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Essential
I think that in this DVD dancers of every level can find the way to improve their technique. I like control, the perfection of movements and the way to attain it: keep on practicing with Sadie.
Customer Rating: -
Sadie - Thrillin' Drillin'
I'm so glad that I bought this dvd. At first glance I thought that it was much simpler than I was hoping for. But then as I started to actually do the workout I realized that Sadie just makes it look simple because she is so fantastic. There is a lot of material here to learn. I am still in the beginning segments and although Sadie explains everything clearly with plenty of time to get it down, it is a challenge to make these combinations and drills your own. I have been going to classes for a few months now and I am so pleased to have this challenging dvd to continue my learning at home. It really is a master class with Sadie. She is a wonderful instructor, she explains and demonstrates everthing clearly and beautifully. I think this will keep me busy for a long time and continue to be great to practice with. I really recommend this dvd, it is worth the money!
Customer Rating: -
Excellent but not for beginners
This is Sadie's 3rd DVD after her "Drum solo" and "Sultry slow moves", and as before her moves are very challenging and not for complete beginners. This time there are 3 levels of difficulty for each of the 6 drills including torso, abdominals and hips and as always tons of useful explainations and demonstrations, all in a very straightforward, no-nonsense manner. As for the other DVDs, the price is a little high but considering it is 2 hours long and very professionally made, it is worth buying if you are neither a complete beginner nor looking for an easy workout DVD.
At the end there is a lovely performance by Sadie to "Tamra Henna" showing her amazing isolations and fluidity.
Customer Rating: -
Practice with the absolute queen of bellydance technique
In the world of bellydancing, Sadie is known for her incredibly controlled technique. Just today I was showing someone a video clip of her taqsim and drum solo (Belly Dance Live) with her partner, Kaya, and the person remarked that every bit of the music could be seen in her movements. She has absolutely jaw-dropping precision.
Looking at Sadie, it's difficult to imagine just how and for how long she must practice to get that level of skill. In her video, Sadie helps you take your skill level up many notches too. She shows you her method and her way of practicing. Sadie takes up the layering and combining of movements that make belly dancing one of the most skill-powered dances in the world.
But right at the outset, I'll say that this is a very challenging video. It's actually meant to span learners of all levels and in a way it does. A chunk of this video instruction takes you through the foundational movements and the first of three levels of difficulty in each of the practice drills here are meant for the beginner belly dancer to work on. This is not a fitness or weight loss video, even if you can see how incredibly slim Sadie is. This is a video for someone who's serious about belly dancing and who wants to put in all the hard work needed to hard wire the brain and body to do complex moves seemingly instinctively. Not a fun and frilly party of a video, not an all-the-basics video either. I think of this DVD as the beginning of a journey into richly textured belly dancing.
Sadie begins her instruction with a technique section (one of two on this video) and takes up some foundational hip and pelvic moves. This is where the base moves that you will layer on or use in the layers, are taught or refreshed. But from this point on, you get into the realm of layering or teaching your brain and body to do different things at the same time. You walk with different hip move timings so that the hip and feet timings are different. This is done with the ¾ shimmy on the up and down as well. You work with these to the music in short practice sessions. But wait, the drills haven't even begun yet!
The drills accompanying Technique 1 are in three difficulty levels - like all the six drill sets on this video. They involve layering drops and lifts on some of the foundation movements. This is the point from which the video begins to be unique. You then layer this on a walk. As the difficulty level increases, you now layer on compound movements. So, you may be layering small, precise hip lifts and drops on a circle. Next, timing variations, increases in speed, and doing moves on releve increase the difficulty level further. And if this weren't enough, you now may add half turns to this lot. So you're doing sharp hip drops/lifts layered on a circle while you're on your toes, you're varying the timing - and you're taking a half turn.
Moving on to the second technique section, we bring the rib cage into the layering picture. Keeping your hips going with moves in autopilot, you now learn to layer rib cage moves on top of that. That could be chest lifts and drops, diagonal or circular moves. And then, impossible as it may seem, you layer all this on footwork. This chunk is really challenging. Drill set 4 combines the ¾ shimmy with complex rib cage movements such as the rib cage triangle and rib cage vertical circle. And as is the pattern with these drills, we add the on-the-toes moves, changes in timing and traveling.Sadie also takes up the "semiha" or flat-ball step slide move and layers the ¾ on that. She adds rib cage moves to that too. Finally, Drill set 6 works with hip squares. For layers, we have undulations and reverse undulations, pelvic drops and lifts - all coming together with hp squares and basic traveling around.
Threaded through the entire set of drills are short practice sessions with music.
And finally you can relax and watch a performance by Sadie - Egyptian with a Sadie twist.
If you're a beginner and plan on buying this video, make sure this isn't your only basics or drills video. As long as you're working with easier ones that focus more comprehensively on the basics, you can take up this one to start teaching your brain how to do different dance movements at the same time. If you're an intermediate dancer, think about where you are in your drills journey right now. Again, if you have a ton of videos but haven't worked through any of the easier drill ones, you may not work with this tougher one yet. But, if you'd also like to work on some neglected hard wiring for layering and are ready to bring this instruction into your practice routine in chunks, it's not at all a bad idea. If you're an advanced dancer, this video will sharpen your percussive movements no end.