Bellysima!

If you're looking for something completely different, something you definitely would not call "routine," have you ever considered taking a belly dancing class? Belly dancing (and I'm talking mostly to the women here, guys), is a great way to tone your abs and get in touch with your inner grace and femininity, among other things. Belly dancing is based on natural movement, and exercises every part of your body (not just your abs!). Because it's low impact exercise, women of every shape, size, and age can enjoy it. Depending on how vigorously you exercise, you can burn lots of calories, too. The longer you practice belly dancing, the more you'll begin to appreciate your strong core muscles, and understand how they work with the rest of your body. It's not unlike yoga (in fact, many belly-dancing classes use yoga stretches as a warm-up) in that way.

Angela Petry has been teaching her unique bellydancing technique called Bellysima for more than a year in Berkeley Springs. She offers a beginners' class on Tuesday evenings at the Ice House, and a more advanced class on Thursday mornings at the inMotion Dance Studio. She also offers occasional Tribal Bellydancing classes ("Tribal" refers to an American-style of bellydance that is more folkloric than the cabaret style that you might be thinking of.) We dance mostly to Middle Eastern music, but occasionally mix it up with club music. Comfortable clothes are a must: generally, anything you'd wear to a yoga class would be fine here. Of course, you must have a hip scarf, with jingles or not -- what good is a hip shimmy without something pretty to show it off?! She has also been teaching us to dance with veils and zils (finger cymbals).

A typical class starts with an extensive warm-up using a good mix of gentle and more intense yoga stretches. We spend a lot of time working on muscle isolations: this means moving one part of your body while keeping the rest of your body still. Hip circles, rib circles, chest circles.... when you're all done with those, it feels so good to shimmy! Shimmying shakes everything out. Shoulder shimmies, hip shimmies....big shimmies, little shimmies. It's all good. Then we might practice a new technique such as dancing with a veil, or learn a short piece of choreography. Learning choreography is good exercise for your brain, too, by the way. We usually spend a bit of time working on our Tribal Odyssey moves, which is a fun way to dance together. Then we cool down, and end the session lying on our yoga mats just relaxing and letting our muscles melt! I always leave this class feeling better than when I went in.

If you want more information about these classes, contact the Ice House at (304)258-2300. Shimmy on!