Thread: Feedback on Aziza's Arms Yet?

Anyone get there's?

I'll be picking mine up this weekend, I'll post a review next week :)

still waiting for mine...
got a notice last week that it had been shipped from Montreal - so it's en route!

Just got mine in the mail, looking forward to the viewing this weekend!


Khalida

still waiting for mine

I've got mine yesterday, thanks to the pre-ordering !

This is the most beautifull dance DVD I've ever seen ! So classy, elegant & sophisticated ! Aziza is absolutely fabulous ! And the location is just perfect & sumptuous.

The exercices, the drill sections, so much to work on. It's like having Aziza at home !
And the performances... stunning ! :tongue:
I've especially loved the bonus peformance filmed in the Windsor Hotel lobby. A goddess in her temple ! Such beauty, such grace ! I had tears in my eyes...

And I've also loved the vintage performance.

Aziza is & will definitely be my dancing hero.

Buy it !

Thank you for your comments. Looks Good!

Ooh I hadn't heard of it. I'll have to get it.

I've only watched it through once, haven't actually danced along with it yet. But it looks very rich, a lot there to work with. And Aziza's dancing is amazing, both in the instructional section and the performances. It is very interesting to see how her style has evolved. She is even smoother than in the past, and her style looks very sleek and modern yet somehow her ballet roots are coming out more, too. At least that's the impression I had from just giving it a once-over. I am looking forward to actually working with it.

Is it a similar format to her practice companion?

I would not say that - I mean her practice companion really is a basic movement boot camp, isn't it? :)
this one goes about things rather slowly, without hurry. you have several segment focusing on different stuff, one hand only, then a couple of combination lessons adding footwork and other moves gradually to the nice arms.
quite different I'd say, in approach and also organization and content.

Hi all! I have a pulled calf muscle that I am trying to rest at the moment. Do you think this DVD (or at least portions of it) can be done without too much leg involvement? I am just looking for a way to practice and rest my leg at the same time :-). I am planning on getting it anyway at some point- just trying to decide whether it makes sense now....

is there an online clip? I have been looking....

found it!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2w4bBKiFLI]YouTube - Aziza new instructional DVD; Hands, Harms and Poses ![/ame]

found it!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2w4bBKiFLI]YouTube - Aziza new instructional DVD; Hands, Harms and Poses ![/ame]

Received my DVD today and had to watch it through same day!

First I'll say that Aziza is beautiful. Amazing fluidity and grace. In her workout wear, she seems like a very well-maintained late-30's, though I realized when I saw her in full costume that she's much more mature. (Something about the hair and makeup scream 50ish.) Her upper body is admirably buff, but she still manages to keep her lines very soft and feminine.

Content: There's a lot to work with here. There are some initial drills with hip lifts/hip clicks/hip bumps, whatever you're used to calling them, layered with some porte au bras exercises. This is somewhat lengthy and repetitive, but fine.

There are drills, including three foot patterns, with which Aziza layers various arm movements. This is the one part of the DVD that I do not really like. The foot patterns are great, and the arms are lovely, but this section has no menuing within each pattern, so you'll have to rewind to pick things up if you don't get them the first time. Also, the patterns aren't really drills, as I've experienced them. To me, drilling is a lot of repetition to just drill it into your brain and muscle memory. The foot pattern arm movements section seemed very stream-of-consciousness. Some of the foot movements even changed without notice (for example, a mambo step suddenly changing into a shoulder shimmy with a weight shift). That's not to say that these movements aren't lovely and worth practicing, or that I don't appreciate seeing that there's a huge range for variation, but due to a lack of cueing and repetition, I find this section to be very hard to follow. A lot of the moves aren't broken down but simply performed quickly, and it's tough for me to pick things up that way. I would have loved to see more structure in this section with more menuing, more breakdown beforehand, followed by more cuing and repetition.

The DVD also has a section for poses, which aren't a still, static pose, but moving, flowing poses from one to the next move. I think this is lovely and something that is missing from a lot of dancers, particularly younger ones, who hit element after element in quick choreographic succession without giving time for some fluid elegance. Aziza has fluid elegance in spades, and shows how elevating it is in a choreography to show that kind of grace.

I particularly liked the wrist and hand exercises, which were later worked into combinations. Very lovely, and again, things that can really elevate a dance to something special.

Production quality: Very good. Sound quality was excellent, the picture was good, and the setting was pretty (though I had the impression she was dancing in an abandoned grand hotel, which was kind of funny). Nothing to complain about in the production except for the formatting--the dislike for the menuing I previously noted.

All in all, a very nice DVD.

I got mine the other day, and it is lovely. The content is great, and it was totally worth the cash.

I really appreciate that it was filmed in a nice location, and I enjoyed the extra features.

I agree about the practice section. A short, slower run through of her stream of consciousness movements would have been very nice.

mala did a review here: Aziza: Hands, Arms and Poses • ::more than somewhat::

I'm recovering from hip replacement. Now, admittedly I haven't exercised much beond physical therapy in 4 months, but I haven't been able to make it all the way through!

It's a well done DVD. I love Aziza's teaching style in person and that personality shine through on DVD. The arm and hand drills are wonderful and I plan to incorporate some of them when I return to teaching. Other teachers use much the same movements, but these breakdowns are great!

I figure a few weeks of this and I'll have the stamina to attack Hadia's training system again. Or not.....

Hi everyone!
I received my DVD a couple weeks ago, and I absolutely love it! I have to admit that I was like a bull in a china shop the first few times I practiced with it, but it is getting better!
I have already noticed an immediate improvement within my dancing since starting this DVD.
I enjoy all of the break downs, the drills, and the fluid poses at the end as well (What a great idea!). The only part I really struggled with was the stream of conciseness when she was working in the foot patterns. At first I found it somewhat of a let down that she didn’t break this section down more. But after watching it a few times, I realise that she is forcing you to actually figure out a lot of the movements yourself. Weather it’s my mimicking her, or trying to fill in the blanks when it cuts away to her lower half. Now I enjoy that section! It gives me time to watch her and learn, and to inject some of my own movements and ideas!

I love all of the extra stuff on there, the interview, the vintage stuff and of course the to-die-for costumes and performances! (She is just so amazing!!!)

I have used her Practice Companion weekly for over a year now, and I do really enjoy that one too. I will often do the warm-up, hips and ribcage from the Practice Companion, then pull that one out and finish by doing the complete Hands, Arms and Poses DVD. If I have any energy left, I’ll throw the Practice Companion one back in and do the 20 minute shimmy.

All in all, I do love both DVD’s. And I think that her new one is a must have for every intermediate and advanced level dancer!!!

Cheers!

p.s. If anyone knows where she got the purple costume she performs in, I would really appreciate it if you could PM me and let me know!!! Thank you!!!

I believe it is a Madame Abla.

Originally Posted by CatherineB

p.s. If anyone knows where she got the purple costume she performs in, I would really appreciate it if you could PM me and let me know!!! Thank you!!!

I love it. I think it's already helped my arms alot and I've only done it for a week. I can really feel it, that's for sure.

Where can you get this DVD?

I've decided that I "need" it. My chicken wings will be the death of me ,r:;

you can get it off aziza's site or stellar advantage as well... off to go order mine cause I got paid yesterday:) woo hoo

I've had this DVD for a while, and I just finally got over my lazy spell enough to get all the way through the drills and exercises. I like the basic drill section with the slow arm drills over the faster hip drills. I like the footwork on the 2 foot pattern sections, although I do agree with others who have said the arm work is a litttle stream of consciousness. It's hard for me to follow, but I realize others are much better visual learners than I, so YMMV. Here is my pet peeve though. During the footwork patterns, the camera spends a fair portion of the time focused on Aziza's torso and hips, and as soon as she lifts her hands above her rib cage, they're just out of the picture. Several seconds later, the hands come undulating gracefully back into view around the hips before ascending out of sight again until the camera breaks for a wider angle for a while. Then back to focusing on the hips. Did this bug anyone else? The most intuitive movement follower in the world can't very well follow along with what's off camera.

Bugs me Big Time. This is an arms dvds. But I'm not surprised, I've noticed this in other dvds as well.

Aside from the difficulties with the camera work already mentioned above, I *love* this DVD. Being a big fan of drilling, I think this gives excellent technique for the arms themselves. Working them in with the foot patterns and transitions is a great way to ensure that you learn how to incorporate the arms with whole-body dancing. It helps prevent the problem of getting really, really good at port-de-bras and then getting stuck because you didn't learn how to move the arms while also moving the rest of your body! This would definitely be an excellent addition to anyone's dance DVD collection, and the exercises are useful regardless of what style you dance.

I watched it once and returned it for a refund. I loved the section on wrists, but I could not follow most of what she taught, because she teaches facing the camera, with no mirror. I am used to videos that shoot the instructor from behind, facing a mirror, the same way that I generally teach in class and learned from my teachers. I'm not at all good at turning things around. This may just be my problem, but I honestly couldn't follow her and so would get very little out of it.

I had no idea that you could do this. I thought that having opened and watched a DVD you could only return it if it was faulty. Did you get a refund?

Originally Posted by shaia

I watched it once and returned it for a refund. I loved the section on wrists, but I could not follow most of what she taught, because she teaches facing the camera, with no mirror. I am used to videos that shoot the instructor from behind, facing a mirror, the same way that I generally teach in class and learned from my teachers. I'm not at all good at turning things around. This may just be my problem, but I honestly couldn't follow her and so would get very little out of it.