See this thread:
tribes.tribe.net/bellydanc...2553d61f9d
This one is great for that low ab area, but it's primary focus is stretching the back. I find it easy to isolate that low ab area during this, making it easier to engage in other excercises.

Other things I do:
lie on the floor, looking at the sky, legs straight in the air
slowly drop staight legs to the right (count of 4) - keep both shoulders on the ground if possible!
slowly raise legs back to starting position (just reaching vertical on 4)
and drop to the other side (count of 4)
etc.
If straight legs is too hard, you can bend them. Or do as many as you can straight, then get a few more in bent, extending your work-out.

traditional sit-ups hurt, but in conditioning class, we use a variation:
back on the floor, legs running straight up a wall
let gravity pull your legs open into a split (great groin stretch!)
"squeeze your lemon" (engage lower abs)
do your "mini sit-ups" to the middle, and to the obliques
Many of my dance teachers hate the word "crunch." Ideokinesis implies that if we think we're doing a "crunch" then the motion will be small, hard, and inelastic. As dancers, we don't want any of our movements to look like this. We don't want to make our bodies do a movement, but we want to ALLOW the movement to happen. Essentially, we're doing all the same moves, but the imagery behind them makes them cleaner, or more elastic, or more graceful, or whatever.

Lie on your back, legs in the air.
squeeze your lemon
lift from the front rim of your pelvis, lifting your tailbone toward the sky.
The legs are not working, they are just there, and hopefully out of the way.

This "squeeze your lemon" idea can happen anytime, anywhere, while doing anything. To get a better idea of the "lemon muscles," stand up straight, feet a comfortable distance apart. Try to tip your pelvis back (or pull up the front rim). Most people, especially at first, will squeeze the buttocks to help push the pelvis forward. Now, it's moved in the right direction, but the wrong muscles are doing it. Now, we have to find those deep, internal lower abs and lift the front of the pelvis WITHOUT engaging the buttocks.

I am very visual and hands-on when it comes to learning new technique, so this may not be a very helpful explanation...

Hi Jenevieve,

I've been dancing for some years now and still have a hard time doing those belly rolls. I have a video from Fat Chance Belly Dance and she shows quite well how to do this. I do get the concept of it so my guess is that my abs are not built to do it right. My better half can do belly rolls without any problem. Guess his abs are the way mine should be. Work work work and squeeze that lemon !! Happy Squeezing.

Sandra

i learned belly rolls in a couple of months from Shira's web site, but i still have trouble with the bottom (if im doing top down) and the top (if im doing bottom up)
i've been drilling tucks, im hoping it will work, and get my abs used to working that way.
remember ur abs are all one long muscle, (not including the under bits and the obliques...... <.<...... >.>.... ^_^) and you're "biasing" your exercise to a specific part of that muscle. i hope that is helpful, and not too awkwardly worded.
good luck!

Try Pilates! Not just a video take an actual class. If you can take a class with Jill Popovich... do it... she is an awesome instructor. I had the same problem and one class with her and a total 180. I can finally do a reverse belly roll.

Ugh. I have so many issues with lower abs.



Also, I still have no understanding of exactly what "squeeze your lemon" is.

(are they calling them lemons now? :-O )

When I worked with a trainer, he had me lie flat on my back, hold an exercise ball between my ankles and use my abs to pull my legs from the floor to a 90 degree angle at my hips. I lifted the ball by contracting the lower ab muscles. It hurts at first, but it really helped me isolate. It didn't start out as one of my favorite exercises, but it is now. I can just feel the lower abs so much better because of it. I couldn't do many at first but I worked up in reps as time went on.

Let me know how it works for you.