Turbo Shimmy focuses on variations of the Egyptian shimmy. This gives you the opportunity to really get the Egyptian shimmy into your muscle memory and drill it to be able to layer other belly dance movements on top of the shimmy. You don’t have to learn multiple shimmies in order to incorporate shimmies into your dance. Celeste’s arm and hand movements are especially beautifully incorporated into her shimmy drills.
What is unique to Celeste’s instruction is that she provides some strengthening exercises that you can use to improve your shimmy technique, speed, and power.
Focuses on variations of the Egyptian shimmy. This gives you the opportunity to really get the Egyptian shimmy into your muscle memory and drill it to be able to layer other belly dance movements on top of the shimmy. You don’t have to learn multiple shimmies in order to incorporate shimmies into your dance. Celeste’s arm and hand movements are especially beautifully incorporated into her shimmy drills
Strength Building Exercises
Celeste starts this video with exercise that can help build the strength necessary to perform shimmies. The exercises include:
- Calves and feet
- Chair pose
- Seated shimmy
- Shimmy with slight bend forward from waist
Shimmy Technique
Celeste briefly explains the difference in the techniques for three of her favorite shimmies.
- Egyptian shimmy: A straight legs and bent knees shimmy. She uses this shimmy for most of the instructional video. A dancer should feel more weight in their heels and their knees pushing backward.
- American shimmy: This is a hip shimmy.
- Choo Choo shimmy: This shimmy comes from moving your feet.
During each of the four shimmy drill explanations, she clarifies proper shimmy technique before leading each shimmy drill. Each drill is about 10 minutes long and includes different shimmy speeds from slow to fast. Each drill is more difficult, requiring greater strength and stamina. She demonstrates the shimmies from different angles.
The drills are done to slow drum music. She is doing arm movements that you can copy, but doesn’t give you any verbal instruction about the arm and hand movements. And there is a lot to copy. Celeste is almost continually moving her arms in different poses and patterns throughout the drills. However, most of the drills are done in place with no steps, so if you are looking to travel with your shimmies, this isn’t the video for you.
Shimmy Drill #1 Basic Egyptian
This drill section includes a short warm up. The Egyptian shimmy is a full body bounce from knees to top of the head. Lots of reverb. You can shimmy each leg individually to balance the strength of each leg.
Shimmy Drill #2 Pharaonic
In this drill, Celeste uses a new stance, which is ¾ angle. The audience facing leg is to the back and the back stage leg is slightly forward. This is the Pharaonic position. Practicing this shimmy helps train your legs to be equal in strength. Your back foot can be flat or on toe.
Shimmy Drill #3 Choo Choo
The choo choo builds your calves and feet strength. You shouldn’t make sound with your feet while doing the choo choo shimmy.
Shimmy Drill #4 Layers
The last shimmy drill is advanced shimmy techniques and shimmies layered over the following belly dance moves:
- Twist with feet close together and farther apart
- Backward figure eight
- Forward figure eight
- Hip circle
- ¾ shimmy with a weight shift forward and back
- Twisting shimmy on one leg
Stretches
The instructional portion of this video ends with some stretches that may help you prevent shimmy related injuries. Celeste covers the following basic stretches:
- Calf stretch
- Foot rotation
- Quadriceps
- Hamstrings
Skill Focus Time Breakdown Infographic
Turbo Shimmy is 98 minutes long. The following infographic is an approximate breakdown of how many minutes are included in the DVD for various belly dance skills.
Performance
Celeste does two performances. In her first performance she wears a pale, creamy, gold cabaret outfit with lots of fringe on the skirt. The traditional music has slow, medium and fast parts. In her second performance, she wears a lime green modern cabaret skirt with minimal fringe. The performance starts with veil work. She uses many of the shimmies that she taught earlier in the video
Music Used
The following is an Amazon link to some of the music used in the Celeste’s 21 Turbo Shimmy DVD.
- This is the not the shimmy drill music, but its musician Faisal Zedan plays on the song Gulf Winds off the Album Infatuation.
- This is the not the shimmy drill music, but its musician Faisal Zedan plays on the song Gulf Winds off the Album Infatuation.
Dancer Skill Level – Beginner
We rate this DVD as suitable for a beginner as it focuses on one type of shimmy, the Egyptian shimmy. This allows beginners to not get confused by subtle variations in shimmies or more difficult shimmies. A dancer can perform a beautiful routine using one type of shimmy and beautiful arm movements. You don’t have to get crazy complicated with lots of shimmies and different patterns to keep a general audience enthralled..
DVD Review Rating – 4.5 Stars
We give Celeste’s Turbo Shimmy DVD a 4.5-star rating because we like that you can drill the shimmies at different speeds and that there are some shimmy strength building exercises scattered throughout the video. Her arm and hand movements are beautiful and bountiful. You can copy poses and arm patterns, rather than learn shimmies layered on other moves. This video can help you achieve shimmies that are effortless, strong, and smooth.
Focuses on variations of the Egyptian shimmy. This gives you the opportunity to really get the Egyptian shimmy into your muscle memory and drill it to be able to layer other belly dance movements on top of the shimmy. You don’t have to learn multiple shimmies in order to incorporate shimmies into your dance. Celeste’s arm and hand movements are especially beautifully incorporated into her shimmy drills