Cheap Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss featuring Rania: Bellydance Boogie (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss featuring Rania: Bellydance Boogie

Slow and Sensual Routine with Playful Spontaneity
Your inner goddess may feel a little shy at the start of this specific routine. Not only are the moves quite sexy, they can at times make you feel like you are "strutting your stuff," which may or may not appeal to you depending on whether you enjoy people watching you dance or you like to dance for your own pleasure. The sensuality seems a little more overt and this routine has some sultry moves. <
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>At first the routine relies on traditional favorites, figure eights and snake arms. Then as you feel your arms toning up, you enter fun spins/turns and get to practice the camel. This is an intermediate workout for sure because no steps are explained and the dancers are expected to know how to move on cue at a rapid pace. The cueing on this DVD is perhaps the best I've ever seen and the moves are repeated enough, that by the end you are actually dancing along providing a great confidence boost! <
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>The Bonus dance sections show what can be accomplished over time, although I was more impressed with the compact dancer exercise routine to firm the lower body. If you are feeling a little shy, this will wake up your inner dancer and since you are constantly moving you will be having fun and burning calories too. I actually liked the music on this routine and felt it kept me moving and interested in learning new steps and routines that are way more fun to do than other tummy toning exercises like sit ups that become boring and repetitive. Bellydancing is always entertaining to watch, even when you are learning the routine. <
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>~The Rebecca Review <
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not the best of both worlds
I am relatively fit but just had a baby and needed a fun workout that would help for the postpregnancy belly fat. It may strengthen the abs but probably won't do much to burn fat. The workout length is 30 minutes (5 minute warm up and cool down and about 20 minutes for the workout). Part of the 20 minutes, not surprising, is pretty low key while she teaches basic moves, so youaren't likely to get your heart rate up until the end of the 20 minutes when she starts combining moves into a dance. <
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>The instruction is quite good, Rania's give very good visual anaologies to help you know if you are doing the body mechanics properly. For a novice bellydancer, it is going to take a while to learn these moves and combine them to keep up with the dance. I think with regular practice I'll get the hang of it. <
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>Rania doesn't patronize the view too much with comments like "You can do it". I only recall one. <
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>Being a TaeBo fan, I would have liked some intense drills of basic isolating moves. Rania is basicly teaching moves and combining them into a dance towards the end, so if that is what you are looking for, this should be okay. <
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>If you are looking for a powerful fatburning workout this isn't it. If you are looking for exercise drills to improve your muscle isolations for aspiring bellydancers this probably isn't it either. It is a moderate to easy workout but will require a lot of practice to master the moves to keep up with the combined moves. Once you accomplish this it might become more of a moderate workout. <
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>One caution for those with knee problems, this "workout" requires is a bit of deep knee bending and lunges, a nightmare for anyone with chondromalasia patella. I am going to adapt my moves to work about this part. <
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>I would have preferred music that is a little more authentic to the art of belly dancing. The music wasn't too bad though I think R&B is an odd choice.

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Slow and Undulating Always Wins The Race
If you're not familiar with the Bellydancer Rania and her Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss series, she is an AFAA certified Fitness Instructor and internationally renowned bellydancer. Her four part workout series fuses bellydance moves with a variety of different Western musical rhythms in her belief that bellydance can be done to any kind of music. With soundtracks not always coming off as authentic sounding as one may like; you'll have to use your imagination a bit when you hear the `Disneyesque' and sometimes cartoonish sounding strains of Hip Hop, Salsa, and R & B. The Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss series are a set of fun workouts and a great way to interject life into a dull and stale workout routine. <
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>Before beginning each workout it's important to keep in mind what these are -- workouts. Although you will learn some bellydance, as all of the routines are nearly completely comprised of bellydance moves, don't expect to buy this DVD and have it be your one-stop shopping for instruction and workout. They haven't made anything like that yet. The pacing required for instruction is way too slow to get your heart rate up for a cardiovascular or fat burning workout. Rania does a very good job of creating routines with moves using similar muscle groups, starting with a slower tempo to teach the move and then returning quickly to full tempo, layering all the movements together to create an interesting routine. Lots of repetition will give you plenty of great bellydance practice. <
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>Each one of the four follows a similar format and vary only in specific content and theme. Bellydance Boogie is supposed to fuse the sounds of Hip Hop and R&B with bellydance but once again you have to use your imagination here. It's the slowest of the four workouts but not the easiest. The smoother and more undulating bellydance moves featured here will work your muscles in surprising ways considering its slower pace -- further proof that a faster, higher impact workout isn't always a better one. The Bonus section of this disc includes Rania's sword dance and Rania's improvisation dance from "Bellydance Divas" and The 10 minute long Dancer's Legs & Buns workout from "Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss: Daily Quickies...5 Ten Minute Workouts." <
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>The workouts are set in a studio and Rania is backed up by a small group of dancers in matching workout attire w/ hip scarves -- similar in look and feel of the Crunch workout series but without all those annoying logos. The back up dancer's bodies are all variations on different female body types with some being curvy and some skinny, and at least one should look how your body could look if it were in a little better, but not rock hard, shape. <
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>Each of the four workouts has a warm up of roughly 5 minutes. 20 minutes is spent on each disc devoted to instruction and routines. All four finish with a cool down and stretch segment of approximately 5 minutes in length. My biggest complaint is that I wish workouts were longer in length. 30 minutes just isn't enough for me to keep the fat molecules at bay. I would rather the workout be an hour in length and I could always quit part way through on days I have only 30-40 minutes to workout. Also, studies show that the body does not even begin to burn fat until after 20-30 minutes of sustained cardiovascular activity. <
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>Not a lot of explanation is given to the individual bellydance moves but nearly everything is done in half-time to start before moving up to full tempo. Rania's voiceover often gives pointers as to how the moves are done but one would need to either be a little bit familiar with bellydance, or have a dance friendly set of coordination skills. Nearly anyone could eventually pick up most of the bellydance being done on these DVDs with enough patience and practice. Even without doing the moves perfectly you'll still have fun and get a good workout. Only the beginner absolutely new to all forms of dance would be truly lost. Some of the names Rania gives to certain Bellydance moves are different than I've heard them called before but this is common in the dance world where dancers come up with a move and patent the only part people can't `steal' -- the name. Don't let this bother you; it happens in Bellydance, Hip Hop, Salsa, et all. The move is probably the same thing you learned in class just with a different name. <
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>Probably the biggest complaints about Rania's DVDs are concerning her stiffness, often vacant look, and inability to sustain a heartfelt smile. The look and smile I just consider window dressing for a video; I'm certainly more concerned with her ability to dance and teach. As far as her stiffness goes, it does have one advantage here -- a slightly stiff body is actually easier for a beginner to follow because lots of extra movement is distracting to the beginner who is merely trying to get the essence of a move down pat. While it may irritate an intermediate to professional dancer to watch, the beginner will benefit, and although Rania is certainly not the most fluid of dancers, the routines in the bonus section will attest that some, but not all, of her stiffness comes from making the workout moves look simpler. This is, of course, a fitness video for beginners. <
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>In all, each of the four workouts are fun and you'll learn a little bit of dance. I just wish they all were longer.