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(More customer reviews)The series
Hard Candy joined its sister videos, Luscious and Love Potion, in my collection, a couple of weeks ago.
I love so many things about this series as a whole! First, a thorough welcome or preview tells you exactly what the instruction contains and will do for you. No false promises. Having worked with many fitness videos, I'm very grateful when an instructor takes the trouble to tell you what to focus on and what to expect rather than getting into that awful cheerleading mode that is so common.
The second thing I love is that there is a complete beginner's guide or tutorial to belly dance basics on each of the three videos. There are subtle differences and I know that many dancers have found these tutorials great to work with, even for those who've been dancing a while. The tutorials are led by Neon, whose brainchild this series happens to be. Teaching absolute basics is her specialty. You can access each set of basic movements separately. There is nothing rushed about these tutorials. There's detailed logical explanation, suggestions for replacement moves if you're a beginner, and friendly tips delivered in Neon's own gentle manner.
A practice flow segment adds practice basics and the combinations from the workout to music. There's also a music-only option.
The thing I love most about this series however is that there are just hundreds of small combinations, a whole treasure trove you can dip into any time. The moves are short enough for you to drill and get into your muscle memory. And yet, there's such a variety you can be sure you'll use them easily when you improvise.
Luscious, my favoritest of the three because I've worked with it the most so far, is the easiest. It involves doing beautiful moves with the bare basics, but maintaining good form so that there is much beauty in simplicity. Love Potion steps up the footwork and gets more dancy. And finally, Hard Candy has a lot of more intermediate moves such as the Arabic hip walk, pelvic tilts layered on footwork, lots of level changes with undulations and chest circles, etc. People with knee or back problems should probably stick with the previous two, while others who want to go to the net level should not miss out on Hard Candy.
Hard Candy
In the first segment of Hard Candy, led by Elisheva, you'll work with well-defined chest slides, pelvic tilts, hip pushes, hip downs and step touches. Anyone familiar with the previous two videos will see immediately that this involves more muscle work and is a bit tougher. It can even be a bit tiring if you're a beginner or don't dance very regularly. Elisheva has great range of motion and isolations show on her body perfectly. I'm personally not very fond of upper body moves, perhaps because too many chest moves won't fit in my culture too much, but it's quite a workout. In fact it has a more drilly feel than the counterpart first sections on the other two DVDs.
Neon leads the second segment and starts somewhat as she does in Love Potion. But again - tougher. There are arabesques with hip pushes and more footwork. You have deep lunges with chest circles on the wa up. There's a variety of moves in this segment - too many to list, actually. Lots of accents and footwork and building on some of the moves from the first segment. You can see she's not letting you off easy. There are also softer and sweeter moves though. The moves change much faster, so working with the flow and tutorial is highly recommended, no mater what level you're at.
And it's back to Elisheva for some sharp hip diamonds, and then some fast combinations that involve the hip diamond, pelvic tilts with chest ups and downs. Then there are more gooey fluid moves using undulations and pelvic circles. There are arabesques with level changes and undulations to follow. Phew. Neon is right when she says Hard Candy is both hard and sweet. This section moves really fast and speaking for myself, it will take me quite a while to keep up with it.
Sarah starts with some a fast combination of chest lifts and hip lifts with step touches. She goes on to a rich variety of sways, hip lifts and drops, figure eights and half figure eights. This segment is set to one of my favorite pieces of music, Zen Arabica. This is actually the section most reminiscent of Luscious - or it would be if it didn't have so many moves packed into it. Perhaps it can be thought of as Luscious on steroids.
Neon's second section begins with medium paced sharp hip work and slightly less footwork. And again, before you think you're getting Luscious-like, you find yourself doing combinations with Arabic hip walks and alternating hip lifts and rolls.
Sarah introduces shimmies in her segment. Not from the basics up though. In fact, you do some layering of the shimmy on basic moves and combine with chest shimmies. She also does some gooey moves before going back to shimmies. Reduced footwork here as well, so that the focus is wholly on the shimmy.
The seventh segment of the workout is iled by Elisheva again and she takes you through a challenging combination of deep pelvic circles and undulations with expansive chest circles. More work with reverse undulations, pelvic circles, chest circles and eights.
The eighth segment here in which Neon goes back to some of the moves already taught. She uses a refrain which you repeat every so often. More combinations done at quite a pace.
Hard Candy is much more difficult than Luscious and Love Potion because
1.A greater variety of moves is used
2.There some layering and level changes
3.There are big range upper body movements
4.There's faster hip work
5.The whole workout is faster
The setting and costumes are similar to the previous videos although they're most luscious on the Luscious DVD. The format is similar but Hard Candy is missing the themes used in the previous ones. This is all movement. The practice flow is specially good and much needed before you attempt the workout, unless you're advanced.
The music on Hard Candy is absolutely beautiful. Even the songs I already have and am very familiar with sound more beautiful on this video.
If you don't have the previous videos and are just starting out, I recommend you work with Luscious first. These three videos really are in increasing order of difficulty. You could, of course, choose to work with parts of any of the three, specially if you're otherwise taking classes and would like to pick out what you want at any given time.
A lovely series altogether, and quite topped off with Hard Candy.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Hard Candy - The Bellydance Workout
Hard Candy, The Bellydance Workout is two candies in one wrapper: A fitness experience with an artistic edge, and a dance learning experience with powerful fitness benefits. It's 'hard' only if you are a total beginner in bellydance, but don't worry: We soften it up for you by teaching every move, step-by-step, in a complete Bellydance Basics Tutorial section.
Hard Candy is a three-part program:
The 40-minute Hard Candy Workout;
A 55-minute Bellydance Basics Tutorial, breaking down every move used in the program in complete detail;
A 45-minute Beginners' Practice Flow: A non-stop practice-to-the-music for every step you learned in the Bellydance Basics Tutorial section. The Beginners' Practice Flow moves at a slower pace than the Hard Candy Workout, offering more repetitions of individual moves before developing them into combinations.
Hard Candy, The Bellydance Workout is a toning, sculpting and muscle-conditioning workout (not a cardio program) focusing on the hips, thighs, lower body, and waist. It consists of 100% bellydance steps. Undiluted by any non-dance fitness movement, Hard Candy retains the full aesthetics, rich textures, and musicality of bellydance.
The Hard Candy Workout is made of sequences of bellydance combinations built gradually from basic steps and interwoven to give you a real dance experience. They follow the music just like real dance, reflecting the flow of melody, rhythm, and percussive accents.
The first section of the Beginners' Practice Flow offers a breakdown and practice of all footwork patterns used in the program. The closing section of the Hard Candy Workout is a review of combinations taught in the previous sections.
Both the Hard Candy Workout and the Hard Candy Beginners' Practice Flow are offered with two soundtrack options:
With voice cues
With music only
Click here for more information about Hard Candy - The Bellydance Workout
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