Thread: Hip Drop Help

Hey! I was wondering if someone could help me out with hip drops. I am learning at home by myself and I was pretty sure that I was doing them right and now I am not so sure. My impression was that you contract your side muscles bringing the hip straight up and then drop it straight down. I saw a few videos where it doesn't look like they are moving their hips straight up and down but with more of an up-to the frontish and down-to the back almost like a diagonal. Which is the correct way? I have seen a lot about correct posture (that you, I was not tucking in my pelvis) and how doing moves wrong over and over can create bad muscle memory. Thank you for any help that you can give!

I do them two ways: one is to lift the hip at the side with the side abdominal muscles and either let go or push down (with the abs); the second way is to lift with a little twist forward and a bit of contraction in the abs of the same side, then to relax the twist and let the hip untwist and fall down. It's the falling of the hip that will release the foot for the "kick".

In both cases, I don't let my lower back go.

So both methods are correct?

Yes, both methods are correct, just different styles.

Every basic step has multiple variations -- sometimes depending on the instructor, often depending on the style of belly dance being taught.

The best advice to anyone who is a beginning dancer is this: you simply can't learn at home from a video. Find a local class you can attend. If there are none, get in touch with an instructor in a town near you and arrange some private lessons, find out about seminars and workshops being offered within driving distance -- and then go get some in-person instruction.

With some private lessons from a reputable instructor, you can use your videos at home to enhance your learning. But, in my opinion, it is extremely rare to find someone who can learn from reading/video without some hands-on/in-person instruction. You do yourself a great disservice by not getting that personal instruction.

I think so. I use the one with the slight twist for more folkloric dancing, usually, or for a bigger, looser movement when the music calls for it.

When pulling up & down from the side, though, my pet peeve is when the hip rises way up and then drops only back to neutral. I like the movement better as a true drop, where the hip starts out at neutral or maybe *very slightly* above neutral and then drops down.

My favorite way of doing a hip drop is to contract the glute & inner thigh of the standing leg (make sure that knee is soft first!) to create a sharp, small snap downward of the opposite hip. That creates a small, sharp percussive drop, great for drum solos or tighter music.

There are a zillion "correct" ways to do a hip drop. As core hip drops, I learned and teach three - what you had worked out, the lift straight up the side and drop back to neutral is one. You can also do that forward and back - so you go up over and down to the front (twisting a bit so the back of your scarf/bum is presented, if you're doing them side-on) and the same but with a twist to present your front, to the back. The easiest way to get the hang of this is to drill the three side-on to your mirror, forward middle back middle, and think of it as writing an "m" with your hip. The other key thing here is leg placement - your supporting leg needs to be bent and its knee will move in and out as the supporting leg hip lowers (when you lift the other hip preparatory to dropping) and returns to neutral. This leg is also what gives you texture, when you use your adductors and/or buttock to make the drop on the other side crisp. Straighter legs give quite a different effect, and personally I think they're better left till you have the hang of this one so you've built strength and control.

The "kick" version, which we call a double hip drop or drop release, uses your lift straight up the side and drop variant. The really important thing with that movement is NOT to "kick" or lift that foot, just let it come off the floor with the force of your drop (and the drop is to neutral, not right through, ie your other hip doesn't swing out).

The "twisted" variant that some people will do involves lifting your hip up on the diagonal and letting it drop back to neutral - to me it has more of a back, back feel rather than down down.

All of this is way hard to explain in words!

Originally Posted by kat

Every basic step has multiple variations -- sometimes depending on the instructor, often depending on the style of belly dance being taught.

The best advice to anyone who is a beginning dancer is this: you simply can't learn at home from a video. Find a local class you can attend. If there are none, get in touch with an instructor in a town near you and arrange some private lessons, find out about seminars and workshops being offered within driving distance -- and then go get some in-person instruction.

With some private lessons from a reputable instructor, you can use your videos at home to enhance your learning. But, in my opinion, it is extremely rare to find someone who can learn from reading/video without some hands-on/in-person instruction. You do yourself a great disservice by not getting that personal instruction.

I am going to be taking a class I just can't afford it until Spring when I am not paying for college classes and my time is no longer taken up with academic classes. I can't wait until I have someone in front of me who can tell me where I am going wrong and what I am doing right. I agree with you but cost is an issue for me at the moment. Thank you for your advice!

Originally Posted by zumarrad

All of this is way hard to explain in words!

Actually I can picture what you are talking about. Thank you so much! ..g.:

Originally Posted by Linnyg

I am going to be taking a class I just can't afford it until Spring when I am not paying for college classes and my time is no longer taken up with academic classes. I can't wait until I have someone in front of me who can tell me where I am going wrong and what I am doing right. I agree with you but cost is an issue for me at the moment. Thank you for your advice!

Linnyg, the only problem with this is that if you are executing moves wrong, or your posture is incorrect, you are building these things into your muscle memory. When you finally do take a class, you and your teacher will have your work cut out for you, trying to unlearn a bunch of bad habits. It takes a lot longer to fix technique than it does to learn it properly in the first place. I have a private student right now who drilled with bad posture to videos for over a year, and it is so difficult and frustrating for her to overcome this. I know I'm being a big meanie, but I'd really recommend holding off until you can work with a live instructor.

Originally Posted by laura 2

Linnyg, the only problem with this is that if you are executing moves wrong, or your posture is incorrect, you are building these things into your muscle memory. When you finally do take a class, you and your teacher will have your work cut out for you, trying to unlearn a bunch of bad habits. It takes a lot longer to fix technique than it does to learn it properly in the first place. I have a private student right now who drilled with bad posture to videos for over a year, and it is so difficult and frustrating for her to overcome this. I know I'm being a big meanie, but I'd really recommend holding off until you can work with a live instructor.

I have to agree - it's much harder to unlearn bad technique then to start fresh.

What you could do until spring is watch performances on video and youtube, and listen to Middle Eastern music, start learning the rhythms, etc.

I have to agree with the others who have said that getting bad habits into muscle memory doesn't gain you any ground for when you finally get an instructor.

Sedonia

Agreed, hold off on learning until you can go to the class, but listen to the music, watch videos and just get up and move to the music as your body feels like doing. You won't be learning dance technique, but you will be learning to move your body with the music.

Originally Posted by ssipes

What you could do until spring is watch performances on video and youtube, and listen to Middle Eastern music, start learning the rhythms, etc.

Great ideas - I'd add stick to recognized good performers of the genre (there's lots of crap out there) and more old fashioned music (often not much Middle Eastern in a lot of the pop numbers)

LinnyG,

I feel your pain! I spent so much of my earlier learning time without an instructor - cost being a variable but also availability in my case. I agree with a lot of what's been said here about being careful so you don't learn things wrong. I can't tell you how many moves I had to unlearn because I learned them wrong in the first place. In my case it was due to what I now consider to be inept instruction, but still very frustrating!

Just by reading your questions, though, it seems obvious that you're pretty in tune with important things like body posture and the many different ways your hips can move. I'm probably gonna get a bit of the zill brigade by saying this, but I don't see any harm with you experimenting with the different methodologies described here to see how they feel on your body and to help you discover your hip muscles. Just so long as you don't drill and are conscious to not get hooked into doing the moves any one way until you're at a point where you can get some instruction and feedback.

And I definitely agree that it's a great idea to increase your exposure by watching YouTube clips and getting performance DVDs to accompany the instructional ones you've already bought. It'll help you build your visual vocabulary and it's incredibly educational to absorb as many different dancers and styles as possible. I'm going through a bit of a health crisis right now that's left me without much lung capacity so I've been going through Youtube clips like crazy just to feel like I'm keeping my mind in the right place. I know it will help me from getting too stale for when I do feel healthy enough to dance again.

Originally Posted by Maena

LinnyG,

I feel your pain! I spent so much of my earlier learning time without an instructor - cost being a variable but also availability in my case. I agree with a lot of what's been said here about being careful so you don't learn things wrong. I can't tell you how many moves I had to unlearn because I learned them wrong in the first place. In my case it was due to what I now consider to be inept instruction, but still very frustrating!

Just by reading your questions, though, it seems obvious that you're pretty in tune with important things like body posture and the many different ways your hips can move. I'm probably gonna get a bit of the zill brigade by saying this, but I don't see any harm with you experimenting with the different methodologies described here to see how they feel on your body and to help you discover your hip muscles. Just so long as you don't drill and are conscious to not get hooked into doing the moves any one way until you're at a point where you can get some instruction and feedback.

And I definitely agree that it's a great idea to increase your exposure by watching YouTube clips and getting performance DVDs to accompany the instructional ones you've already bought. It'll help you build your visual vocabulary and it's incredibly educational to absorb as many different dancers and styles as possible. I'm going through a bit of a health crisis right now that's left me without much lung capacity so I've been going through Youtube clips like crazy just to feel like I'm keeping my mind in the right place. I know it will help me from getting too stale for when I do feel healthy enough to dance again.

I have been watching quite a bit of bellydancing both on YouTube and DVD's I have been getting from Netflix (to the point where my family now believe that I am obsessed). Because I am learning from videos, mostly the bellytwins and Rania and some BDSS, I try to keep an open mind about the moves and try them several ways in a mirror to see if they look like the videos. I just wish I had a video camera so I could tape myself to get a different view of what I look like. I do hope that your health improves.

Originally Posted by Linnyg

my family now believe that I am obsessed).

Welcome to belly dance

Because I am learning from videos, mostly the bellytwins and Rania and some BDSS,

These are good examples of dancers with very Americanized styles. In terms of movements they teach, the movements may or may not be different for say Egyptian style.

There is so much crapola on youtube, here is my channel YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.. My video log is exclusively Egyptians and Egyptian style dancers, guaranteed to cut through the youtube crap. In my "favorites" at large you will find ~75 Egyptian dancer, ~15 good American dancers, and the rest is various stuff you can ignore (non belly dance related).

I'm sure there are other people out there who have compiled good playlists of Lebanese and Turkish dancers as well, but I don't know much about those styles as I primarily do Egyptian.

Oh, the three users whose channels I subscribe to have good playlists also: LaurenRaks, bellybunny, and sbarack