Because I teach from a formula, I have made a few assumptions about you and your classes. The 52 lesson plans that follow are aimed at a class of students with no past dance experience, but who will start class in the first week of January and be ready to perform in December. I have also assumed that new students will join your class every ten weeks. I have planned on the basis that your lessons will be one hour long (even though I teach in 45 minute blocks!), and that you (the teacher) has some knowledge of a wide range of belly dance styles. Finally, I have assumed that we both use the same names for our moves.

These are all big assumptions – and if I am wrong on any count, let me apologize. But even if I have you all wrong, these lessons can still be adapted to suit you and your students.

If you are adapting these lessons for students who are no longer beginners, you can spend more time on the second half of the lesson ( the "review plus" and the "topic" sections).

If you have a mixed ability class, you can add in adaptations for your more advanced students as you go (consider lengthening the time spent on the "review" section, but offer up the technique for your "review plus" for your more advanced students during that same time slot).

If you start your classes in September, you can begin at lesson one, just the same as if it was January.

If you have new students starting every week of the year, you can recover posture and the basics in the "review" section of each lesson.

If you run semesters of 6 weeks, or 18 weeks, you can change the order of the lesson plans so that the easier lessons run at a time when you have new students. (The easiest lessons are those that end in 1 or 2 or 3 - 1,2,3,11,12,13,21,22,23,31,32,33,41,42, and 43. The hardest lessons are those that end in 8 or 9 or 0 - 8,9,10,18,19,20,28,29,30,38,39,40,48,49 and 50)

If you students are ready to perform after six weeks, put together a little student hafla in your dance space and then start the lessons again the next week.

If your students can only enroll once a year, make the first few months of lessons easier, and then start to focus more on the harder content in each class.

If your lessons are shorter than one hour, you will have to reduce your content. You may split the content between more weeks (teaching the new content from two lesson plans across three lessons), or drop content you don’t think is important to your students.

If your lessons are longer than one hour, you can combine the content of more than one lesson, or add more content, such as more topic work, extra drills, or more shimmy time.

If you teach a different style of belly dance to me, you may want to replace some moves that I teach, with ones that are more important in your dance style. It should be fairly easy for you to do a straight swap with a move of similar difficulty.

If we use different names for our moves, feel free to send me a message and I will clarify what I mean. I tend to be over descriptive. Or you can simply assume that the move that you want to teach is the same as the move I named. I have attached a short video I made with Poppy Maya to add visual moves to the names that I use. These are not right or wrong - just the names that I use.

I have broken the 52 weeks into five groups of ten, with two for the end of the year, or "specials". Each block of ten has a different topic: Shimmies, Travelling, Veil, Styles of Dance, and Zills. You may choose to teach them in a different order. For example, in your dance style, zills may be very important, and something you want them to master early on. Feel free to start your classes with numbers 41 through to 50.