Belly Dancers Are Shaking Up Fitness Class
OCTOBER 7TH, 2002

With music pumping and hips swinging, Sharqui, a belly dance workout, is shaking up the fitness industry.

Fitness instructor Oreet Jehassi created Sharqui, which means “east” in Arabic, as a total body workout. Like cardio-salsa and other exercise classes inspired by cultural dances, Sharqui choreographs the traditional dance moves into an aerobic class format.

“We first have a warm-up. Then we start with the hips, really working the outer thighs,” explains Jehassi. “Then we go into the arms, working the shoulders, biceps and triceps. Then we do some shoulder shimmies just working on the shoulders and chest. Then we do some pretty stances, and we work on our thighs and our obliques. Then we go across the floor and do a little routine.” And all the while, dancers are burning calories. Belly dancing is an age-old Middle Eastern ceremonial dance, originally performed to celebrate womanhood. “When a woman would get married,” Jehssi says, “other women would show the newly engaged woman what it feels like to be intimate for the first time, what it feels like to have a baby in her stomach. That's what the shimmies are about.”

“It's really sensual,” says Vignette Fleury-Dixon, a student who took the Sharqui class. “It’s really body-loving. It's a great workout.”

Women aren't the only ones in the class strengthening – and celebrating – their bodies.

“I get a good ab workout and the fun of doing this,” says Sharqui student Bradley Schleyer. “Men can experience their own entertainment themselves, rather than relying only on observing.”

It may take a few classes to master the moves, but many students, who groove outside of the classroom as well, say it's time well spent.

“I've done a couple of moves for my husband from time to time just to show him,” said one student.

- Cheryl Wills