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Are you looking for an easy way to seriously drill your belly dance in order to solidify your technique, work up a great sweat and level up your dance?

Welcome to “Killer Driller”, a belly dance course designed to help you sweat, move and improve your mood all while leveling up your belly dance technique.

Isolations, shimmies and traveling layers, strength building exercises and more all in one convenient package that can be done one drill at a time or in neatly organized drill videos that can be plugged into your practice no matter how much or how little time you have.

Beginner dancers will benefit from the thorough breakdown of each exercise and the technique within while more advanced dancers can challenge themselves to improve their precision, strength and control.

A regular habit of drilling your foundational belly dance technique is a crucial part of every serious dancer’s practice.

I invite you to join me for this high-energy killer driller course and we’ll have some sweaty dance fun together!

Today as part of the 12 Days of Belly Dance Christmas celebration I am offering you a discount on the final sale of this course. “Killer Driller” will no longer be available for sale after December 14th.

Get your course discount here and snag this fabulous dance resource for just $37 today!

http://SahiraBellyDances.com/12Days

It’s the second day of our Belly Dance Christmas celebration! How are you feeling? 🤩

Today I have a very special limited-time offer for you.

Are you:
→ A new dancer looking to learn some of belly dance’s most popular shimmies?
→ A long-time dance student frustrated with shimmies that are unreliable, wonky or difficult to achieve?
or
→ An experienced dancer looking to expand your shimmy repertoire?

Then you are going to LOVE the Sensational Shimmy Intensive Course I’m offering you today. This course is your one stop shop to learn and perfect 22 different shimmies and variations!

By the end of this course you will have:

✓ A solid understanding of how to make shimmies big, relaxed, delicious, dependable and fun
✓ The clear blueprint for drilling your shimmies to achieve the shimmies you’ve always wanted
✓ Twenty two different shimmies that you can play with and use to create amazing texture and expression in your dance
✓ Total confidence and clarity on the differences between the three quarter and triplet shimmies (Yes! They are different!)
✓ Four ways to easily workout your shimmies anytime no matter how much time you have

Today for the 12 Days of Belly Dance Christmas celebration I am offering you a big discount on this course. Normally $67, you can get lifetime access to this course for the next 48 hours for just $49!

This is the last time this course will ever be offered for purchase on its own and will only be available to members of The Belly Dance Journey membership after the sales end. So if you are ready to make your shimmies sensational, grab this course today before it goes away forever!

Get your course discount here: SahiraBellyDances.com/12Days

It’s the first day of Christmas! Let’s see what Santa Sahira has in store for you.

Today I would love to share with you a fabulous technique and combination mini-workshop, created especially for you and our 12 Days of Christmas celebration! In this free class we will work on several fun belly dance technique and movement concepts that build into a fabulously cheeky combination that you will dance step-by-step with me.

And as I am a huge believer in the power of pairing on-demand class content with real-time face-to-face (or perhaps better said, screen-to-screen) learning, I’m giving you the inside scoop and a sneak peek into Day 3’s gift here, too.

This Saturday I will gifting you a free live Zoom class so we can meet up and work through this content together in order to take it to the next level!

So dive into this free mini-workshop now so you have a bit of the material under your hip scarf when we meet live on Saturday!

Get the link to your gift here: http://SahiraBellyDances.com/12Days

🎄It’s almost time for Christmas and I am busy in the studio wrapping up some fabulous belly dance gifts for you.

✨ I invite you to join me for my 12 Days of Belly Dance Christmas where I will show you exactly how we celebrate over here at Sahira Belly Dances.

❃ Free live classes and on demand tutorials
❃ Downloadables and dance resources
❃ Class and apparel discounts
❃ And festive events all with a belly dance theme

🎁 12 days to get into the spirit of the season with a shimmy and smile as I add a little glitter and spice to your days.

🗓 The 12 Days of Belly Dance Christmas begins on December 9th and goes for (you guessed it!) 12 days. But this special event is only available to folks who register in advance. So head on over now and get your invitation at

→ SahiraBellyDances.com/12days

🎉 I look forward to celebrating with you there.

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Today I have something incredibly special to share with you!

As a professional belly dance performer and instructor, I believe it is incredibly important to support Arab artists and businesses, as this is the culture behind this amazing dance form that we all know and love.

A couple of years ago I discovered an incredible business through an online belly dance forum and immediately fell in love with the unique and beautiful handmade products for sale there.

The business is Sound of Mazzika and today I am sharing with you an interview with its owner – Angie Assal.

After getting hooked on the ridiculously awesome Arab music and culture jewelry on her site (check out the sagat earrings, they are so very fabulous!) I knew I had to meet the woman behind the business, so I reached out and was thrilled to connect with Angie – a vibrant and visionary young entrepreneur who has just this year gone full-time with her online jewelry business. I was blown away by this woman’s energy, creativity and vision for how art can help introduce others to the Arab culture, creating curiosity and interest to help bridge the divide that often exists in the world. We chat about how she started her business, the process behind her jewelry creation and her big plans for using her jewelry to spotlight other Arab artists here in the US and in the Middle East.

You are going to LOVE this interview!

Once you’ve finished hanging out with us, head over to Sound of Mazzika and snag one of her hot-off-the-press tabla or riq Christmas ornament before they are all gone!

http://SoundofMazzika.com

Follow Angie on social media at @soundofmazzika

I get a lot of questions every day about belly dance, finger cymbals and how best to learn and master the concepts within. The most common question by far, though, is most definitely about creating and sustaining a strong and delicious shimmy layer.

The shimmy was totally my kryptonite for about the first twelve years of my dance. Mediocre at best, I was tormented by uneven, unreliable shimmies that started and stopped on their own and never felt comfortable or within my control.

Fast-forward several years and many hours of practice later and I finally own a shimmy I am proud to call my own. Relaxed, juicy and beautiful (as well as reliable!) I no longer approach shimmy layers with hesitation and fear.

Today I would like to share with you a fabulous exercise designed to help you strengthen your shimmy layering technique. By drilling the Egyptian and Hip Shimmy through a variety of basic belly dance movements you can train your body to create seamless shimmies no matter where your weight lies – which is the secret to strong and effortless shimmy layers.

Are you ready to dive in and create a scintillating shimmy you love?

Let’s do it!

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If you enjoyed this video then you are going to LOVE this FREE 7-day Belly Dance Jumpstart. Seven days of short and sweet tutorials delivered to your inbox to help infuse your days with movement, creativity and joy! Perfect for anyone interested in learning or reviewing the foundations of this beautiful dance form.

http://SahiraBellyDances.com/Jumpstart

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Special thanks to Rom Ryan and Moodafaruka for the music used in this video. Learn more about them and support them online at http://Moodafaruka.com

Welcome to another video in my “Zill Heros” series where I interview the zill movers and shakers who are inspiring others in the dance world.

In this video I speak with the lovely Melissa Gamal.

I connected with Melissa for the first time online earlier in the year when she was teaching sagat (finger cymbal) classes and then again when she hosted the amazing percussionist Hany Morgan for a series of sagat classes from Egypt. I was completely blown away by the unique technique and style of playing she was teaching in her classes – called “musician style” – and I am totally hooked on the amazing amount of musicality and creativity that is opened up when playing cymbals in this way.

So we sat down and geeked out on lots of things zillicious – from the musician style technique to the finer points of choosing when and how to play cymbals musically, to how we as dancers can incorporate this style into our dance.

Be sure to watch all the way to the end where I’ve included some clips of Melissa playing the sagat in this beautiful style – both with the dance and as an instrumentalist alongside the incredible Hany Morgan.

You can learn more about Melissa here: ya-amar.ca and on Instagram at @melissa.gamal

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Inspired? Join me for this free beginner finger cymbal jumpstart and become the zill star you are meant to be! SahiraBellyDances.com/zillstar

Early in my belly dance journey I was always searching for new moves… I was hungry for more, more, more and always wanted to learn the latest and greatest movements the belly dance world had to offer – like an avid collector wanting to complete the entire set. (Collect them all!)

Now, over two decades later, I think I might have finally done it.

WHAT!?! (I can hear you saying it from here.) You’ve learned ALL the moves? Impossible!

Hear me out – me saying that I’ve learned all the moves does not mean that I have nothing more to learn. In fact, I believe I will never get to that point. Never.

But you see, from a certain perspective there are only so many movements within this beautiful dance style. But there are INFINITE variations. These variations in texture, feeling, style and layering are what allow you to bring your own personal flare to the dance and this is what it’s really all about.

And it’s also exactly what I am going to dive into in today’s video tutorial – The Shaabi Figure 8. We are going to take our humble horizontal figure 8 and play with it – adding and subtracting layers and texture – to create a figure 8 that just might surprise and delight you!

Wanna play?

Let’s dance!

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Find joy, movement and creativity in this FREE 7-Day Beginner Belly Dance Jumpstart. Join today and dive into all that the beautiful world of belly dance has to offer.

SahiraBellyDances.com/Jumpstart

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A huge thank you to the amazing Miss Thea for the use of her music in this video. You can get her album “Siren Dream” on her Bandcamp here: https://missthea.bandcamp.com

Last month my long-time friend and fellow dancer Karen Barbee offered me the opportunity to dance with the Gafour brother band as part of a daytime rehearsal for her Project Band students.

I danced with this band for so many years here in Houston, first at al Boustan, then Ya Leil, then Layal and finally Byblos. Arabic nightclub after nightclub opened up with this incredible ensemble and I had the unique honor to dance with them at many of these venues. The last time I shared the stage with them was over six years ago. Then they stopped playing for the dancers at the club, and I stopped dancing at that club shortly thereafter (that midnight show was so much less appealing when done with recorded music instead of the band!)

So imagine my excitement when Karen gave me the chance to dance with them again! (And in the afternoon while the sun was still shining and I wasn’t falling asleep in my mint tea!)

I asked them to play a classic tune – Zay Al Hawa. It is one of my favorites. I can’t count the number of times I’ve danced this number with these musicians… but this time it felt so very different.

I would love to share the experience with you here.

A huge thank you to Karen Barbee for this amazing opportunity and to the Gafour brothers for making the music that inspires the dance.