Thread: Egyptian hips - when do you teah them??

i have had 4 different teachers over the years - Not one ever said to use the obliques to move your hips. I had to go to a workshop with Heather Burby to find that out. Since then I have also got dvd drill (Thanks Michelle for Drills, drills, drills)
when do you introduce your students to this concept.

Oh and by the way no one has ever told us anythig about posture!!

I teach Posture from Day 1. And continually.
I teach use of core muscles from Day 1, as a result. And continually.

However some techniques need students to have developped a greater degree of core strength and body-awareness, and you can't realistically teach them from Day 1, but the work that you do builds up towards that technique. You have to walk before you can run.

Originally Posted by jencUK

i have had 4 different teachers over the years - Not one ever said to use the obliques to move your hips. I had to go to a workshop with Heather Burby to find that out. Since then I have also got dvd drill (Thanks Michelle for Drills, drills, drills)
when do you introduce your students to this concept.

Oh and by the way no one has ever told us anythig about posture!!

I think I first became aware of being taught in that way by Sara Farouk (Maureen O'Farrell as she was then) and then notably by Tracey Gibbs.

Wadda ya mean nobody ever mentioned posture?.w.:
From the very start with Kharis then Gill my second teacher..you have to stand correctly to dance correctly and look good. Folks don't always get it and we start at different points regarding posture..some of us spent our childhood being told to sit up straight etc etc! ..g.:But that's where you start.
Is your teacher expecting you to copy her instinctively..I suppose..it doesn't always follow esecially if you don't work with mirrors.

I don't know what you mean by Egyptian hips but I'm guessing it's a 3/4 down shimmy, and the answer is level 3, and that is for most people who progress that far after a year to two years. My land is a cautious land.

As Bea says, if you don't even know what an oblique is there is no point in teaching that says "use the obliques". But over time, that awareness comes.

To Liza current teacher is 5ft tall size 3 feet, probably has natural good posture. she has been dancing for 14 years.
By egyptian hips I just mean driving movements from the hip, not the knee.

I think this teacher thinks that the majority of her students don't want to put in the level of dedication that she has.

by the way, if you mean by 3/4 down shimmy, what we call the egyptian walk, she taught us that in beginners, but I could see that some students wre unable to progress because their posture did not allow them to free their hips!

We cdo thankfully have mirrors......BUT I am very aware from seeing photos and vids of myself that I dance round-shouldered. I have been dancing for 2 years plus...any suggestions for making sure I stand up

Originally Posted by jencUK

By egyptian hips I just mean driving movements from the hip, not the knee.

The Egyptians use the knee as well as the obliques. It's not exclusive. It's one of my abiding auditory memories of Raqia- "I can do [this move] because my knee is *strong*".

Originally Posted by jencUK

any suggestions for making sure I stand up

• Feet underneath your hip bones- not your thighs, but the sticky out hip bones at the front. (Front of the iliac crest)
• Knees soft
• Pelvis in neutral- tailbone pointing down to the floor not out to the back. Engage the lower abs, relax the lower back.
• Ribcage lifted from the back- imagine you have angel wings sprouting out of your shoulderblades, and they are opening up & out.
• Roll the shoulders up back & down

Do it all the time, not just when you're dancing, so that it truly becomes second nature. No, first nature.

I know what you mean Jenc. I had been dancing for really quite some time before I was introduced to this concept. However, good postural training from the beginning and good policing of basic student errors meant that when I was explicitly told this, I realised that I had been driving in this way all along and that I just needed to work on refining it.

When my teacher explained and worked on this with me it was more a case of 'now you have been dancing for x years, you need to be more conscious of, more pro-active and more disciplined about how you drive moves' as opposed to 'You've been doing it wrong' or 'Here's a whole new approach'.

To clarify: introducing and working with this as an important concept was taught to me as a natural development from good postural grounding. It was a natural 'next step' in becoming more body aware and understanding moves and the dance on a more advanced way.

Originally Posted by beafarhana

• Feet underneath your hip bones- not your thighs, but the sticky out hip bones at the front. (Front of the iliac crest)
• Knees soft
• Pelvis in neutral- tailbone pointing down to the floor not out to the back. Engage the lower abs, relax the lower back.
• Ribcage lifted from the back- imagine you have angel wings sprouting out of your shoulderblades, and they are opening up & out.
• Roll the shoulders up back & down

Do it all the time, not just when you're dancing, so that it truly becomes second nature. No, first nature.

Ah now you can see the value of teacher training...for some before I get jumped on!

Originally Posted by lizajuk

Ah now you can see the value of teacher training...for some before I get jumped on!

..g.:

if you don't even know what an oblique is there is no point in teaching that says "use the obliques". But over time, that awareness comes.

Personally speaking, I am completely fascinated by anatomy and anything at all that relates to how the body works.

However, I know that some students get a bit freaked out by this sort of thing. I can't really understand that mindset but I have noticed that sometimes people go 'oh no, here comes the science bit' and close off completely if a teacher discusses things in scientific terms; I've also noticed that general squeamishness about the human body sometimes comes into play here.

I know that my current teacher keeps everything very much in laymen's terms, although she will happily go into informative anatomical detail if a student requests it.

Originally Posted by khadiya

Personally speaking, I am completely fascinated by anatomy and anything at all that relates to how the body works.

However, I know that some students get a bit freaked out by this sort of thing. I can't really understand that mindset but I have noticed that sometimes people go 'oh no, here comes the science bit' and close off completely if a teacher discusses things in scientific terms; I've also noticed that general squeamishness about the human body sometimes comes into play here.

I know that my current teacher keeps everything very much in laymen's terms, although she will happily go into informative anatomical detail if a student requests it.

However rest assured I wrote 13 pages of anatomical discussion for her to mark and keep busy..heheheh

I am a postive terror on posture, on being aware of your own body, on watching yourself dance in a mirror and dancing to flatter and enhance your own body type.What worries me is how the thought of actually watching yourself dance, working on good posture and finding good looks for the individual student totally frightens people-like deliberately looking good when you dance is somehow indecent. I drone on about it all the time but I know people don't always listen (really listen and take it in).Also different teachers describe things differently-sometimes you get what another teacher has said better than the same thing that your regular teacher has been trying to explain for ages-sometimes things just fit into place.
One of the most difficult things about learning the dance is everybody does it slightly differently according to their body type. Dina is different from Randa who is different from Asmahan. The best thing is to go to as many workshops as possible as well as your classes and learn what suits you and what looks good on you and what suits your personality.Different techniques suit different songs and their meanings and styles too.

Originally Posted by jencUK

i have had 4 different teachers over the years - Not one ever said to use the obliques to move your hips. I had to go to a workshop with Heather Burby to find that out. Since then I have also got dvd drill (Thanks Michelle for Drills, drills, drills)
when do you introduce your students to this concept.

Oh and by the way no one has ever told us anythig about posture!!

Day 1: Posture
Day 1: Hip rocks - using obliques but cheating allowed - discouraged as students continue in course.

Originally Posted by beafarhana

• Feet underneath your hip bones- not your thighs, but the sticky out hip bones at the front. (Front of the iliac crest)
• Knees soft
• Pelvis in neutral- tailbone pointing down to the floor not out to the back. Engage the lower abs, relax the lower back.
• Ribcage lifted from the back- imagine you have angel wings sprouting out of your shoulderblades, and they are opening up & out.
• Roll the shoulders up back & down

Do it all the time, not just when you're dancing, so that it truly becomes second nature. No, first nature.

Will you be my teacher? ..l;,..l;,

Originally Posted by HOOKEDNOVICE

Will you be my teacher? ..l;,..l;,

teehee!

Originally Posted by zumarrad

As Bea says, if you don't even know what an oblique is there is no point in teaching that says "use the obliques". But over time, that awareness comes.

I usually say "Side waist muscles, or obliques" and put my hand on my own if I'm addressing the class or point to theirs if I'm correcting an individual.

That covers all the bases and takes .01 seconds.

Originally Posted by jencUK

i have had 4 different teachers over the years - Not one ever said to use the obliques to move your hips. I had to go to a workshop with Heather Burby to find that out. Since then I have also got dvd drill (Thanks Michelle for Drills, drills, drills)
when do you introduce your students to this concept.

Oh and by the way no one has ever told us anythig about posture!!

I don't teach using the obliques for hip work cause it limits your ability to layer chest movements on top of them.

Originally Posted by AngelaDiCaprio

I don't teach using the obliques for hip work cause it limits your ability to layer chest movements on top of them.

i may have got the names wrong - but I mean using hip driven movements

My dance posture comes from my early ballet training but there are other ways to teach good posture. I enjoy teaching students how to balance things on their heads while dancing. I might start with a cane and then move up to a sword as the student becomes more advanced. I've even used foam blocks that happened to be in the area where I was teaching (maybe used for yoga or Pilates?). Students learn very quickly that if they are not properly aligned, the object will fall off of their heads.

As for teaching core-driven movements rather than those generated mostly from bending or straightening the knees, I use floorwork. Even if the students never perform floorwork for an audience, the skills they learn will help them better control and isolate movements when standing.

I didn't have a live teacher at first and I just naturally thought that some moves were coming from my core for hips. To get myself in the idea of using those muscles, I would stand one legged (like a stork) and try to make the hip of the unweighted leg move just from contracting my sides. It took a little time but once I did it, I then had a reference for what it should feel like and could add other muscles into the mix.

Originally Posted by jaded

My dance posture comes from my early ballet training but there are other ways to teach good posture. I enjoy teaching students how to balance things on their heads while dancing. I might start with a cane and then move up to a sword as the student becomes more advanced. I've even used foam blocks that happened to be in the area where I was teaching (maybe used for yoga or Pilates?). Students learn very quickly that if they are not properly aligned, the object will fall off of their heads.

As for teaching core-driven movements rather than those generated mostly from bending or straightening the knees, I use floorwork. Even if the students never perform floorwork for an audience, the skills they learn will help them better control and isolate movements when standing.

I can do the balance thing when I concentrate, but when i just dance my shoulders are round.

as for practising using floorwork - only if you have a hoist to get me up again!!!

Although come to think of it - I sometimes practice undulatins lying on my side in bed

I start doing "Egyptian Hips" on Day 1.

For beginners, if I know of a method to create a movement with the torso and a method to create the same movement with the knees/legs, we always do the torso-driven method. Always.

Where applicable, I let them know there are other ways to create the same movement, but we don't get into those until at least an intermediate level. I always explain to them why this is.

Can everybody even identify whether they're using, say, their obliques to lift their hips on Day 1? Absolutely not! Some might start to get the idea after a 5- or 6-week session, but for many people -- maybe most -- it takes a very long time. But that's why we take class and drill, and practice at home . . . ..g.:

Deborah

Originally Posted by Linnyg

I didn't have a live teacher at first and I just naturally thought that some moves were coming from my core for hips. To get myself in the idea of using those muscles, I would stand one legged (like a stork) and try to make the hip of the unweighted leg move just from contracting my sides. It took a little time but once I did it, I then had a reference for what it should feel like and could add other muscles into the mix.

I do this very thing with my students!

If the whole class looks absolutely brain-numb with trying to use their obliques to create a hip lift, I have them stand, like a stork, and attempt to move their hips upwards.

At first, hips don't move much, or they try to power it by contracting the glutes, but the light bulbs really seem to pop on with most people when we try this!

You know, I think I'm going to make this part of my teaching (as opposed to correcting) method for the hip lift because once we figure out what it feels like to use the obliques for the lift, it'll no doubt help with learning to do other torso-driven movements!

Thanks for helping me improve my teaching, Linnyg!

Deborah