Why "BellyDance Expansion"?

Why Gyrotonics?

Why not Yoga or Pilates? Because Gyrotonics is largely based on dance movement. Yoga and Pilates have numerous benefits, I still practice them, but in my experience, they have always seemed to miss the dance component. Many of the actual Gyrotonics exercises are based on contemporary dance and ballet technique: not only do you get a core workout, flexibility and strength training, but you also learn basic dance technique along the way, which is important for belly dancers: gyrotonics exercises utilize key concepts such as point/flex, plie/releve, first/second/fourth position, cambres, opening of the sternum and collar bone, elongating of the limbs. The exercises are round, large, spacious, coordinated, and complex: they are almost like actual dancing, but with the use of machinery. I have been studying Gyrotonics for several years now and have found it to be the best complement to my Suhaila Salimpour style drills and belly dance training, which focuses on sharp, clean, small precise body part isolation and layers of these isolations.

I have found that these two techniques are great complements to each other, because they balance each other out, and both focus on dance movement, not just pure stretghtening/flexibility exercise. You get great isolation/layering precision with Suhaila, and all the grace, suppleness, openness, and elongation that characterizes contemporary dance and ballet. They are, in my opinion, indispensable to one another, a great help to being a well rounded belly dancer.

I am happy to say I will be getting my first level Pre-Training Teacher's certificate in the Gyrotonics Expansion System this fall with my guru, Giulia Petrini. I recently became Level 2 Certified in the Suhaila Salimpour method of belly dance.

This workshop offering is called BellyDance Expansion, and it melds concepts from these two schools of thought together, along with other key movement concepts, to balance out your body and dance technique.

www.gyrotonic.com