make them sweat a little, but you also need to be able to talk straight after your warm-up.

I find it helpful to have a basic move for each warm-up. That may be a step tap, step close step tap, march, or square walk. Mark your basic move with its own arm position and return to it often and before each change of arms or combination. This allows the students to return to the familiar if they got lost in the warm-up and to keep the same pattern as the rest of the class without feeling they look foolish. If you find someone is not keeping up or it looks like too much for them, call out and remind them that they can stick to the basic if they prefer. Continue with each change for at least a count of eight, if not sixteen or thirty-two. This allows the dancers to see what you are doing and get confident in their moves. If no one can do your warm-up, it is too hard. Warm-up time is not the best point to challenge your students mentally.

Think about your lesson when planning your warm-up. Focus on the parts of the body that will be working hard in the lesson, and introduce components that help with moves. It is wonderful to be able to say “You just did this in the warm-up” as you introduce a section of the main body of the lesson.

SUGGESTED WARM-UP FOR TOTAL BEGINNER DANCERS. 


 With soft music, each move repeated around sixteen times:

• ·         Smile, nod, find your place in the room
  


• ·         Roll shoulders backward and forward
  


• ·         Heel and toe on each foot
  


• ·         Circle ankles – both ways, both feet
  


• ·         Circle knees – both ways, both sides
  


• ·         Draw a circle on the ground with the big toe, keeping the knee almost straight (this circles the hip joints)
  


• ·         Half hip rotation to the front
  


• ·         Half hip rotation to the back
  


• ·         Whole arm backward (backstroke)
  


• ·         Whole arm forward (crawl stroke)
  


• ·         Wrist circles – both ways, both sides
  


• ·         Piano fingers
  


• ·         Look over one shoulder, hold, look over other shoulder, hold, repeat
  


• ·         Gentle shake of the whole body
  

With upbeat music, each move repeated around sixteen times:

• ·         Step tap right and left (basic)
  


• ·         Add a sweep of arms down and across the body
  


• ·         Make the sweep large
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Sweep the arms over the top of the head
  


• ·         Make the sweep small and dancelike
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Shoulder roll in direction of step
  


• ·         Arms in front to make shoulder roll dancelike
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Step and point toe in front
  


• ·         Bring opposite arm in front too
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Step and point toe behind
  


• ·         Bring arms above head
  


• ·         Bring down same arm as foot behind
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Bring shoulders forward and back (slow shoulder shimmy)
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Big step to side, tap
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Tiny step to side, tap
  


• ·         Finish
  

SUGGESTED WARM-UP FOR MORE EXPERIENCED DANCERS 


 With soft music, each move repeated around sixteen times:

• ·         Smile, nod, find your place in the room
  


• ·         Roll shoulders backward and forward (right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left)
  


• ·         Heel and toe on each foot
  


• ·         Circle ankles – both ways, both feet
  


• ·         Circle knees – both ways, both sides
  


• ·         Draw a circle on the ground with the big toe, keeping the knee almost straight (this circles the hip joints): three times on one side, step close, repeat on the other side
  


• ·         Half hip rotation to the front with a small shimmy
  


• ·         Half hip rotation to the back, lowering the chest with a straight back, bend knees, unroll up to standing
  


• ·         Whole arm backward (backstroke) with tummy pulses
  


• ·         Whole arm forward (crawl stroke) with knee bounce
  


• ·         Wrist circles – both ways, both sides over snake arms
  


• ·         Piano fingers over “paint the fence” forward arms
  


• ·         Look over one shoulder, look over other shoulder, repeat
  


• ·         Gentle shake of the whole body
  

With upbeat music, each move repeated around sixteen times:

• ·         Vine step (basic)
  


• ·         Add inward circle arms (like polishing the mirror)
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Add outward circle arms
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Add on shoulder roll patterns (right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left)
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Add a gentle shimmy
  


• ·         Add an arm frame (fingers to eyebrows)
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Add a hip lift on each step
  


• ·         Add an arm frame (arms out in a W)
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Swing hips side to side with each step
  


• ·         Add moving arms (falling leaf)
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Add an extra-large shimmy
  


• ·         Back to basic
  


• ·         Hip lifts on a vine to the right, shimmy over a vine to the left
  


• ·         Add arms
  


• ·         Back to basics
  


• ·         Finish
  

If you like this chapter, check out the "look inside" feature on Amazon and read the first few chapters of "Teaching Belly Dance" for free : 

TEACHING BELLY DANCE ON AMAZON

​Sara also has an on-line workshop called "52 Lesson Plans and how to write 5,000 more" which is perfect for new teachers or those who want to improve their lesson planning. Its available here:​

52 Lesson Plans

If you like this blog, go back to the blog page, for others you might like including: 

The History of Belly Dance; Where to start
10 Simple Steps to Writing a Choreography
Preparing a Bio ahead of time
Dealing with Difficult Students
I'm Perfect for Belly Dance (and so are you)
​
​Sara Shrapnell is a belly dance writer, teacher and performer.

She has taught more than 5,000 belly dance classes, both in the UK and US.  She now teaches in Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore in the SF bay area, as well as workshops world wide and on-line via the Belly Dance Business Academy.  Her classes are known for their humor, detailed breakdowns and cultural context.    Students who have studied with Sara have gone on to teach and perform in all styles of belly dance and many have made their living through performance or teaching.

Sara’s first book “Teaching Belly Dance” is available on Amazon.  Her second "Becoming a Belly Dancer: From Student to Stage", co- written with Dawn Devine, Alisha Westerfeld and Poppy Maya, is available in 2016 .