Thread: Have you taken online bd classes? Please tell us what you think!

Have you tried online classes? We often speculate about them here but I'd really like to hear from those who have actually taken them. Who was the teacher? Were the classes downloadable (watch when you like) or not? Did you find it hard or easy to watch a computer screen for class? Do you feel they were a good value? Please share your impressions with those of us waffling...

(hip bump)

Seriously I can't be the ONLY one...

Originally Posted by aziyade

Seriously I can't be the ONLY one...

Do they swear you to secrecy when you sign up?

The first rule of online bellydance classes club is ....

I downloaded a sample class of one of Delilah's Power Belly classes. It was downloadable with some kind of protection that limited the number of times you could view it. It was a good bellydance based workout class, and there was a fun combo taught at the end. However, I don't have my computer hooked up to my TV, so dancing in front of the computer screen is not the best. With so many good bellydance videos on the market for around $20, I honestly don't see the advantage of subscribing to online classes with their restrictions over buying several DVDs and rotating them. I know some of them come with online communities, which is a nice touch to make it more like a class, but you could start an online discussion with people working with the same DVD.

However, I don't have my computer hooked up to my TV, so dancing in front of the computer screen is not the best.

This seems to be a major issue for people. Probably the number one issue.

The second major issue seems to be (for streaming video) the lack of wi-fi or internet connection in their dance or practice space.


Then we have to address the issue of "ownership" of the material.

When I buy a dvd, I own it. I can watch it once or a thousand times. I can play it on my computer or in my dvd player. I can (I think even legally) rip it to a digital file and play it on my iphone. I can lend it to people, I can sell it.

When I sign up for subscription classes, I can't (legally) save them to disk for later use a year from now. I can't burn them to dvd. I can't rip them to my phone. I can't use them beyond their expiration date and I have to be connected to the internet to use them. I have no "ownership" of the material that I "rented."

Ultimately we have to decide if we as a community value OWNERSHIP of content over renting it. Or if we are okay with renting the material and then "stealing" it to own by working around the streaming technology or breaking the DRM on downloaded files or whatever. Personally I don't particularly enjoy knowing that I have to do something "shady" to keep content that I would just as soon have bought on dvd.

I've done Suhaila's online classes and really enjoyed them. You have a whole class format, non stop, waiting for you - you dont have to think what shall i do next, or skip bits in DVDs that you can already do or where they are explaining it. I liked suhaila as she challenged my technique, as I'd work for about 30 mins on one isolation, something I probably wouldnt do much myself, and she did a lot of strengthening exercise, which I feel I need.
The bad thing about suhaila's classes is that they are not all taught be suhaila - suhaila is a really fun teacher with a personality, who says funny things and chats to her students, which even though you are not there makes the whole thing more enjoyable. Her two sub teachers don't have the same warmth and personality as Suhaila, which makes their teaching sessions more like boring must-get-trough-this work than yeah-i'm-going-somewhere work.
There is a difference between dvds and online classes, and to be honest once you have properly worked through and mastered a DVD you probably won't look at it much again anyway. I liked the emphasis on base technique and really felt my dance practice has gained a lot from the online suhaila classes.

Originally Posted by aziyade

Then we have to address the issue of "ownership" of the material.

I'm not sure this is entirely ours to decide. Music licensing is part of the equation, and if the RIAA had their way, every time a song was played for any reason, it would be reported back to them and a fee would be levied. These are the same people who tried to argue that a ringtone on a phone constituted a "public performance" because if your phone rang in public, an "audience" would hear it like at a concert. Honestly, I'm not sure it is 100% legal to loan a piece of commercially produced physical media unless you've paid some additional licensing fees. I'm sure even if it is, at one point somebody from the entertainment industry tried to argue that it shouldn't be.

There is a legitimate concern about intellectual property protection with downloadable classes. Copying media is already seen by a lot of folks as a permissible, "victimless" crime, and I think the problem is compounded when there is no physical media involved. If you want to bootleg a disk, you have to touch the CD. There's a reality to what you're doing. If it's a file on your hard drive, you're just copying a file. That just doesn't feel as tangible and "steal-y."

I completely agree that once you buy something it should be yours with full ownership, but I don't take things that aren't mine when I could buy and own them honestly. Other people live by rules where they think it's okay to cut such corners. If we could guarantee everybody understood the honor system, it wouldn't be so bad, but what incentive is there to produce downloadable classes if you know that a substantial fraction of the people who'd use them will not be compensating you for them?

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I'm not sure this is entirely ours to decide.

I need to restate this: What we have to decide as a community is whether or not we will ACCEPT the "rental" model.

Nobody had issues renting movies from Blockbuster, or getting movies "on-demand" that you could only watch for 24 hours. We like the immediacy and ease of renting media that way. So we continued to support it financially.

Now, if dancers decide that we don't particularly like the rental model for instructional content, then we will just stop subscribing to the classes and the whole budding industry will collapse.

That's what I mean about deciding how we feel about it. Voting with our dollars.

There is a legitimate concern about intellectual property protection with downloadable classes.

I completely understand, for instance, Ansuya or Suhaila NOT wanting you to download and store their classes.

Now what I have to decide for myself, as a subscriber, is this:
Is it worth it to me to pay a fee and have access to certain material for a limited period of time?

As a consumer, I find that PERSONALLY, I would much prefer content that I can keep and save, to work with at my own pace, and when I choose. If my subscription class prevents me from having access to the material for an indefinite period of time, then I know I will be tempted to set the video camera up and videotape the class playing on my computer screen.

Suhaila sells choreography classes on her site, with 30 day access and no printed notes. She used to sell a DVD package of the Level 2 choreography -- for $25 you got a dvd of the class learning the choreography, a CD of the cymbal track, and detailed notes. When I was learning this choreography it took me about 4 months of working with that dvd before I finally felt comfortable enough with it to take the level 2 workshop. NOW she sells that same choreography, for $25, on her site. You still get the notes, but you only get access to the video for 30 days. If you want it for a longer period of time, you have to re-buy it. So if it takes you 4 months to learn, it would cost $100. And you have nothing to use to review later.

If I were trying to learn that level 2 choreo now, would I "cheat" and set up the video camera to tape the streaming class? Yes, I would. I'll be honest.

what incentive is there to produce downloadable classes if you know that a substantial fraction of the people who'd use them will not be compensating you for them?

I think this is a different issue.

Let's look at Hannan Sultan's downloadable content. She gives you 3 options:
1. Rent for a limited time (to check it out and see if you want to own it.)
2. Download the digital file
3. Receive a physical DVD in the mail.

Now, if I wanted to, I could download her digital files, burn them to a bunch of dvds and pass out those dvds to all of my friends. I could ALSO buy the physical DVD, copy it a bunch of times and pass them out to my friends. I don't do this because I'm not a thief and I believe if it's worth stealing, it's worth paying for.

I could also give all of my friends my login and password to the Suhaila and Ansuya online class websites. I don't do this because I'm not a thief and I think if the classes are valuable enough that I would recommend them, people should pay for them.

The above cases are sort of OBVIOUS in that they are depriving the original content creator of new subscribers, or of selling their content to new purchasers.

But is it the same crime to set up a video camera in front of your computer screen and videotape a streaming class? Well, YES technically you are violating the TOS, so yes it is. The question that we are going to have to address is this: How many purchasers will accept and tolerate the "rental" model for content and NOT try to keep expired media on their computers?

Review of Suhaila's online classes:

I covered this a while back in this thread:
http://www.bhuz.com/showthread.php/3...online-classes

but I want to amend a little, since I've had the chance to play around with Ansuya's classes, and I'm exploring Suhaila's level 3 classes more.

I agree with the poster who said the classes where Suhaila is actually teaching are much more fun and dynamic in general.

Level 1 and 2 classes
If you are trying to master the material for Suhaila's certification, these classes (or the audio training) are great practice tools. The drilling of one movement (like a horizontal figure 8) over various traveling steps is usually about 45 minutes long. The combo taught at the end is a good practice drill, but I'm usually not crazy about what they look like and they aren't combos I would "lift" to use in my dancing.

Level 3 classes
These are not accessible unless you are level 1 certified, and they offer NO exceptions! Although these classes contain what I consider to be the "meat" of dance technique and emotional artistry, they are often taught to hiphop or jazz/modern music and the combos are very modern dance or jazz fusion. If you're not into that, it can be not so fun to work with. There is a LOT of good instruction in these classes, and a lot of information about general dance technique.

Folkloric Fusion and Jamila classes
Great cymbal drills, but they have been putting up fewer and fewer of these classes, and now I think we get only one Jamila class a month, which is sad.

Dance Movement
I really want to like these, but again I see a good idea that I don't feel is terribly well-executed.

BONUS classes
A couple of times a year they put up free bonus classes with guest instructors. These are usually quite fun, and subject-based (double-veil, khaliji, cane).

OLD CONTENT:
The last time I checked, they still had classes from March of 2009 available, so they aren't really rotating content out very quickly. Which is good. There are a couple of the technique classes that I have practically memorized because I have watched them so many times.

In short, be prepared to sweat, because most all of the content of all of these classes is drilling, over and over again. When I finish these classes I feel like an athlete. But I don't really feel as though I have "danced" -- except for in some of the level 3 classes.

Gypsynet is no longer, but Ansuya is doing her on online classes through her website. I think she's a great instructor, and if you enjoy her style you'll probably enjoy these classes.

Aziyade, thanks for these in-depth posts!

Originally Posted by aziyade

I could also give all of my friends my login and password to the Suhaila and Ansuya online class websites. I don't do this because I'm not a thief and I think if the classes are valuable enough that I would recommend them, people should pay for them.

I suppose one could argue that this case of "Here, try mine" is morally in the same gray area as lending someone a physical product. How wrong it is sort of comes back to the intention. I think most people would agree it's more unethical to lend a DVD if you knew lending it would preclude that person's buying it, than if the person wanted to "test drive" it with a sincere intention to purchase it if it met their needs. Then again, some people don't find any of this morally wrong and think everything should always be free, no matter how much it effectively deprives its owner of reasonable compensation.

The question that we are going to have to address is this: How many purchasers will accept and tolerate the "rental" model for content and NOT try to keep expired media on their computers?

If I could figure this out, I could sell it to the Digital Rights Management cabal (with lots of internal gimmicks designed to make sure they completely respected my intellectual property, at the expense of punishing conscientious people who aren't doing anything wrong...). In an industry like ours that doesn't have the luxury of suing everyone who transgresses, we're back to the honor system.

I guess one approach would be to change the way students think about videos. Most students are realistic enough to loosen their information-hoarding death grip on workshops and weekly classes (you're not usually allowed to film those, and while you might take notes, you don't intend to preserve every second for eternity). How much stuff was lost when VHS tapes became obsolete? How much great dancing never got onto film? There's so much left to find out, and so much that has slipped into history's unknowable abyss, why does it matter if you can't save one hour of video forever?

Originally Posted by aziyade

I need to restate this: What we have to decide as a community is whether or not we will ACCEPT the "rental" model.

Nobody had issues renting movies from Blockbuster, or getting movies "on-demand" that you could only watch for 24 hours. We like the immediacy and ease of renting media that way. So we continued to support it financially.

Yes, good point. I can think of a few differences between a bellydance video and a movie that make the rental model less easy to sell to dancers.

When I watch a movie, I'm paying to be entertained. I pay, I'm entertained for 2 hours or whatever, hand it back. A bellyance video is more like reference. I want to retain the material and be able to go back and refresh it every so often. It's like I'd rent a movie or check out a paperback novel from the library, but I'd want to own a reference book or good cookbook.

I think price does come into it too. Generally renting a movie is significantly less expensive than buying a movie, or even a movie ticket at the theater. An online class is about the same price as a class and usually almost as expensive as a DVD. If it cost the same to rent a movie as it does to just buy it, who would bother to rent them?

I just signed up for the three day trial Suhaila membership, which I have been wanting to do for ages! I downloaded a class, and although viewable, the quality is not very good. Has anyone else had a problem with this??

So far, I've had no interest in trying online classes.

My biggest reason is that my Internet service provider's DSL connection is too slow to deliver streaming media continuously. It drives me nuts to wait for video to load in its entirety before watching it, and if I try to start watching it before the download finishes, it'll go for a minute or two, then stop to wait for more to download, then another minute or two, etc. About as much fun as watching paint dry. For that reason, I rarely watch youtube clips all the way through.

Also, because of compression technology, web-delivered videos are a small image size, kind of blurry, with mushy sound quality. My computer laptop screen is much smaller than my television screen. Because of all this, it's hard to see nuances of finer points.

I'm still happiest with physical media.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I guess one approach would be to change the way students think about videos. Most students are realistic enough to loosen their information-hoarding death grip on workshops and weekly classes (you're not usually allowed to film those, and while you might take notes, you don't intend to preserve every second for eternity). How much stuff was lost when VHS tapes became obsolete? How much great dancing never got onto film? There's so much left to find out, and so much that has slipped into history's unknowable abyss, why does it matter if you can't save one hour of video forever?

Hmm.. this is an interesting point that I hadn't considered. Does the "impermanence" of streaming classes lead to a more creative and flexible (artistically, not physically) dancer? Interesting...

Gypsynet is no longer functioning. Anusya is doing her own online classes on her website.

Gypsynet is no longer functioning. Anusya is doing her own online classes on her website.

Originally Posted by aziyade

cont.

The "Level" of the classes

This is so subjective that it's hard to really describe. I would say you get out of them what you put into them.

If you've seen her performances, you'll see that Ansuya is not a dancer who does a lot of systematic "layering" of compound movements. Her layers (as we use the term) are usually shimmies over movements. She doesn't do the Suhaila-style layering much at all, but when she does it seems less like a vertical layer cake and more like a lot of movements that overlap and connect, with one movement beginning as another is finishing. Her drum solo combinations/choreo illustrate this.

What you won't see (for the most part) is a series of structured drills, a la Suhaila. Although there are a couple of classes that focus on JUST technique, each of the classes I watched seem to focus more on giving you emotional and energetic OPTIONS -- showing you how to get the most energy and emotionality out of a step or movement, rather than drilling that same movement with various layering options and over varied traveling patterns. (Suhaila students will understand this -- having repeatedly heard her scream out "Make it more VILLAGE!!" lol.)

Keep in mind that what is being taught here is "Contemporary Vintage" (lol) American Cabaret/Oriental style, with Ansuya's assorted world fusion elements thrown in. Vintage American Oriental has a different aesthetic and a different movement vocabulary (no Reda influence) and a different relationship to the music than (for instance) modern Egyptian. If you're looking for new "steps" or "new moves" -- I'm not sure this is the right place to look. New combinations, yes. New ways of approaching those combinations, yes. New attitudes and energy flow, yes.

Anyway:
I'd say moderately beginning dancers would be able to learn the step combinations easily and work on layering. Ansuya repeats the steps slow enough and enough times that the student would probably have it pretty solidly in the brain.

Intermediate dancers can start working on cymbals, and the emotional perspective and actually DANCING and not just walking step-hip, step-hip.

More advanced dancers can do all the above and focus on performing techniques and energy flow, levels, breath, etc. Advanced dancers will also understand the importance of re-taking beginner levels and really "milking" the classes for all you can.


Ansuya is a light-hearted and personable teacher. She is quick to laugh and she makes you smile. She promotes fun, but not "fluff." That attitude is reflected through the classes.

Which one do you recommend? I guess I can try out Suhaila`s classes for free and get an idea. If Ansuya ALSO does this, that would be great!

Forgot this... What is the address for Ansuya`s online classes?

Is it GypsyNet?

Gypsynet is no longer functioning. Anusya is doing her own online classes on her website.

Aziyade, your selling me on Ansuya's classes. Are you getting paid?

About the view-ability;
I don't think that many of those who are offering online classes think of it enough as a business.
Any business would look at the option of higher priced goods = less buyers, or low priced goods = more buyers, witch equel the same amount of profit.
From a business point there will always be those who steal. The question should be is it worth the turn off of potential subscribers vs many more paying subscribers with the added risk of copies being illegaly downloaded by people who most likely wouldn't pay anyway?

LOL, no kickbacks for me :)


On the illegal distribution of downloaded classes:

Since Suhaila started her online classes in the spring of 09, I've been searching for pirated copies of the classes on torrent and warez sites. (Yeah, I'm an armchair Bellydance Piracy Policeman.) Although her instructional dvds have been uploaded everywhere, I have yet to find a copy of her online classes, her subscription choreographies, DRM-broken or otherwise, or any of the content from the website.

This leads me to believe that either there isn't a pirate market for the content (which I doubt) or else Suhaila's subscribers don't want to upload that content, (which I totally believe).

If anyone else distributing downloadable content can muster that kind of fierce loyalty to the product/brand, then we won't see their content being pirated. Time will tell. I'm monitoring the interwebz to see if Ansuya's content shows up. If it does, that will be a very bad sign for other online producers.

I found a full length class demo (40 min) for Ansuya here:
http://www.thegypsynet.com/tour/
Click the arrows until the video slides in. It's like a hidden treat!

Also, I LOVED it. I'm really, super considering Gypsynet classes.
I liked that single class so much better than the Suhaila classes 3 day trial. It felt real to me. And yes just like a live class I felt that I was there, and forgot about all my troubles and all my woes too.

Gypsynet is no longer functioning. Anusya is doing her own online classes on her website.

Thank you so much for posting this info, ladies. I've been waffling myself, but I couldn't justify spending $$ on online classes when I still have some DVDs to work with (Jamila's format DVD and Suhaila's 4 basic DVDs). I think I may do some Ansuya classes when I need a quick pick me up, change of pace from DVDs, but once I have the DVDs down, I'll be heading over to Suhaila's site (maybe even for certification... I've been known to like pain :o) )

Originally Posted by kemintiri

I'll be heading over to Suhaila's site (maybe even for certification... I've been known to like pain :o) )

I'm there too :) But you do know that you can't get Suhaila's certification through the online classes, right? You have to do the live certification workshop. The classes are great for drilling the material that's on the test though. Enjoy!