Originally Posted by adiemus

...and ensuring the tongue IS poking out while shimmying down the hallway....

Originally Posted by magidah

While it is relatively accurate to say that an Egyptian shimmy comes from the knees, what is really happening is the hamstrings are pulling the knees back and forth under the body. Bring the weight of the body forward towards the ball of the foot -- raise yourself onto releve and then come down so that the whole foot is on the ground and relaxed but your weight doesn't shift back into the heels. Reach your ribcage forward and push from under the glutes, where the top of the leg meets the torso in back in order to keep the weight forward; and then drop the tailbone down to soften the knees (this gives you somewhere to move from). From here, pull the knees back-and-back-and-back-and-back in time to the music using the hamstrings to exchange the knees front to back in space. Too often I see a shimmy that is just a vibration, but it should be in time with the rhythm. It also doesn't need to be going a million miles per hour.....only as fast as the music. For example:

Downbeats are:
1-2-3-4

Knees are happening like this:
1-e-and-a 2-e-and-a 3-e-and-a 4-e-and-a

So the right hamstring pulls knee back on the 1 & and; the left hamstring pulls knee back on e & a. (there are two complete pulls back right and left for each downbeat in the music). The best song I have ever found for this is actually English Beat's "Mirror in the Bathroom". Follow the chucka-chucka guitar/bass line with one exchange of the knees for each chucka sound.

Pull energy up through the arches of the feet and up the adductors at the inside of the legs all the way through the pelvic floor, but relax EVERYTHING else. This is the hard part -- the harder you try the less it will work. You have to shake out the tension instead of feeling like you are trying to do something. I have many students tell me that their best shimmies happen in the shower because they are relaxed and their brains haven't turned on yet.

Happy shimmies!