Thread: GAH!! Super frustrated with my shimmy...

While doing the 20 min shimmy section from Aziza's practice companion I realize that I have a big problem keeping my egyptian/knee driven shimmy from becoming a vibration/freeze shimmy. I do find vibration shimmies a lot easier and more natural to me. When I realize it, I slow it down a bit and try to relax my muscles and am able to revert back but it is frustrating me that it keeps happening. I consider mself to have a good egyptian shimmy and can easily layer moves over it and move with it but just to maintain it at a constant, it just drifts in to a vibration. You would think after 4 years I would have realized it sooner and figured it out. I guess everyone has their sticking points-lol.

Any advice? Anyone else have this problem and figured it out? Any thoughts would be great! I am waiting for that "ah-ha" moment.

:) Heather

Well, it took me 4 years to realize I wasn't doing the shimmy right. So I guess it's all right. I had the same problem as you. When I realized it, I just practice a lot and now, I can control my shimmy much more. So it can be constant, and not just a vibration.

Sounds like I have the same problem that you do. My problem comes from having 3 knee surgeries on one knee and 1 surgery on the other. Anyway, I have decided to just let myself stay slow at a "regular"shimmy pace even if it means skipping the layering, or one leg shimmy part of the drills. I can do great with the vibrating shimmy but I dont' want to do it all the time. I also have the Aziza dvd and a couple of Michelle Joyce's. If I don't feel comfortable, or if the shimmy gets out of control, then I just stick with the basic shimmy and trying to control that. I'm still waiting for that ah-ha moment as well : )

I've worked with a teacher from Kuwait who suggested a slightly wider stance to keep this shimmy from tightening up.

working on it too ..and I just noticed the difference between the two about 5 months ago....duh!

I've been having shimmy-issues lately too. I'm chalking them up to the Merc retrograde, which should be over any dang day now . . .

Which makes me wonder: is a shimmy a form of communication??

Only if you are a praire chicken...

So Mercury IS in retrograde? I should have known... I was suspecting as much last week.

Try as I might, all my shimmies devolve into something that reminds me of the Czechoslovakian Brothers from Saturday Night Live... remember how the two of them would move in unison across the room? My shimmy is so NOT READY for prime time.

Originally Posted by anala

Only if you are a praire chicken...

Well, that explains all the squawking outside my window.

Originally Posted by ghazallah

So Mercury IS in retrograde? I should have known... I was suspecting as much last week.

Try as I might, all my shimmies devolve into something that reminds me of the Czechoslovakian Brothers from Saturday Night Live... remember how the two of them would move in unison across the room? My shimmy is so NOT READY for prime time.

..l;,..l;,We are, two wold and crassy guyss!

..l;,

Originally Posted by anala

Only if you are a praire chicken...

..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;, ..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,..l;,

Awesome.

I sympathize. Just yesterday I was really irritated at my own shimmy, and it sounds as though I'm having the exact same issues.

Originally Posted by bellydnsr123

While doing the 20 min shimmy section from Aziza's practice companion I realize that I have a big problem keeping my egyptian/knee driven shimmy from becoming a vibration/freeze shimmy. I do find vibration shimmies a lot easier and more natural to me. When I realize it, I slow it down a bit and try to relax my muscles and am able to revert back but it is frustrating me that it keeps happening. I consider mself to have a good egyptian shimmy and can easily layer moves over it and move with it but just to maintain it at a constant, it just drifts in to a vibration. You would think after 4 years I would have realized it sooner and figured it out. I guess everyone has their sticking points-lol.

Any advice? Anyone else have this problem and figured it out? Any thoughts would be great! I am waiting for that "ah-ha" moment.

:) Heather

Are you keeping your shimmies in time with the music?

Originally Posted by AngelaDiCaprio

Are you keeping your shimmies in time with the music?

Hmmmmmm...very, very good question! You know, I don't think I have ever really concentrated on that. Thank you!!!! I'll pay attention to that specifically in my practice tomorrow.

:) Heather

I think you are on the right track - when you notice you slow down, fix it and bring it back up. Maybe it is worth noticing whether you can hold it just a little longer each day - that is are you building up stamina.

Originally Posted by AngelaDiCaprio

Are you keeping your shimmies in time with the music?

Ooo, good question.

bellydnsr, I really like Aziza's "starting the chainsaw" visualisation... the idea of the mechanical appeals to me.

And because my hubby is a tinker, I like to think of one of his V8 engines idling while I shimmy. That deep rumbling, even gurgling reverb really gets me in the guts and keeping that in my head during shimmy drills helps me keep time... 'cos unless your putting gas to it, that engine better not stall!

Some youtubes for inspiration:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKPhT9gPz5Y&feature=related]YouTube - Ford Mustang 66, V8 sound[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z0A66yPnH0]YouTube - trophy truck engine[/ame]

I practise with Turboshimmy or rather I did and noticed vast improvement so am starting again. you get 4 1o min or so drills, shimmy on one leg etc. Short enough to do at least one every day, long enough to make a difference if done regularly.

I think shoes make a difference. Has anyone else noticed that? A small heel gives me a little more front-leaning power, and I get a stronger shimmy.

Hopefully I can help! If you ever get a chance to study with Hadia live then sdo so! SHe will help tremendiously with this!

First of all make the leg movement bigger. Think of your legs as "walking" in place instead of shimming. Its the smae motion you would use to walk without lifting up the leg.
Get the word shimmy our of your head (it implies fast) & think "wobble". If you are doing it correctly all the muscles etc on your legs through your glutes will "wobble"!
THe MAIN key to this is to be relaxed, the tightening of anything will make it start to freeze. When you feel like you are losing it stop and go slow!
I had to break 7 years of muscle memory of this and it was hard! You will get there!

by the way what do you layer shimmy or freeze?

Cant I think...knee knee knee knee...as in pull the knee back (not lock it up) then the other knee... I have been watching a Randa video, and hers are so powerful and clear...not a "jiggle the fat" shimmy (freeze) at all.

The way I understand it - the freeze is not jiggle the fat as you tense everything up and the shimmy is confined to the legs - the full shimmy jiggles my bum and tum

No I dont tense to freeze..I just make it so small that the legs are moving in the smallest and fastest of ways. The flesh just happens to move more than the quads cause ...well..its there! The video of Randa I was refering to has her in a black tight as wet paint cat suit so you can see her movements clearly. They are much slower that my quiver...and very powerful.

I agree that we seem to think that faster is better - and I have been looking at slowing down my shimmy since seeing vids like that. It also has a different effect when layered

Wait a minute....there's a video with a 20 minute shimmy section? Is the practice companion good, seriously? Is it serious drills?

Originally Posted by jencUK

by the way what do you layer shimmy or freeze?

I layer with both kinds of shimmies. I usually use the egyptian shimmy for larger or at times more traveling type movements and use more isolated refined movements as appropriate with a vibration.

Originally Posted by mmouse1534

Hopefully I can help! If you ever get a chance to study with Hadia live then sdo so! SHe will help tremendiously with this!

First of all make the leg movement bigger. Think of your legs as "walking" in place instead of shimming. Its the same motion you would use to walk without lifting up the leg.
Get the word shimmy our of your head (it implies fast) & think "wobble". If you are doing it correctly all the muscles etc on your legs through your glutes will "wobble"!
THe MAIN key to this is to be relaxed, the tightening of anything will make it start to freeze. When you feel like you are losing it stop and go slow!
I had to break 7 years of muscle memory of this and it was hard! You will get there!

I have actually been lucky enough to at least have gone to a workshop with Hadia although she didn't really focus on shimmies I learned a lot from her for sure. She really helped me learn to "let go", if that makes sense.

I really think my problem is keeping that wobble and staying loose. I did pay attention yesterday when I practiced and that focusing on the timing of the music helped tremendously! Thank you AngelaDiCaprio!! That could just be my "ah ha!" I think that I too have to get it out of my head the shimmying means going as fast as you can but in fact the most impressive part of a good shimmy to me is a constant, steady yet powerful and in time with the music shimmy without necessarily having to be super fast.

Originally Posted by Sonja2

Wait a minute....there's a video with a 20 minute shimmy section? Is the practice companion good, seriously? Is it serious drills?

Yes, it is 20 mins non stop with a million and one different layers over it. I LOVE it but was so glad that when it was done the cool down was next-lol. I wouldn't necessarily say it is serious drills most of the sections are short but it is great guidance to, just like it says, be a practice companion. I found that I actually stop the dvd and practice longer because the sections aren't long enough for me (except the shimmy part-lol). For serious drills I would recommend Michelle Joyce's Drills! Drills! Drills! if you don't have it, But I love this DVD for so many reasons.

Thanks Everyone!
:) Heather

And Thank you Anala for bumping the Randa Kamel shimmy thread, I hadn't seen that thread before. It was very helpful. I find that for myself I have been drilled to not use my knees to drive my shimmy's as to avoid injury and after extensive shimmy practice it is my inner thighs, "under the bum" muscle and top thighs that are feeling it. Although there was a lot of tug o' war over verbage on the other thread I did find the descriptions very helpful for sure and it was nice to read a more mechanical explaination to the shimmy!
Bhuzzers are so dang smart.

:) Heather

Originally Posted by Sonja2

Wait a minute....there's a video with a 20 minute shimmy section? Is the practice companion good, seriously? Is it serious drills?

It is good.

I have both Aziza's and Michelle's and I like them for different reasons but I would say yes definitely Aziza's is serious drills. Her drills are a good training base for a complete dancer rather than focussing on say, one particular technique and repeating it in different ways.

Originally Posted by mmouse1534

Hopefully I can help! If you ever get a chance to study with Hadia live then sdo so! SHe will help tremendiously with this!

First of all make the leg movement bigger. Think of your legs as "walking" in place instead of shimming. Its the smae motion you would use to walk without lifting up the leg.
Get the word shimmy our of your head (it implies fast) & think "wobble". If you are doing it correctly all the muscles etc on your legs through your glutes will "wobble"!
THe MAIN key to this is to be relaxed, the tightening of anything will make it start to freeze. When you feel like you are losing it stop and go slow!
I had to break 7 years of muscle memory of this and it was hard! You will get there!

I liked Hadia's use of the phrase "blah blah blah blah blah" when teaching this. The one caveat I have with her way of teaching it is that she doesn't really emphasise stopping the leg before the knee hyperextends. When I last did a workshop with Cassandra, she talked about thinking about it coming from the spot under the buttock, and I remember that suddenly shimmies were a lot easier to do when thinking of them this way, even though I was dancing and dancing. I'd forgotten it - I must get back to it.

I really emphasise shimmying loose. We can all go tight. Being able to loosen up is crucial, especially when you are learning how to shimmy. If you start with a tiny tight shimmy, it doesn't take much stress or muscle tension to make the thing disappear completely.

I have struggled with my knee shimmies for years. I've been learning bellydance since 2002 and it seems I just could not get it right. My whole body would tense up, especially my front thigh muscles and I found it very difficult for me to layer other movements with the knee shimmy. I'd still end up locking up no matter how much I relaxed. I tried learning the glute-driven shimmy ala Suhaila but I am not coordinated enough to alternate my butt cheeks at a fast enough pace to get a shimmy going so I had pretty much resigned myself to sticking with crappy knee shimmies. And just my luck within the last year I've developed knee problems. YAY!

It wasn't until literally yesterday (January 31, 2009) that I had my shimmy "'Eureka!' moment." Yesterday I took a workshop with Tarik Sultan of New York (protoge of Morocco) and was dreading getting to the shimmy part.

For those of you unfamiliar with Tarik, he's been dancing over 20 years and specializes in Egyptian style. He explained that the knee shimmy is a relatively new (modern) shimmy and it's not the way the shimmy was originally or normally done in Egypt and should NEVER be done. He explained that the way our bodies are made, movements should be executed with our muscles and never the joints because obviously it leads to joint damage.

He told us to forget everything we know about the knee shimmy and that our shimmies should be driven with the hamstrings. So being as lousy with shimmies as I've been I thought it would be difficult for me. Low and behold it came to me just like that!

The shimmy driven with the hamstrings feels natural and it doesn't involve the knees. Your knees will go along for the ride but they are not used to power the shimmy at all. It also makes it easier to layer other movements with this shimmy.

The hamstring shimmy is a much more "comfortable" shimmy and you will find that you will never lock or tense up. To do this shimmy, while keeping your posture, relax and bend your knees. You have to sit into it slightly. The best way I can explain it is using the hamstring muscles pulling them up back and forth, right where the glutes end.

Using the hamstrings gives your shimmies more power, the shimmes are bigger, and your hips jiggle more. They are not like the tiny vibrating shimmies produced by the knee-driven shimmy. But I guess if you are wanting the tiny vibrating shimmies, continue working on the knee shimmy.

While I just learned this shimmy and can't do it at a faster pace yet, it's MUCH easier and way better on your knees that the knee shimmy. I don't think I will do a knee shimmy ever again after learing this shimmy.

If what I'm describing makes sense and you can pull it off, just start off doing it slow and work your way up. I would suggest using an electronic metronome, tapping it up 2 beats at a time after doing each beat a while.

I hope this helps!

ooh, metronome, an interesting idea!