I'm no expert, but all hip movements are good for your mooladhara chakra (root chakra)

Hi Ameena,

Oddly enough I've been looking into this too. I am on the chakra tribe and that gives you a lot of information on the specific chakras and of course suggestions for some great books on the subject.

~Zafira

A few of my personal preferences (many learned from my teacher Kypris), "visualize" moving the chakra (don't forget the back sides) around when doing:

Shimmies to "shake loose all the extra crap" and wake everything up
Root chakra - amis
Belly chakra - hip slides and circles
Solar plexus - chest slides & rotations
Heart - upper body undulations, snake arms (arms and hands are extensions of heart chakra, left side receiving, right side giving)
throat - head slides (chin stays level, can take in circle)
third eye - head circles (aka neck rolls)
crown - spinning, Sufi spinning

Additonal Tribal:

Taxeem to pull Earth energy up, stir up the kundalini in the root
Maya (Reverse Taxeem) to ground it, pull it down
Ghawazee shimmy is very root chakra, grounded, lead with the pelvis

To me, the camel (body waves) are excellent for working through chakras 1-5 as they limber up the spine and move through these areas with fluidity.

I also think of hip circles and omnis as great ways of uncoiling the kundalini.

Ohhhh... this has been soooo helpful!

My latest find is the video with Darshan - Chakra Dance Flow: Movement Meditation (bellydance, freestyle, guided meditation) (2007) www.amazon.com/Chakra-Dan.../B000KZRP1M I'm very happy with this video! I especially need to work on Chakras 1-3 and this video gives me that!!

I've also decided to go ahead and start Yoga classes. I just can't see where I'll go wrong... it seems everything is pointing me that way. So probably after Christmas. For right now... the Darshan video is what I'm going to utalize.

Thank you!
Joyful Shimmies,
Ameena

Exploring this can be a real education. Remember it wont' always be fun & cool tho - it's hard to have energy going somewhere it's not used to (like when your foot goes to sleep, etc..... know what I mean?)

I think one of the best things to keep in mind is how the heart chakra works as an integrator, or transformer between the material & spiritual, or upper & lower; and remember to send out love - because love is limitless, after all!

Hi Ameena,
I'm glad your interest was sparked by my video and post! You can tell which chakras we're dancing through by where I touch first. the root/sacral chakra was a little harder to see because my hands are behind me. I'll sum up, though:
1st- (associated especially with getting grounded, the feet and legs) floorwork (which I didn't do this time because by that point in my pregnancy, 8 months, the relaxin + xtra weight made my knees really painful), footwork
2nd- (your creative center [litereally- the reproductive organs- and other expressions of creativity as well]- located in the pelvis) hip movememts of all kinds- circles, slides, mayas, etc.
3rd- (the solar plexis; some call it the navel chakra, some put it higher, closer to the diaphram) belly work (pelvic locks, belly rolls, etc[don't think i did belly rolls there, but did in labor], body waves)
4th- (heart center, associated with the ribcage, breasts, upper back, arms and hands) ribcage (circles, slides, pops, etc) and arm (snake arms, etc.) and hand (circles, etc.) movements
5th- (throat chakra; your expressive center) head slides and circles, neck rolls
6th- (the third eye, also associated with the physical eyes, how you see things, visualization, intuition, etc.) Indian eye movements, visualizing your performance, dance meditation
7th- spinning (especially Sufi spinning, one hand to heaven, one to earth), connection to the Divine and the Divine in others (this is where we joined hands and exited together), dance meditation

there's also a free guided chakra meditation on beliefnet.com It is under practices and faiths, though this one isn't religious