Bellydancing combines Middle Eastern culture, a hip scarf and some major glute work

Try flexing one glute muscle at a time. That's right, each individual butt muscle: Left. Right. Left. Right. Now pick it up: left, right, left, right. And faster still, left-right-left-right. Shimmy. Behold: a fundamental step of belly dancing.

As I learned in a Syracuse studio, belly dancing takes more than vigorously shaking ones' hips in a full, bejeweled skirt with heavily kohl-lined eyes. It takes firing muscles uncommonly fired. As my glutes would attest if they could, local instructor Meaghan Scully's belly dancing classes engage muscles from head to toe. She translates traditional Middle Eastern and North African dance into an exhilarating total body workout.

Considering the last dance class through which I struggled took place in the '90s, my palms sweated before my first class. I am barely coordinated enough to put on pants standing up. But Scully's super helpful, easy-going and fun-loving persona quickly soothed my first-class nerves. By telling me to wear comfortable workout apparel, for example, Scully helped me avoid the embarrassment of showing up squeezed into an age-old Jasmine costume from Halloween of yore.

Misconceptions of belly dancing, like my own, abound in America. They conjure images of colorfully-costumed, heavily-beaded and gold-coin-adorned sensually evocative dancers. In Syracuse, belly dancers emulate styles from American cabaret (the flamboyant, fast and playful belly dancers who dance to Arabic pop with techno beats) to classical Egyptian (the ballet-eque dancers with soft, internal moves in time with traditional Arabic and ancient music). The multitude of belly dance styles, Scully says, stem from roots in reserved cultures of the Middle East.

Scully, publicist of the Syracuse Area Bellydancers' Association, is a fusion dancer, blending elements of modern dance into traditional belly dancing. She honors thousands of years of history, she says, paying homage "to women who've danced this dance before, to women who can't perform this dance any more in the Middle East with the cultural traditions there now."

Scully breaks down the complex, ancient and rich art form for beginners and veteran dancers alike. By teaching basic elements of traditional belly dancing to varied ages, sizes and genders, Scully ensures dancers get down universal basic steps each week.

In my first class, I stood barefoot in yoga pants and a slightly-fitted tank on the wood floor of Scully's home studio with a bottle of water nearby. Scully began by leading a relaxing warm up of flowing poses and stretches, keeping time to music with a subdued beat. Then, Scully schooled our small, intimate classes in the fundamentals of belly dancing.

From the firm foundation of a standing pose that engages dancers' core muscles, Scully led us through a natural progression of moves, demonstrated the form and cued specific body parts. "You work your glutes like crazy," she says, twisting her beaded belly dance hip scarves in a figure eight. I attempt to emulate hip shaking shimmies, oblique-crunching hip twists, and shoulder-elongating snake arms. Properly executed, the organic moves wake up every joint from the toes to the fingertips, from the tailbone to the neck.

Counting in time with Arabic-inspired techno tunes, Scully let the beat build. From slow, steady movements, we take on faster-paced repetitions. By the end of the hour, with another uptick in the music's tempo, I manage to string together sequences of the moves. Sometimes even on the beat.

Scully encourages novices and newbies to take their time, to improve their posture, especially when she sees they're off kilter in the mirror. She challenges returning dancers to build on what they know. Figuring out how to use muscles like obliques, she says, is the hardest part. "It just comes with time, practice and relaxation," she says.

Despite my futile attempts to flex my glutes as fast as the talented instructor, this is a fun version of total body conditioning. Even as the art of shimmying evaded me, I felt the exhilarating power of belly dancing. As Scully explains, belly dancing doesn't discriminate against dancer-caliber, body size or fitness level. A post-class glow seems universal. Even beginning belly dancers find stress relief, confidence, poise and presence.

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