Product Details

• Actors: Neena & Veena Bidasha
• Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 4
• Studio: Goldhill Home Media
• VHS Release Date: November 16, 1999
• Run Time: 120 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00002AFWO
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,573 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #2 in	Video > Fitness > By Instructor > Veena & Neena
  #5 in	Video > Special Interests > Dance > By Instructor > Neena & Veena Bidasha
  #8 in	Video > Special Interests > Dance > Belly

• This item is part of The Bellydance Fitness for Beginners Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This boxed set contains four 30-minute exercise videos from professional belly dancers Veena and Neena Bidasha:

Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Hips, Buns, and Thighs: Most of this is a buttock and thigh workout starting with traditional leg lifts and lunges and leading to belly-dance-inspired moves like squeezing one buttock at a time or circling the hips. The fun begins later with "hip drops" and "hip lifts" with added leg and arm positions.

Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Arms & Abs: This video helps you tone arms and abs with isolations that use smooth, flowing movements. Special motions of the wrists and fingers make the moves look dramatic and fluid, sometimes snakelike. Meanwhile, you're working your abdominals by lifting, shifting, and circling your ribcage. The workout includes some difficult abdominal moves done on the floor.

Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Fat Burning: This is a belly-dance-inspired cardio workout done barefoot. The routine builds from simple foot movements that establish rhythm to more intense moves with hops and jumps. Don't expect your belly to do the dancing in this video--the legs and feet do all the work here, except for some hip moves during the cool down.

Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Basic Moves teaches body isolations--head, arms, shoulders, ribcage, and hips--that are incorporated into dance movements later. It's not really an exercise routine as much as a class of basic belly-dancing moves, though your abs and hips will certainly get a workout from all that rib-pushing and hip-rolling action. --Joan Price

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shimmy your way to fitness and have a blast, March 23, 2001

By	Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

Let's face it, exercise can be boring (especially alone.) If you are planning to exercise with only the company of your video player and closed curtains, it might as well be fun.

Neena and Veena are identical twin dancers, which makes for a visual experience that is unparalleled in exercise videos. The sets are appropriate but not distracting and the twins wear leotards plus a hip-isolating scarf that accentuates the important hip movements. The voice-over is clear and easy to hear, the music is Middle-Eastern style but soft enough not to detract from the instructor.

There are four videos in the set: the Fat Burning routine mainly uses the legs and is kind of low-impact aerobic. Basic Moves teaches body isolations which is the most important building block of belly dance itself. This video is useful for learning the basics of belly dance itself. Arms and Abs focuses on the arm isolations (snakes, undulating arms, hands) that are essential to dance but also work the upper body and stomach, when you drop to the floor and do mat work (have an exercise mat handy.) Hips, Buns, and Thighs: uses leg lifts and lunges, hip circles and hip drops. Arms are added to make it more dance-like.

If you want a dance routine to watch, stay til the end of the vidoe for your reward (there is a solo.) If you want a basic dance routine to do yourself, Neena and Veena have produced a separate video called The Sensual Art of Belly Dance: Basic Dance. It has step-by-step instructions for body isolations leading to a short routine. It makes a great overall warm-up and mild workout and is also a good introduction to belly dance.

75 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Attention Beginners - this is a great set., February 1, 2000

By A Customer

The box set offers the beginning bellydancer terrific instruction and a gentle workout for those who are just looking for exercise. This is the best I have seen for instruction so far - far better than Bellydance: Fast Moves, Bellydance; magical motion et. - those tapes are a waste of money. This box set is not. Now Neena and Veena make some more instructional videos on intermediate and advanced egyptian dance and one on how to coreograph several dances. A tape of you doing different egyptian dances in costume (just for viewing - not instruction) would also be a great addition. Keep up the good work and make more videos. You are terrific. The box set is an excellent investment for the beginner belly dancer or for someone who wants an entry level exercise tape.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, October 9, 2000

By	"kitiera" (North Charleston, SC USA) - See all my reviews

As an advanced dancer, I was less than intrigued when the hype started on this video set... but then, I was lent one of the tapes. I IMMEDIATELY went out and bought the whole set! These tapes are a beautiful, gentle, low-impact workout and are valuable for every dancer, beginning and advanced alike. The twins have put together an excellent fitness routine that is both meditative and sweat-inducing. It is the first of its kind and I want MORE! The people who were disapointed with the video series were expecting something other than what was advertised. This is a WORK OUT series for bellydancers or those who wish to become bellydancers, not instructional how-to tapes. It is intended to prepare and tone your muscles for the art of middle eastern dance. The video taping is excellent and professional. Veena and Neena do performances at the end of each tape, and they are superb dancers. I can't wait until they release more videos!