Belly Dancing

Uttara Yoga Studio
112-B Kirk Ave . Roanoke
540.309.0071

Now, in all fairness to Joey, Amy (up until children) had danced all her life and even taught for several years. But dance isn't like riding a bike, especially with an extra thirty pounds to carry around... so she encountered just as many challenged as Joey (aka "Stiff as a Board Sally")! We weren't exactly sure how four left feet could make a right, but we had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, and a lot of sore muscles!

We went to Uttara Yoga Studio for a belly dancing lesson with Kimberly Vest, a seasoned belly dancing and yoga instructor. Kimberly was even gracious enough to bring us some fabulous hip scarves to let us play with! We learned that belly dancing has really been "jazzed up" by Hollywood over the last half century. The costumes, glitz and glam that you see in the movies today didn't look like genies from a bottle, they remained covered up. In honor of that tradition, (and to not scare our readers) Amy kept her clothing traditional, while Joey and Kimberly bared their bellies!


There are many different styles, but we focused on Tribal, which isn't as structured, and uses stronger upper body movements to portray the strength of women. (Girl power!) Belly dancing may look easy, but it's really all about core control. We didn't realize how much effort and technique it took to jiggle and shake - but Kimberly helped us to concentrate our movements and by the end of class we were able to [belly] roll with the best of them! (P.S. This is one of the best an workouts we've had in a long time.)