BodyQuake: Latin Samba, Bellydance, Tribal Rhythms: Women's Fitness With a Diffe

"Women's Fitness With a Difference."

BodyQuake is led by Keti Susnjar, aka Keti Sharif, an Australian Bellydancer. It's a 45 minute cardio workout with some light toning.

The workout opens with Keti and two background exercisers. All wear black crop tops and jazz pants. At the beginning of the warm-up they each have filmy scarves tied around their hips. During the warm-up (to a chiftitelli beat) they do bellydance moves like hip circles, figures eights and rib circles.

In the next section Keti teaches the 4 combinations that will be used in the bellydance segments. They are fairly simple combinations, consisting of step touches (aka Basic Egyptian) forward and backward, hip lifts and drops, shoulder shimmies, and some side traveling moves. Surprise, surprise, Keti can actually dance! (Unlike many of the bellydance workout instructors I have seen lately.) The music from here on out has a beledi beat, but it's this weird jazzified synth music with drum. It's ok, just....kinda weird. In this section the women swap the filmy hip scarves for coin scarves. Keti doesn't give detailed breakdowns of the moves, so it has a bit of a "watch me" quality to it (aka "follow the bouncing butt.") Also, Keti is shot from mid-thigh up, so you have to look past her to the women in back in order to see what their feet and legs are doing.

Next is the bellydance workout. Unfortunately, the dancers have lost the coin scarves and are wearing these pressed sequin hip sashes that aren't terribly flattering and don't really accentuate the moves. Why'd they lose the coin scarves? Maybe they were too noisy... Anyway, Keti leads you through combinations A, B, C & D and adds on E and F.

After the bellydance workout comes "Shimmies", in which Keti, in full bedlah (that means sequined and beaded bra and belt set for you non-dancers) does a tabla [drum] solo using the combinations she has taught. (You are expected to follow along.) She's gives a clean, though uninspiring performance.

Next comes the Latin Samba portion. Here the dancers have tossed their hip scarves in favor of short pleated skirts. You do various samba steps to a Brazilian beat. It's fast but fun and gets your heartrate up there.

Then comes the "Tribal Rhythms" part, which is weird, because it looks just like bellydance to me! Keti is once again in bedlah and leads you through another drum solo. There were one or two "african dance" steps tossed in at the end of the other sections, but that's it. This tape really is mostly about bellydancing with that samba section thrown in for variety.

But wait! You're not done. Next comes some toning in which you do some plies, belly rolls, and isometric exercises for the arms. It's very brief.

Finally comes the cool-down and stretch. Nothing specific springs to mind, but I'll add more details when I mail Wendy my review.

All in all, a fun tape, though a little difficult for North Americans to get. It cost me $30US plus shipping, and then of course it was PAL and I had to convert it. If any of our Kiwi or Aussie VFers are interested in a bellydance workout tape, I'd definitely recommend giving this one a shot. You can get more information about the tape or order it at www.ketisharif.com.