really focus on your shimmies and locks coming from your obliques and glutes. the more you are able to focus on those muscles, the less you will use your legs to control them. you don't want to lock your knees, and this won't happen if you're controlling your locks and shimmies with your glutes and obliques.

did that help?

There's a lot of kinds of shimmies - some driven by knees, some by obliques and some by glutes. Get with your instructor and clarify which she's teaching you and how to do it properly.

Some do use the knees but not to a locked out position - that is definitely something to watch out for and avoid in the interest of keeping your knees safe.

Mahin
www.shes-got-hips.com

I do want to point out that there are various types of shimmies. One style does use the knees to shimmy some but I do avoid teaching and using that one because often students will 'slap' the knees back which is bad for them (also you bounce a lot more just not my personal favorite).

The two main shimmys I use (well up and down hip movement shimmy) are the loose shimmy which is very big and then the glute controlled one (a little smaller and more controlled). One technique that I use on my students to take the knees away is to put them on toe or on a bosu ball. You must use your abs for balance and then really cannot use the knees as well if you are on toe or standing on a balancing ball. I do that if I see they keep using their knees --- really in the end they must learn on their toes anyway but it is more just to get the feeling at first.

Also doing the glute squeeze sitting exercise is great for gaining more control....Suhaila does this on a few of her videos and bet you could find it on youtube somewhere too.