Getting in Touch with my Feminine Side

I have felt guilty not working out the last few days, despite riding my bike to work and back- it's finally nice enough to do that. Well, OK discounting the gale force winds and light rain...still, nice enough (no snow is enough for now - been a cold spring).

On holidays I swung by a few bellydance studios in Toronto looking for cool swag (there're no bellydance stores here) and other than a cool coin chain belt for dancing and a neat sword for learning balancing and dancing, at the Dark Rythm Studio (run by a costudent of my tribal teacher) near Kensington market I picked up a new workout DVD. I should have gotten a few more DVDs and a nice hip scarf while I was there, but it had been 3 days of a whole lot of seeing things and shopping and I tend to burn out after a while and not get anything at all...but I couldn't pass this DVD up.

The DVD had been recommended to me by my tribal teacher as a good workout, with bellydance based movements - the Fat Chance Bellydance studios Woman Power Workout DVD. I checked the length on it yesterday (~70 min) and skimmed it while having breakfast so I could get up today armed with weights and a veil to try it. Although I do have a few issues with the camera work (occasionally it's more arty than instructional so you can't see what the ladies are doing with all their limbs) it *is* a good workout. There is a beginning stretch and warm up and then the workout is broken down into 12-15 minute chunks - one is a bellydance based cardio part, one is a veil workout with lots of arm work and one part is a strength and toning workout where you use either a resistance band and pole or free weights in comnibation with squats and lunges to work your major muscle groups. There is also a cool down stretch out portion at the end where the stretches are based on traditional indian dance poses...neat.
Over all I liked this DVD, but it is definitely not for a beginner. If you had not taken a tribal bellydance class before, this DVD would be very frustrating, because although she gives verbal cues of what moves come up next, if you don't know how to do them, you're out of luck. You would just have to watch and learn and hope you have the right technique for the cardio part, though the other sections are pretty self explanitory. Other DVDs I've gotten from places like Dance New York have an intro section on their DVDS where they go over the moves and teach them to you before putting them all together into a routine or workout-I think this DVD just assumes you have either taken classes or you have their 2 instructional technique DVDs (which I've been told are very good teaching tools) and have learned the basics first.
It *is* a remarkably good workout though. The cardio bit is fun, and the strengthening portion is a good workout...I could feel it in my arms and legs by the time it was done. The veil stuff was fun , altho I will have to tuck my cats away next time - they like the veil a bit too much and got in the way. The cool down was interesting as some of the poses were really beautiful, but most of the poses are new to me, so I'll have to do it a few more times before I feel at ease in them. Not as good a stretchout as other workouts, but sufficient. A few more times through the whole DVD should give me the familiarity I need to get the moves right, and not feel so fumbly...I can feel that I used my muscles - particularly my butt, back and upper arms. Good stuff. It is nice to have a choice of DVDs to go through to change up the workouts...

Now? After some cereal and a bike to work, it's time to get to it. Bye :)

My new industrial strength workout

My DVD's finally came!

It was just the thing to kive be a kick in the ass to get back at morning workouts again.

This morning I crawled out of bed at 5:30 (I know I didn't like it either) to pop in this baby:

Shakra Industrial Strength Dance Workout.

So far, I am tentatively giving it 2 sweaty thumbs up.

I am also admitting I am seriously out of shape cardio wise...This was hard.

The DVD had a longer 45 min workout that goes thru all the moves slowly and builds them up into sequences for exercise. Then there is a 25 min one that uses all these moves for a hardcore faster workout, with no slowing down for explaining and demonstration. Being a newbie I stuck to the long workout and was pleasantly surprised. They clearly break down all their moves and help you repeat them and work up in speed until you're doing them at top speed. There's arm moves, torso focused moves and leg work, even some squatty, knee raising stuff. I exhausted some muscle groups this morning...it looks like it will be a fun way to build some muscle tone and a pleasant diversion from by exercise ball DVD workout, which is good, but tedious after a few years of doing it. Because of the slowing down for explaining, I didn't get too sweated up, but from what I did do, I can see the shorter workout getting the heart rate going...

The routines on this are a lot like taebo where there's some moves I'll need to practice in sequence for a few workouts before I'm not flailing like Animal at a drum set, but I was impressed. Most of the moves are actual bellydance/fusion dance moves, so not only am I getting muscle tome in arms legs and butt, I'm reinforcing and learning more dance moves. Very cool.

I like learning more movements and making them fluid and fast. I'm good at torso and hip stuff in bellydance, but my arms need strength and toning, so this should help me out a lot.

There is also a separate 20 minute cooldown on the DVD that goes thru stretching all the groups...I did it and it worked very well. There is even some technique training sections fro fusion moves, but I haven't gotten to that yet...I skimmed through it and it seems to go thru a lot of basic dance moves and posture, so that even a beginner would feel good jumping in. I haven't done the 25 minute workout yet...I'm going to spend a few weeks on the longer one to get the moves down so I don't hurt myself or get too discouraged by trying too much too soon (I'm good at that...). If you haven't done any bellydance or other dance before, you might find some of the movements a bit unfamiliar, but they do a really good job of breaking them all down ,so even the inexperienced can muddle thru in the end..altho you'd need to build up some of the muscles I've gained form bellydance as you go. Those newly awakened muscles can get a bit twingy, but it is worth it. You get all kinds of ab and arm toning from this. The DVD has a lot of leg movement and lungy/squatty type stuff that will work on my legs, so I'm excited about that. Bellydance doesn't have a lot in the way of legwork, so my legs are far less toned than the rest of me at the moment. The music leans to industrial and techno, but my tastes can lean that way, so I didn't mind.

This morning I actually had fun, when I wasn't struggling to breathe or twist myself around in odd new positions...:) I am SO out of shape.

The other DVD I got was a Contemporary bellydance yoga DVD that I'm itching to try (free shipping...I was sucked in). This one has over an hour of tribal fusion movement drills as well as a 36 minutes yoga workout designed to focus on the muscles commonly used in bellydance. Nifty. I would like to do more yoga...I'm hoping this will make it interesting for me.

I'm determined to find some fun new ways to workout until the snow melts. It's been too much to get out of bed early to workout...I needed new shiny distractions to get me back at it.

Hopefully this will be the thing :)