I’m not going to give techniques for squats or strengthening your glutes. I’ll give you something slightly different – the ancient Water Dance which will replace boring repetitions.
Water Dance
Water Dance
The Water Dance is made up of specific dance movements created especially for women by ancient civilizations. They imitate the movement of water. The ancients were very precise in differentiating between male and female movements; men’s and women’s bodies are constructed differently and therefore need different exercises. The same can’t be said for the present where women take up weight lifting just like men.
What happens with a violin when you start playing it like a drum?
The body is an instrument, and if you were given a women’s body then you need to treat it in a female manner. There are special women’s techniques for this. There is not as much information about them as there is about predominantly male techniques: yoga, karate, aikido.
And what about our female path?…
The ancients noticed that woman was very close to the element of Water. They observed water and learned from it; learned its movements, how it changed, how rings formed on its surface, how waves formed in the ocean and how rivers split into separate streams.
When I first saw this dance I fell in love with it. It is so beautiful, feminine and flowing. It doesn’t put as much pressure on the body press ups or squats yet the effect is even more striking. This dance gives you the freedom to be creative. There are no strict rules. Each woman ends up creating her own personal dance. If you don’t want to exhaust yourselves with daily training sessions but want to look fit and beautiful during and after your pregnancy, as every woman does, the Water Dance will be just the thing for you.
Why dance?
Dances pulse through our veins from birth, as do songs. We all know how to sing and dance from birth. Only later these natural abilities are often blocked in us, particularly in boys. We are taught to be embarrassed and even ashamed of them.
Dance is one of the best ways to get rid of tension. We have all been created from the dance of Love – the rhythm of two bodies.
Dance is spontaneity and space for creativity. Monotonous movements quickly become boring. According to scientific studies, people who dance live the longest. And most importantly of all, it is dance that gives us the feeling of connection with our baby; inside us the baby is constantly living Life’s dance. So switch the music on and dance with your baby inside you.
I really liked dancing with my belly during pregnancy. I would put my right hand on my stomach, my left hand on my heart area and spin to the rhythm of two heartbeats. Two hearts beat under my palms. This way I would send love from my heart to my baby’s heart through my hands. And I would receive the same in return.
Introduction to the dance
In this dance you will draw circles, spirals, infinity signs and vertical and horizontal figures of eight at different angles with your hands, legs, hips, shoulders and feet. You will learn how to do these movements while spinning round and round. Here you can swim in the ocean of your fantasy without end and experiment with your body, listening to what it suggests and what your baby, who will be dancing in unison with you, suggests…
I will describe the main principle behind each movement.
If you touch water’s surface, rings will begin to form on it. This image applies to the first hip movement we do. Begin by doing the hip rotations at low amplitude, and with every rotation the circles get larger and larger until they reach their maximum radius. Then do the opposite —decrease the radius until you come back to the starting point.