Fluid Technique with Zoe Jakes - 2 disc set

New review September 18, 2021:It's been a few years since I've done belly dance consistently. That being said, I still stand by my original review. This dvd is NOT for beginners or even people that haven't bellydanced in awhile. There is almost no verbal direction so she changes moves randomly and you never know without having eyes glued to the screen. You basically have to memorize every move she's doing to get the full effect of this dvd. I do think the DVD is good, but definitely intermediate and not beginner.Original review July 13,2015:Initial review of the first cd, just on looking through it: I am disappointed that about 23 minutes of the hour and 47 minutes are just random performances. I do like the artistic value that Jakes adds to her dances, because that is the way I dance. She also includes many techniques I've not seen in other videos that I have. However, I feel that she is not really great at locking and that much of her dance style is twirling and simple things that a person with no knowledge of belly dance could do. For example, if she locks her shoulder or arm it almost seems as if she includes the rest of her body in that lock, which is the opposite of what's supposed to be done. You see evidence of this at 1:29:44. Her arm locks look very lazy and never actually lock at all despite the crowd going wild.Warmup: I hate yoga, and don't understand why all bellydance videos have it for warmup. That being said, I did it anyway. I noticed quickly that she moves too fast and by the time I get to the position she's suggesting she's already moved to something else. It is already not a beginner dvd because she uses chest circles, snake arms, and randomly inserts arm motions that are standard for her, but not for someone who hasn't seen them before. All this with no instruction on how to do them. What stretching there is, each move is literally less than 3 seconds, obviously not enough.Arms: I give it a C. I do like that she shows some movements for hands alone. Again, she will randomly throw in whole arm movements with it, but it's not too bad. Then she starts in with an arm movement to include the hand movements. This she starts out slow, then randomly starts skipping where she does the hand circles, which left me lost. She then progresses to doing a shimmy with it, which is not something she's shown yet, despite the fact it's supposed to be for beginners. Patterns of everything she's shown before follow this, but she doesn't warn what she's going to do or when. Is pent most of my time, again, trying to get to the thing she was doing and by the time I have a rhythm for it she's moved to something else. We're talking seconds of doing one thing then moving on. I spent too much time trying to figure out what she was doing to either enjoy it or learn anything.Shimmy: So far, a D. Again, she immediately starts shimmying without explaining, again not for a beginner, and starts doing a different arm pattern with an added amount of foot work. No explanation, nothing. She then adds hip slides and circles with no instruction. There is where I stopped the dvd and decided to just do drills on my own. I was not getting a workout from this nor was I learning. Just pure frustration. I will finish my review when I finish the dvd.

Amazing. First DVD is meant to be a "beginner level" but I find it quite advanced. Drills are really amazing, it will definitevly impove your technical skills. Advanced DVD (second one) I take later on, when I feel comfortable enough with the first one. I am intermediate dancer and I will repeat that beginners DVD nr 1 is not literally beginners level ;)Also what I find very useful and extremely important that you'll find lots of travelling drills on this DVD set, which will make your mind more organized and clear while traveling around with other moves going on top ;)This is one my number one DVDs

Love her, love her teaching style, her warm up is great and the drills are working for me. It’s packed with good information that are the building blocks for so much more that she offers elsewhere. I think the production value is better than fine. Extremely easy to follow along.

I only exercise to a few segments that focus on back and body isolations.

Zoe Jakes is wonderful, quirky, and informative.I am slowly working through this DVD as I learn (from local classes and other DVDs), and think I will be able to learn from this for a long time.Not a primary teaching source (since it's drills) but a really, really good resource for drilling and improving established skills.

It's wonderful, it gives me a lot of ideas and high level drills, if you continue practising them you can get the really fluid move. I love it! And I love the personality the Zoe shows in there, specially in the performance at the end of both DVDs

Great video...challenging for beginner/ intermediate...and for advance. Fundamental belly dance techniques shown.

It is Zoe Jakes. Need I say more. I think it there is a ton of information in this set of DVDs. I am a beginner so this is beyond my experience but It is a reference guide that I will use for a long time. It is worth the money.

The DVD arrived quicker than expected which was nice. Really pleased with this purchase.

die hier gezeigte Tanztechnik ist etwas für Menschen, die Tribal Dance lieben, aber nicht mehr können, was sie bisher gemacht haben, weil sie leider einen Bandscheibenvorfall hatten und nun anders tanzen müßen. Es geht aber auch genauso so schön, wie vorher und hier lernt man es.