Thread: Shimmy Drills!

I should post this in the music section, but this section is so much more lively. ..g.:

I do a series of shimmy drills every week with my students. We start of easy and build over the course of 8-10 weeks. I mostly do hip bumps and leg shimmies, but I play around with the timing so we're not just doing back and forth for 5 minutes. Sometimes I incorporate the shoulders.

Anyway, I used Raks Africa on BDSS Vol.1 for the longest time and it worked really well. But I just got so dern sick of it! I also like to use new music everytime a class session starts. But I am having a hard time replacing that song. I just don't like the others I am using. They are either too fast, too slow or two short....Help!

1) Does anyone do shimmy drills in class?
2) If yes, do you use same music?
3) Can you please give me some ideas for more shimmy drill songs?

Thanks!

For my own practice (I don't teach, yet) I like:
"Stamina" from "Fate" - Suhaila Salimpour. (Aziza has used this for her famous 21 minute shimmy drill in workshops.)

"Mouhammad Ali Street" from "Belly Dance with Kamall & Anja" - 6 min.

"Love Night" (remix of Leylet Hob) on "One Thousand & One Nights" a little over 5 min. Once it gets going, the beat is continuous.

I recently started using Leylat Hob off of Orient Beats. It's pretty continuous. I don't really drill shimmies with it though. Mostly hip work. Up down, sideways, circles, twists, sometimes I have them go easy doing doubles on each side, then to make it harder I actually have them follow the drum.

I use it more for them to get used to moving the hips while at the same time learning to listen to the music as there are a few variations in it so I can throw in a hip circle or some belly movements when the rhythm changes.

I use "Funk" which I think is also off of Fate by Suhaila. It's a medium tempo, which is great for drilling 3/4 walking shimmies!!

I use stamina off of Suhaila's remix. I like the 20 minute drills.

Thanks guys. I'll need to check the Suhaila stuff out. These are beginners, so I'll have to cut down some of those songs. I try to keep the songs just under 5 minutes. :)

Do you want to stick with BD music? What about for fun a couple times using non ME music? Anala suggested this to me when I was frustrated at finding the beat in my ME pieces. It worked really well. I used music that I knew VERY well so I knew where all the accents etc. were coming in.

In my own shimmy drill for example I use Dick Dales's version of Miserlou (you know from Pulp Fiction?) It's fast but I use it for practicing my Egyptian shimmy and layering arms (still haven't got there yet :-0 )

Anyhow, just a thought.

Hi, Ladies,

Just want to let you know about the music my drummer George Medlock created for our classes a few years ago...I couldn't get him to class every week, so we got together and made some recordings specific to the moves I teach beginners, and the zills I teach my more advanced dancers. Shimmy Drills were one of the most helpful things to have! But we went ahead and made 23 tracks of specific drum rhythms, specific to certain moves, like turns, 4-count combos, 8-count combos, and 4 different tempo beledi's.

The CD is called Sweet Fruits for Heavenly Hips, by George Medlock, and is available direct through us (tina@enheduanna.com) or through CD Baby, with downloads as well.
Happy Dancing!!! Tina Enheduanna

I like Bahtya's suggestion of using some non-ME music. My teacher tends to match the music she uses to whatever style we're working on, butshe throws in a curve ball now and then.

At her last workshop she had us drill shimmies to 'Ace of Spades' by Motorhead. Hell of a workout!

For shorter shimmy drills, I use "Shake Your Body" by Oriental Star. I use this with more beginner students and loop it twice if they can handle it.

1)yes :)
2)most of the time, see below
3)for longer drills I sometimes use Suhaila's 'stamina', it's medium tempo for the most part, so very useable for training slower, regular shimmies and layering as well as for walking technique.

another favorite that is a bit shorter (6 minutes) is 'Pharaoh in Barcelona' from Issam Houshan's 'Wassan Pharaoun'. It's nice and upbeat and slightly higher in tempo, and I use it often in my beginners class for their shimmy drills and hip work.

in my drills and conditioning class (mixed level) I tried it on 'repeat' for the first time last week to get a longer shimmy drill that had a bit more intensity. because the song is medium length it was a bit easier to time the drills (eg 6 minutes of shimmies + arms, 6 minutes of shimmies + upper body, 6 minutes of shimmies + hips and weight changes)

another one I like is 'nubian cocktail' from Yasmina of Cairo's 'Aheb Masr' it starts out slow for the first 2 minutes (this is where we do the shimmies slow and relaxed) and then it pics up for the remaining 4 minutes