Customer Reviews

Instant Bellydancer 1: A Crash Course in Belly Dance

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Are you just beginning to bellydance or are you at the place where you are trying to string some moves together into a cohesive "thing?" This is a good DVD to show you how. This breaks down all of the basics, with great alignment and technique to get you started, and also helps you actually "dance." There is a difference between learning the moves and "dancing." This DVD helps. Neon is a energetic, fluid, natural dancer, and helps us (me?) to believe we can be one too. It is a good basic DVD to get you going with bellydance, and a good "checkup" as well when you are feeling stagnant with your skills.

When I purchased the DVD I expected it to be a little different. It has its ups and downs. It's a nice DVD for a complete beginner but it's still lacking in some ways.

PROS of DVD / What to expect from it:
1. Neon teaches some basic moves, her instructions are clear and you can actually see her muscles working (she's very muscular).
2. There are traectories and pointers, a wonderful way to learn the concept of the moves.
3. Everything could be seen very well.
4. Neon is a very graceful dancer and she's very fluid in an inspiring kind of way.
5. A great extract from Neon's performance DVD Stellar Body.

CONS of this DVD / what NOT to expect from it:
1. Title is misleading. It will NOT make you instantly a bellydancer. It shows you a bunch of moves to try out on your own and an idea how they are done gracefully but that's it. It does not give you a sense of completion (it didn't happen with me anyways). There is no choreography included, just a couple of combinations which are nice but far away from qualifying you as a bellydancer.
2. It lacks a certain inspiring atmosphere; I saw other people complained about too. Neon's clothes are very close to the body and you can see every contraction or twist. However, I can understand how that could be a disappointment to anyone who expects hip scarves, fanning skirts or harem pants. The music background she uses is in a matching rhythm but I would have prefered more Mid-Eastern tunes. In other words, the setting lacks some authentic quality to it.
3. There is no warmup at all. I would expect that a complete novice at bellydancing should be given a few suggestions how to prepare for dancing. (I don't care for those long head-tilting-toe-lifting types of warmup but a few words would have been nice).
4. I haven't bought DVD lvl 2 and I'm sure more's shown there but I was stunned to see that Neon would teach full body undulations but nothing about hip drops/ hip bumps! In other words, what she teaches is thematically correct the way it's organized but probably not sequence-correct.

If you enjoy dancing or want to learn to master a few moves at home, this would be a wonderful DVD for your collection. However, if you have lasting interest in learning bellydance, be prepared to spend more money on another set of instructions as well. When I ordered DVD I ordered in addition The Heartbeat of Bellydance, also available on amazon.com. It turned out to be a very good idea even though there is a gap in the levels taught. Only one DVD would have never been sufficient.

Neon is a phenomenal teacher.  Her strength is in how she breaks down the belly dance movements and shows how they are interconnected.  I am a fan of Neon's instruction and here is why. I was challenged when it came to comprehending where the movement comes from and what it consists of.  I could watch a dancer do her "signature" move 100 times but I couldn't tell what she was doing.  My teachers taught me many dance moves with exotic names such as camel, snake, fish, arabian horse, maya, omi, hiproll, so I worked on these moves like they had no relation to each other. But they all ARE related, and I wish I'd known this from the start because it's much easier to learn and understand when you know this. Neon teaches you to group the movments according to what body parts are involved and what directions they move. Neon's two "Instant Belly Dancer" DVDs have taught me how to analyze the building blocks of each move and how to detect these building blocks even in the moves and combinations that i'm still trying to get.  Now that was worth $15!   I'm embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to get "undulation" or "camel" in class.  I couldn't believe it when I saw Neon teach an undulation by saying "draw a vertical circle forward with your chest" and then "relax your hips and your body will follow and will result in an undulation."  It just took someone who really understands the mechanics of the movement to explain this, and to unlock the understanding inside you. Even when you undulate just the lower body like in Egyptian dance, your chest still does this circle only it's very small, but when a teacher starts by teaching you to keep the undulation below your chest, it's much harder to visualize it. Another thing I learned from Neon is to complete every move. Visualizing them as 3 dimensional figures helped me find the "missing pieces" where I left the movement unfinished because I didn't think of it as a FULL circle, or a FULL figure 8, or a shape like a bowl.  Neon's technique is very sharp and her movement is accurate.  You can see everything perfectly.  Lastly I want to say that whenever I see a real talented video or a new dance style or an awesome instructor, like Neon or Rachel Brice, or Jillina, you will also see a lot of envy and personal attack directed toward them.  People, if these DVDs are too difficult for you or their dance style is not your favorite, put these DVDs on the shelf and take some more classes before using them. Attacking talented people only reflects badly on you.

Instant Bellydancer 1: A Crash Course in Belly Dance is a great way to tone up and trim down. The best part is..you have fun while you are doing it! The lessons are set up so that you can spend as long as you need to learn one move before going on to the next. (Which is great because it is not as easy as it looks!)
Each move is first shown very slowly with detailed explanations on which muscles to contract and which to release. Then the move is shown at normal speed so you can understand the over-all appearance of the dance.
If you are interested in belly dancing, this is a good start. It's great excercise, loads of fun, and just makes you feel good.

I have this DVD. I like it. It's a great introduction to bellydance. OK I'm not crazy about the chosen music. But as far as instruction, EXCELLENT!!!!!It is not boring as it does move along. perhaps a bit fast for this begginer, but hey! thats what the replay button is for. Neon is a class act! If you want to study a paticular "dance" in detail, perhaps this might not be the right program for you. But it is as it states "A crash course" at any rate. I loved it!!!

The instructor in this video has a knack for teaching. Her clear directions don't leave you with questions. Her demonstrations are visible and don't leave you tilting your head trying to figure out just what you missed. She is soft spoken and takes the time to let you watch how she does each step and repeats it for you to follow. Just wait until you get toward the end of the whole lesson. She mixes all the small lessons into a dance. Absolutely hypnotizing.

Neon's new DVD has everything that made me an "instant" fan of her "Instant Belly Dancer" and more. It's Neon's same "3D" system where moves are classified so you can see how each move is built, and also see "dance moves as trajectories following geometric shapes." There are pictures and arrows that break down the moves sooo clearly. OK: what's new? The old "Instant Bellydancer" had only fast tempo demonstrations of how Neon puts the moves together, the new DVD has "practice sessions", one for each move starting from the basic move and adding accents and steps until it gets too hard (for me anyway). I really love how Neon connects all the movements, every new step grows from something and then turns into something else. When I started learning belly dance I got a few videos to study at home, but I kept going back to "Instant Belly Dancer" because it breaks things down. Maybe because I am a new dancer, I have a problem learning when moves are taught without showing how they are related. Neon shows this even better in the new one. The bonus performance in "extras" is nine-and-a-half minutes from Neon's "Stellar Body" DVD (candle tray and shemadan dances)., beautiful, but I already have that DVD, I hoped it would be something new.

Neon teaches basic body circles in this dvd. Hip circles, rib circles, head circles etc. She really breaks it down for you, her instruction if very detailed. With practice she should have you dancing in no time. I have been dancing for a year now and found this dvd very helpful.

Okay since I mentioned this dvd in my review of another dvd by this teacher I have to say something here as well. Here we have very simple and cool explanations of bellyancing moves. So even if you never danced at all, you will get it! That's the entier purpose of this video and it's the best video like this. In the portions where you follow Neon to practice waht you've learned the things she does go quickly from very simple to some serious stuff. it goes from repeating just the one dance step on both sides to some real dance which requires lots of coordination. So there's always something to grow toward, but she makes you feel like you can do this! I also use her "Belly dancing for body shaping. Abs" DVD to to exercise, it's the same moves and you can use this video as a drills.

Neon is one of the must fluid belly dancers I've seen & she can even do moves with that fluidity with candles on her head ( can see that in her performance in the bonus section)
The production quality is very professional.. the background now has some photos instead of stark black. The music is techno which I still don't like & agree with others Eastern would have been better. There is no warm-up of any kind, but she suggest them for harder moves such as back bends, head rolls, etc.
Her teaching is very detailed & great info, more the most of the 30 belly dance dvds I've seen. She starts out verryy slow with info, speeds it up to normal, sometimes adds finesse such as bouncing to a hip circle, then layers/adds moves on top such as adding a chest circle to a hip circle, then you practice with music for a min with what you learned. After several moves there is a review w/music for 6 chapters that contain several moves each. With all the layering & trying to get yourself as fluid & comfortable with the moves as Neon is would take a long time.
For those who are not as coordinated & get frustrated easily & want dvds with more repetition & workout feeling between moves, I would suggest Neena & Veena the bellydance twins first, Amira Mor's bellydance for fitness or cardio, Bellydance Romance, etc. & use this as a way to perfect skills learned there.
There is also 2 practices 1 is 60 min which is all the reviews put together is you don't want to do the slow mo w/o music & want to keep your heart rate up & another for 11 min.

The only thing I wish is music all the time when teaching, even light & not a black background... The way they filmed this feels a bit cold & too cut up so there's not as much flow as other dance videos like above.

You can see a preview clip at totalvid com with several of her other titles & several other bellydance dvds in the fitness section.