Belly dancing: The superHOT secret to a svelte body
Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 11:33 am
POP diva Shakira’s seductive hip shakes in her pop number ’Hips Don’t Lie’ brought an ancient Arabian dance form back into vogue. It’s a hot, seductive dance, that involves hip thrusts and sensuous movement of torso.
But did you know that practicing belly dancing has health benefits too? Prajakta Sathe, a professional belly dancing practitioner and coach in Mumbai tells you about the health benefits of this sensuous dance.
Most people believe that you have to have a flat or big belly to learn and practice belly dancing, but this is far from the truth. Having a large or small belly makes no difference at all.
Prajakta says, "Because of the name most people believe that belly dancing exercises only the stomach area, but it is a dance that exercise your whole body."
Belly dancing exercises your abdomen area and keeps the muscles around the area flexible. The pelvic thrusts teach you how to move your pelvic area and exercise the pelvic muscles. Your muscles are more flexible and this helps during childbirth.
Gynaecologist Dr. Rishma Dhillon Pai says: Belly dancing exercises the abdominal muscles and maintains the abdomen even when pregnant. It makes pregnancy easier. Also since it exercises the pelvic muscles, it can significantly ease the birthing procedure.
Belly dancing is the English term for the dance form. It is called raqs sharqi (which mean eastern dance) and sometimes raqs baladi (which mean national or folk dance) in Arabic.According to Dr Carolle Jean-Murat, a certified gynaecologist and belly-dancing practitioner, you can burn up to 300 calories with just one hour of belly dancing.
Celebrity trainer Paul Britto says: Belly dancing is a high endurance dance. It exercises all the muscles and it is a great way for one to lose weight and even maintain high fitness levels.
Belly dancing was introduced to America in 1893 at the Chicago World’s fair.
Belly dancing exercises nearly all your muscles, since it requires rigorous hand and feet dance movements. Besides keeping you flexible, the continuous dance can keep your endurance levels up as well. The moves include
- the muscles on your buttocks (the glutes),
- your knee area (the hamstrings)
- and the muscle on the front of your thigh (the quadricep).
The moves usually require you to lie down horizontally on the ground and move. This ensures that your body gets an intense workout without putting any additional pressure on your knees and ankles. Moving your torso is one of the most important movements in belly dancing. So while you seductively move that torso, you are also exercising your muscles around your torso and your back.
Celebrity trainer Prashant Sawant says: Belly dancing definitely keeps you flexible because you are using several muscles at once. Make sure that you are fit for the dance (have high endurance levels) because your muscles are moving in different directions at one time.
Belly dancing is a dance that ensures that your weight is transferred from one leg to another while performing. This technique and the moves involved help you exercise you legs and your major joints like your knee, hip and ankle joints without any pressure. The dance also strengthen your joints which helps keep illness and injury away.
People are supposed to have overcome arthritis with belly dancing. Orthopaedic surgeon Dr PR Sidhwa says: Belly dancing keeps the joints mobile and keep you fit overall.
Mumbai
Prajakta Sathe
2/27, R.K. Building,
Gokhale Road (North),
Dadar,
Mumbai - 400028
Phone: (022) 24362266
Veronica D’souza
Phone: (91) 9819605729
Zenzi
183, Waterfield Road,
Bandra - West,
Mumbai - 400050
Phone: (022) 56430670 / 56490139
Delhi
Mandira
117, Uday Park,
New Delhi - 110049
Phone: (011) 51640493
Rahul and Kanishka
Phone: (91) 9910464896
Thakur Chakrapani Singh
JF - 21, 3rd Floor, Gupta Colony,
Malviya Nagar,
New Delhi
Phone: (011) 55666172
Bangalore
GP Dancertainment
Phone: 9916174139
What it will cost you: The prices for the class may vary from instructor to instructor but the average price of a belly dancing class is Rs 2600 for eight one hour sessions.
Loading ...
