Belly Dance Every Day - Shimmies Part 2
We’ve already gone over one type of hip shimmy (the washer shimmy), so we’ll take a step back and learn a basic hip shimmy.
A very basic hip shimmy is driven by your knees. Start off in your basic posture with your knees soft. Straighten your right knee while keeping your left relaxed. Now straighten your left knee and relax your right. Do this at a slower speed a few times until you are comfortable with the move. Notice how it vibrates your hips. Speed the move up and you have a shimmy.
Practice this move both with your feet flat on the floor and demi-pointe (on the balls of the feet). You will get a slightly different move depending on how your feet are, so it is best to get used to doing it both ways so you can adapt to how you want the dance to look.
Remember to isolate! Try to keep the rest of your body out of the shimmy, this will help later when you learn to layer moves.