If I can elaborate a bit more-it definitely would look "funny" if you just saw the clip of her doing the exercise, and were given no background on what she was doing, and why she was doing it. There have been clips of Suhaila doing this on YouTube and other video sites, and they just have the clip up there with no explanation that it was a couple minute segment in the middle of a dance training dvd.
Middle Eastern dancers are trained in isolations, or basically, moving one body part/controlling one body part-while the rest of the body stays still. The exercise helps with our hip isolations, and makes them stronger, and better defined-because when you do them in the position that she has you do them in, the floor is against you, and gravity is no longer in your favor-so if you can master the movement well in that position-then when you get back into dance posturing, it makes your hipwork even better.
I don't know how else to describe it...
Ellen DeGeneres
