Customer Reviews

The Goddess Workout: Introduction to Bellydance

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

The Goddess Workout claims it will do two things--teach you how to bellydance and give you a workout. It is effective at neither. The only positive aspect of this workout is the eye candy. The costumes and sets are gorgeous. But this wasn't meant to be a performance video...it was meant to teach.

The main problem is the camera work. Frequently, the camera focuses on Dolphina's face or chest when you're supposed to be doing things with the lower body. At one point she said "now let's add a leg movement." So I stood there waiting for the camera to show her leg (it was focused on her upper body). And I kept waiting, and waiting. Then we moved on to something else. I never did figure out what she was doing with her leg. Similar things happened throughout the workout. The camera may focus on the proper area for a short time, but quickly moves somewhere else before you can get the movement down.

She explained a few things adequately, but others left me completely lost. She would go on and on about "goddess energy" and chakras which did not help me with dance form at all. She kept trying to act sexy which was really embarassing when one of my family members came in the room. The way she behaves you'd think this was entertainment for men, not dance instruction for women.

Finally, the "workout" did not make me break a sweat, and I am in relatively poor shape. There was a cool down, which was pretty silly because there was nothing to cool down from.

Most of the time the camera is focussed on Dolpina's face. This
makes it impossible to see what her hips and feet are doing. How
can you learn hip movements by looking at the teacher's eyes? You can't. Dolphina is also a poor dancer. She is usually off the rhythm of the music playing in the background and her technique is stiff. The cluttered backgrounds that she uses are distracting. I am an advanced dancer and I frequently couldn't understand what she was trying to demonstrate. One of my beginning students was completely lost. Save your money for a better video.

The good news-
It really does give you amazing all-over tone. I have done the gym thing, and I hate sit-ups and crunches. I always do them wrong and end up hurting something. I have never seen my stomach get this flat and hard so quickly, WITHOUT SIT-UPS, as I have with this video. After one week of regular use, I could see a definite improvement. Now, I do it about 5-7 times a week, because you can actually see an almost daily improvement. It's great.
I sit all day at my desk. So my back hurts at the end of the day. This video really stretches out my back and straightens my posture. My arms and backside look great. I have gone down a dress size in one month of consistent use.

The bad news- The camerawork is shoddy. It focuses on her face too much rather than her actual body-movements. It is difficult to tell exactly what she is doing all the time. It took me about a week to actually figure out what she is doing. I have taken several dance classes and I found it hard to follow. She often loses count. She talks a lot about chakras and serphents that apparently live at the base of your spine, etc.

In sum: Now, that I have figured it out. I love it. It makes me feel good, toned, and relaxed. I don't mind doing it almost everyday. I intend to buy another one.

When I purchased this DVD, I had been bellydancing for about 7 months. Luckily, I had such experience because Dolphina introduces EVERY introductory bellydance move that exists, oftentimes with little explanation. This workout is therefore very fast-paced in the sense that the instructor does not give her audience enough time to master one step before moving onto the next. Even if you are familiar with the moves, it is hard to absorb her techinique (especially with the lower body combinations) for two reasons: she was filmed mainly from the waist up and the attire she wears consists mostly of skirts, so when she's moving her hips, it's hard to tell how her legs control the motion. And forget the routine unless you watch it a few times first because she explains it while performing and expects you to just get it in one shot.
For anyone just starting, go for the Veena and Neena Basic Moves first and work your way up. As for you gurus, try this to test your knowledge, but don't expect a workout.

If you have no prior experience to belly dance, I really don't recommend this Dvd/Video. If you do have previous experience in middle eastern dance and want a fun, new workout to do at home, this would be a good buy for you.
The theme of this video seems to be Dolphina's beauty rather than her dance skill. She lacks rhythm and makes her routinues hard to follow. Her worshiop of the goddess is appreciated here, but in a part of the workout she states to perform a move with the feeling, "you know you want me, but you can't have me", which is a representation of belly dancers that we are trying to get away from. There are other more inspiring teachers/videos to first learn from such as Rania and Veena and Neena.

There are some positive points to this DVD, but the negatives far outweigh the positive.

Negative: Camera work focuses on her face or her breasts or crotch area, not the body part where the particular movement she teaches is located.

Negative: When the camera finally focuses on the correct area, her beautiful costumes get in the way of seeing the movement.

Negative: She is way too fast in many of her movements and counts for the beginning bellydancer.

Negative: The camera angle shows the movement from only one point of view, the front. It is almost impossible to tell where the weight distribution should be or how to do the movement properly from this perspective.

Negative: She gives wrong directions at times for different movements. She does the movement correctly, but does not tell the viewer how to do the movement correctly.

I have very mixed feelings towards this workout. I like the bellydancing but something about Dolphina turns me off. It felt like she was trying to be a sex symbol and appeal to men at the same time as trying to connect with the women who are trying to learn the dance. As a result you get unnecessary foci and panning of her body which unfortunately inhibit the workout. This is particularly true where it gets into the really interesting hip movements. However, if you choose to ignore this you will still be able to learn a majority of the moves in the workout (She also isn't the best at giving directions, but it doesn't matter too much as this is a very loose, free formish workout).

Another issue is her vague goddess talk. Since she doesn't go very in depth about the history and legends she is referring to it ends up sounding very gimmicky, like a ploy to appeal to women seeking empowerment. It makes the dance seem more commercial, especially in light of her company goddesslife.

On the positive side, the sets and costumes are very beautiful. Her voice is very nice and soothing(although that is nullified somewhat by the empty goddess talk). Most importantly, it is fun!

If you want to see what bellydancing is like, want to experience something new and different, or want to add a little variety to your fitness regime (Be forewarned: this is not the best for cardio as it will barely raise your heart rate) then try this. If you want to seriously learn to bellydance I recommend you pick a workout that will illustrate all the moves fully.

This is by far the WORST workout video I have ever purchased. As a matter of fact, this is the FIRST video I am sending back to Amazon.
Firstly, the camera focuses more on dolphina's face than the areas being worked. For instance, when doing hip isolation you don't see dolphina's hips for more than ten seconds. The rest of the time is spent focusing on her smiling face. Meanwhile, you can end up with major back stress/pain if you don't already know the logistics of the isolation exercise she's doing. If I didn't know some belly dancing moves prior to this video, my back would be in big trouble.
Secondly, I didn't feel any burn. The moves don't really focus on toning muscles as much as I had hoped for. Every section is only about five minutes long and, again, either her lack of instruction or the camera only focused on her face made me perform the move wrong so I didn't reap any benefits.
Please, don't waste your money. If you're looking for a video that's about dolphina's smiling face, then you've got the right workout. If you really want to have fun and get toned, don't buy this video.

No, this is NOT the same Dolphina that I saw in "The Goddess Workout - Advanced Bellydance"...

This time she tries really hard to convince you that bellydance is the best way to seduce men. She ends up looking like a strikingly untalented actress from a really corny movie. In addition to all her "sultry" faces and intonation, she constantly says something perfectly silly/irrelevant. If she'd titled this video "Parody of Bellydance", or better yet "Parody of Playboy", I'd have rated it higher - it is quite funny. But apparently she meant to be inspirational :-D

If you are looking for a motivational video that would make you smile in a good way, get "Bellydance for Romance" with Jayna. Jayna manages to look... mmm... desirable... without losing taste and sense of humor.

If you are looking for a quality instruction, quality workout, and overall quality video, "Learn lavish layers with Ansuya" is unmatched.

If you are looking for a comedy, then you just found the right video. It's not only Dolphina's awkward manners that make it worth watching. Most of the moves are so sloppily explained and soooooo sloppily shown here... or not shown at all since her camera operator usually gets distracted with something else. The more complicated the move is, the less time Dolphina spends on it... and the camera person basically misses it! Sometimes Dolphina just gets confused:
- She breaks down a vertical chest circle, then picks up speed with a horizontal one, then walks with a vertical one.
- She breaks down what she calls "Snakes" - a figure that I'd never seen before. Then it turns out the figure is so complicated that Dolphina herself can't perform it up to speed and ends up doing a regular upward hip circle.
- She tells you to alternate between the upper and lower body undulation, but doesn't bother to alternate them herself, sticking to just the lower body undulation.

Most amusingly, she usually can't control her clumsy hands and arms. I also love her weird habit of counting from 1 to 8... because she enjoys it so much... why care for those poor folks who want to hear the music? The routine at the end is a delight: The choreography and the music are a perfect mismatch. I guess both Dolphina and the camera operator were high on drugs while making this video...

On a serious note, I actually do appreciate Dolphina's attempts to convey to the viewer that bellydance is fun and accessible to everyone. OK, she failed, but at least she sincerely tried. I've seen instructors that didn't try in any way to make learning from them enjoyable. Suzanna in her "Precision motion workout" or Nourhan in "Introduction to bellydance technique" try to pack a lot of material in one DVD, and they end up presenting it in a totally unusable way. I'd say their approach is even worse than the one in this psychedelic workout.

At least Dolphina invested in making her scenery outstanding. And she changes not only backgrounds but also her cute outfits frequently, which I always appreciate in workouts, as I do get a bit tired of looking at the same costume for too long. And she has picked pretty addictive music (if you can hear it through her "enlightening" talk and compulsive counting).

I have this video and also The Warrior Goddess, and Bellydance with Veils.

This is a very strange video, the camera work blows, Dolphina uses a strange fake seductive voice and vapid stare. She also talks about her new age views, which is fine, except that combined with the fake sexy voice, it sounds like she's high on drugs. It doesn't lend itself to thinking of her as an authority on dancing.

Besides that, there are actually some redeeming qualities to this video. If you started with Veena and Neena's videos, this is more of a challenge. There are new additonal moves on this video, plus she combines the moves into a short routine at the end (before the cool down). It's also longer than the bellydance videos by the twins, so you will get more mileage out of it.

Dolphina starts with a warm up, shows technique in sections for upper and lower body, demonstrates a routine and then ends with a cool down. From the beginning of the workout to the end, it's about 40-45 minutes.

If you start with the Veena and Neena as a foundation and move to this video, you will be able to make it past the crappy camera work, the phoney sex and Dolphina's odd counting.

Once you are done, move onto the The Warrior Goddess, the camera work is better, no sex bunny stares. She did a much better job in that video.