Using Barbara Benagh’s Yoga for Beginners

I’ve had Yoga For Beginners for a while now, and I’m pretty sure I’ve used it in the past, but since I’ve been taking proper yoga lessons for six months now, I rarely turned to it.

What made me take it off the shelf today was my search for yoga practices longer than 30 or 40 minutes. Generally, I’m very glad to have shorter practices that are easy to fit into my day. Still, I wanted to see if any of my DVDs have longer practices, preferably an hour to an hour and a half, so that I might try and approximate the feeling of a real class on days when I have more time.

What’s neat about Yoga For Beginners is its organization into two levels. There is a menu with a series of focused workouts at around 20 minutes each, and a second menu of longer workouts that combine and recombine the shorter routines. I wound up picking up a forty-minute “Energize” routine, looking forward to the yoga wakeup.

My feelings about it were mixed. Maybe it’s because I love Benagh’s Yoga for Stress Relief, but I expected this to be great. It wasn’t. Benagh pays a lot of attention to breath, and gives all sorts of detailed instructions for positioning. Unfortunately, the movement cues didn’t really match what was going on on the screen, so when I looked towards the screen for guidance but listened to her breathing and movement cues, none of it made sense.

Another thing that annoyed me was a strange combination of slowness, lack of variety, and difficulty in the program. Now, I like slower yoga, but I want to spend my time deepening an asana, not lying down on my face breathing and thinking about what I might do next. The slowness of the program also meant there wasn’t much variety in the movements — the same program could have been done in 20 minutes. On the other hand, although the sun salutation didn’t have a full forward bend (I suppose because this is a beginners’ video), there were many repetitions of a full cobra, which I find quite hard on the lower back. My yoga instructor really challenges us in practice, and yet she still doesn’t have us do the full cobra that often.

I don’t think the video is bad, per se… a few hours later, my back does feel better, and it’s probably good for a slow and lazy day. Still, the “Energize” workout was anything but energizing. (I’m sure her relaxation and stretching routines are better.) And I want an hour-long video that really challenges me — if I want to spend an hour mostly lying on my face, I’ll stay in bed!

Review: Michelle Joyce’s Drills! Drills! Drills!

First things first. Drills! Drills! Drills! is not a DVD for people who have not learned the basic posture, movements and isolations of bellydance. If this describes you, go directly to a beginner’s video, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

The drills Michelle offers here are, for the most part, not strenuous, but you do need to have ingrained at least some basic bellydance movements to the point where you can do them without thinking: shimmies and hip bumps should be second nature.

The second key point is that the movements are, in general, geared towards helping you define your isolations, layer movements, and even use different parts of your body at different rhythms. Michelle points out several times that you may not like the moves you’re drilling, and you may not want to use them in a choreography, but that they’re helping you build dance skills.

That said, if you *do* have bellydance experience, and you’re looking for a video which will help you train for bellydance (or get some light exercise) in a “dancey” way, this is it. The video begins with a few strengthening exercises for the quads and abs, and then moves on to a seemingly endless series of varied drills. There are drills which will have you practicing your isolations with different foot and arm positions, drills done while dancing a grapevine, drills where you do a zig zag shape with your hips, pelvis and chest.

I loved the variety. The drills are well-thought out and clearly organized, but they don’t follow the same pattern. This required me to use both my body and my mind in different ways, and kept the movements from being dull. I loved the fact that Michelle puts in little reminders about proper form as you’re doing it. There isn’t a lot of arm work, but there’s definitely greater use of the lower abdominals than I’ve seen in other videos.

If you’re like me, you will find that some things come easily to you, some take a while to click, and some things seem impossibly hard at the first go. This is absolutely a DVD to grow into. At nearly two hours of running time, there’s a wealth of material, and you can always do only one part of a layering drill if you’re not at Michelle’s level yet. After the section on finger cymbals, the drills are also done with zill accompaniment — this was impossible for me, but it was a great chance to repeat the drill I had just done.

Most importantly, the program was fun, despite its slightly military name! The section on 3/4 shimmies is a lot looser than the early drill sections, and I found myself improvising to the beat. In other words, the drills started to become dance. My advice to dancers using this program is add your own warm-up and cool-down, but also to put on a song or two of music you really like after you’re done drilling and just let go. You may just find your body reacting to the music much more readily than before, and with a greater variety of movements.

(Full disclosure: I received the DVD through one of Michelle’s generous giveaways on the bellydancevideos yahoo group.)

Review: Gary Kraftsow’s Viniyoga Therapy for the Upper Back, Neck & Shoulders

I bought Viniyoga Therapy for the Upper Back, Neck & Shoulders and its companion for the lower back shortly after having a debilitating back spasm that put me out of commission for several weeks. I went to physiotherapy, and although it did help, I find the exercises excruciatingly boring, which of course means I don’t do them as often as I should.

So, what was the result? These DVDs are quite simply a godsend. (I’m only writing a review of this one now because I haven’t yet used all three segments of the lower back DVD.) Kraftsow says in his introduction that doing the yoga exercises should be like brushing your teeth, and I find that the program is designed to make it just as easy to keep the stretching going as brushing teeth would be! Knowing that I have a choice between segments of different lengths, and that I can do just 20 minutes in the morning (before I get too hungry!) and still be doing something for my back, makes it so much more realistic to keep up a yoga program.

That, and the fact that the exercises work. I am sometimes so tense that the neck & shoulders movements don’t relax me completely, but they do help, and I generally feel the difference the following morning: they can be better described as preventing future, worse pain than easing current pain. I might add that several of the exercises are similar to what I learned in physiotherapy, which gave me some confidence in the system.

I spent more on these DVDs than I usually do on exercise videos, but I also use them several times a week, much more than I use anything else. They offer variety in type of exercise and duration of program, and they’re set up so that I can do a light program when I’m suffering from pain and a harder one when I want to build strength. I’ve also noticed a difference in my core abdominal strength from using the two videos. Finally, I should add that the DVDs also include mp3 files of the practices, in case you just want to work out with the sound and don’t need the video any more.

Review: Neon’s Luscious: The Bellydance Workout for Beginners

Did we really need another bellydance-based workout? I wouldn’t have thought so, but Neon, as usual, has gone and proven my expectations wrong.

Luscious – The Bellydance Workout for Beginners is an exquisitely made program, with more good qualities than I can enumerate. The costumes and setting are gorgeous — nothing like the typical brightly-lit aerobics studio — and Neon advises you at the beginning to dress up for it and join the three dancers here in making the movement special. This is the kind of thing that sounds cheesy, but I did it, and it makes sense: how will you forget about bad body image or those extra pounds if you’re wearing ugly workout wear? Dressing up makes you feel like you’re dancing, not punishing yourself.

The instruction itself is taught in sections themed “Circles,” “Infinity Loops,” “Undulations,” “Hip Accents,” “Shimmy,” and “Body Line.” Each dancer leads two of the sections: she stands at the front and her voiceover describes the movements to be done. What I really like about this is that the sections weren’t assigned randomly; instead, each section bears the particular dancer’s imprint, and showcases her strengths. It’s subtle, but you start to notice that Neon leads complicated, quick-changing combinations, Blanca shows her wonderful, large, and sensuous movements, and Sarah Skinner adds an upbeat Turkish feel to the shimmy section. This made the instructors seem much less like exchangeable dancing bodies, and much more like teachers with particular areas of expertise.

On-screen graphics show you the move

The movements are varied, and quite a few combinations are introduced and repeated from two to six times. This is not a “four of this and four of that” drill. In fact, I would suggest that complete beginners start with a different video. This would be great for advanced beginners like me, who are not expert enough for a complicated choreo with tons of layering, but get bored when everything comes in fours and is repeated ad infinitum.

All along, the dancers offer tips on putting emotion into the steps, on maintaining form, and on making movements deeper and stronger. While the dancing is rarely fast-paced, the slowness of the movements is often more challenging and grueling. The workout made me sweat (though it might not make everyone), but more importantly, it challenged me to maintain grace, form, and muscle control while learning the combinations. I couldn’t believe it when the forty-five minutes were over — it felt like fifteen!

If you have weak knees, you might want to be careful with some of the lunges and plies; on the other hand, there aren’t a lot of them, and they’re done slowly enough that you can be careful. I’ll also repeat the warning that this might be a little hard for complete beginners who aren’t already good at picking up choreography. However, the video does have a well-indexed instructional section which describes all the movements used in the workout. As a step up, there’s a version of the workout with music alone, and no voice over.

In case my enthusiasm wasn’t clear enough, I really think WDNY has a winner with this video. It’s simple, but also simple enough to do regularly and to grow into. At the same time, even once you have learned the step combinations, adding graceful arm and handwork (to say nothing of being aware of facial expressions, head positions, and dancer’s poise) poses an extra layer of difficulty. And finally, the movements are, quite simply, beautiful. You will be happy to be dancing.

(Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this video from WDNY.)

Review: Asharah’s Modern Tribal Dance

I need to say to begin with that I’m really not fond of the dancing on Asharah’s Modern Tribal Bellydance. I’m not that crazy about tribal fusion anyway, but I’ve definitely seen tribal fusion I’ve liked a lot more than this.

So, weirdly, as much as I don’t like the dancing here, I think the video itself is pretty well done, and can actually foresee myself using it. The main reason for this is that its “Warmup & Conditioning” section is actually a 45 minute exercise and stretching video for dancers, and it’s pretty much the answer to my dreams. Seriously, I’ve imagined what I’d like in a program (often because of exercises I’ve had in live classes), and this is it.

This section alone could stand alone as a full-priced DVD, and would be worth the money. It’s a combination of movements from three groups: yoga, ballet (i.e., the kind of stretches you have at the start of a ballet/ballet- inspired class), and Suhaila-type seated abdominal and chest work. Nothing terribly new, but having them all together in one place is incredibly cool. There’s deep plie work, thorough leg stretches in every possible direction, the shoulders and neck are not ignored, and neither is the back. Asharah also gives frequent knee placement reminders, so although the practice is challenging, it won’t kill your back or knees.
The next section is a Technique & Isolations section of 55 minutes. In this section, Asharah goes over pretty basic movements in bd/tribal fusion vocabulary, but explains them in detail with the appropriate muscle contractions. She’s very Suhaila-based (and, in fact, thanks Suhaila in the credits). Here she covers:

– Shoulders and arms
– Chest squares
– Chest circles
– Glute contactions
– Glute contactions – up
– Glute contactions – down
– Vertical hip 8s down-to-up
– Vertical hip 8s up-to-down
– 3/4 shimmy up
– 3/4 shimmy down
– interior hip squares
– interior hip circles

These are pretty basic moves (I know the last one as an “omi”), but it’s good to have the breakdown and practice, especially for those of us who are far from being experts anyway.

Next comes the “Modern Tribal Movement” section (30 min), in which Asharah teaches how to break down a single movement into three or four smaller segments, so as to achieve a strobing or robotic effect. She does this with: shoulders & arms, chest slides, chest locks, undulations, and vertical hip 8s up-to-down. I haven’t watched this section all the way through, and like I said, I don’t really like how the result looks in dance, but it did strike me that some of the exercises were similar in concept to those on Aziza’s Pratice Companion. So, weirdly, although I don’t want to dance like Asharah, I can imagine using this section as a drill and exercise tool.

Finally, there is Combination instruction of 30 min, which you can also play with practice music. And an 8 min yoga-based cool-down. And performances.

I suppose it figures that if you put three freakin’ hours of material onto one DVD (runtime is 180 minutes, no joke), you’re going to please a lot of people. Asharah is relaxed and straightforward on the video, and there is really just so much material to work with, at such different levels, that it’s an incredible value. I think people who are actually *into* tribal fusion will probably adore this video, although they might find the isolations section a little basic. However, even people who are not can use this DVD as a dance training video, rather than a dance instruction video. The actual dance section makes up 30 minutes out of 3 hours — the rest is really a conditioning program for dancers.

(Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this video from WDNY.)

Review: Shamira’s Bellydancing: The Sensuous Workout

Bellydancing: The Sensuous Workout is wonderful, if you know what to expect from it. It’s not super long (46 min), and it won’t fulfill every desire, but it does what it does very well.

This is one fierce costume, if I do say so

Let me start with the negatives, and save people some money. Do not get this video if you want:

– A high intensity workout. It’s not, it’s just not. I do break a sweat sometimes, especially if I try to follow along with her arms, but you won’t feel challenged if you dance regularly.
– Thorough bellydance instruction. It really helps knowing the moves before, though she does introduce them in the “Basic Movements” section. I advise using this after another video, even after her Sensuous Workout 2.
– Lots of bellydance moves, complex technique.
– Shimmy work. Her shimmy section is very short. The video is much better on circles, hipwork, traveling steps and turns.
– Finally, and this is the reason I took off a point, while there is a warmup, it’s short (no neck stretches, for example), and there’s no cooldown. So you have to add to that on your own. Also, I really think every bellydance video should go over posture, just as a matter of course.

However, this video is fantastic if you want:

– A light, not too strenuous way to get moving and have fun. It might be a good way to start an exercise program, or to get moving if you’ve been sick or not dancing for a while. I have much fancier bellydance videos in my collection, but since dancing is my hobby, not my life, I wind up playing this one much more than I ever expected to. It’s just great when you’re not that energetic, you don’t want to strain your back or knees, but you want to get moving and feel the spirit of the dance.
– A sense of the grace and beauty of bellydance. Shamira’s style is not to string together a hundred movements in ten seconds, so if that’s what impresses you, get something else. She uses a few movements (especially in this video), but she puts them together in a lovely way, and gives you a sense of how you might make combinations out of them.
– Easy traveling and stationary combinations. It’s nice practice.
– Incredible hands and arms. It’s funny: to me, the loveliest part about Shamira’s dancing are her hands and arms, but she doesn’t really talk about them on the two Sensuous Workout videos too much. If you’ve got the steps of the video down, try following along with the arms — it makes it much more challenging, and gives the video the potential to be used for a longer time.

To conclude, Shamira’s dancing, even in this “workout” DVD, represents to me much of the reason I first got into bellydancing. She’s graceful, expressive, and playful. I think even dancers who know many more moves than are represented on this DVD can stand to learn a lot from her, if they pay attention.

Review: Puela Lunaris’ Flamenco: You can do it! Sevillanas

I became interested in Puela Lunaris’s DVDs through World Dance New York, which is better known for its bellydance instructional videos. And while Lunaris has done work on the Zambra (the style of flamenco most closely associated with oriental dance) it is important to note that Flamenco: You Can Do It! – Sevillanas has nothing whatsoever to do with bellydance. In fact, the sevillanas are not even flamenco. They are an old, very strictly structured Spanish social dance which is sometimes performed in flamenco shows, but is also done socially in Spain. This DVD not only introduces the dance, but does an excellent job at showing how it can be performed alone, in a pair in a relaxed, social manner, and in a more showy performance style with fans.

The good:

As much as I generally do not like choreographies, this is the dance for them, since every sevillana is the same. The first choreo section is an extremely lengthy breakdown of all the movements necessary for all four sections of the sevillana dance. Lunaris is painstaking in demonstrating the steps, repeating them many times over, and then adding arms. There is instruction on posture, arm movement and placement, arm variations, the different styles of hand floreos.

Lunaris often also shows variations that can be introduced, not in the steps per se, but in the upper body styling or arm movements. This is where the dancer can express his or her individuality, since the steps are fixed. She also briefly describes how men’s arm and handwork differs from women’s.

In the second choreography, Lunaris has mini workshops on fanwork and on dancing with a partner, and runs through the entire choreography again using the fan. She uses her partner to show not only how dancers move around each other during the sevillana, but also more stylistic variations.

It should be clear by now that this DVD is a treasure, an absolute treasure. I am currently taking beginner flamenco classes and learning the sevillana as part of these. They are quite complicated, at least at first, and any online reference material has not been very good at explaining the dance part of it. To have a DVD at this price not only run down the entire choreography but also show variations is truly exquisite. The two performances at the end are an extra treat.

The bad:

As well-organized as WDNY DVDs generally are, I find myself wishing for more, especially when it comes to Lunaris’ videos. The current organization allows you to watch a demonstration at full-speed with music, then have a lengthy breakdown, then have choreography and practice with music. This is great, but it bothers me that some of the basics of the dance, like how to do floreos for example, are hidden away in a long choreography, with no way to guess at where they might be. There should be an easy way to jump to the descriptions of a few basic techniques, if not have them in a different section altogether.

More specifically to this DVD, since the sevillana is such a repetitive dance, all of the instruction would make much more sense if the dance were broken down in table form and available as a screen or even for printing. It would make the choreography much easier to learn.

How to use this video:

First, watch the first choreography all the way through. Just watch it. Watch the performances to see how it all fits together. Then start doing it, but take it slowly. In a normal class, this is material covered over months — the fact that it is all on one DVD makes this video valuable, but it is also unrealistic to expect to learn it quickly. Just focus on the feet at first, and only later practice adding the arms, and then, slowly, the hands.

That said, the sevillana is more approachable than flamenco dance. I.e., it’s easier to look good dancing the sevillana. Lunaris’ is a great introduction for those with no experience of it, and a wonderful reference work for those who are learning it in a live class. She has a charming on-screen persona, and she is careful to give you a sense of the culture, attitude, and context of the dance as well, so you understand the spirit as well as the movements. If you are willing to practice a little, you will not regret buying this video.

Review: Aziza’s Ultimate Bellydance Pratice Companion

Aziza’s Ultimate Bellydance Pratice Companion is like nothing else. A self-contained, intense bellydance drill practice and workout, it will make you want to throw all your other dance and exercise DVDs in the closet and just do this everyday. No, really.

She’s as happy as I will be

First, the basics: the setting is a staged workshop, and you see Aziza over the heads of the participants, as it were. There are online clips of the video in which it seems as though Aziza might be hard to see — expanded on the larger screen, this is never the case. Aziza mirrors you, calling left as she moves right. The student dancers are a nice effect: while they are skilled enough to keep up with Aziza, they still need her encouragement and correction now and then.

The practice is composed of 6 sections: a warm-up, ribcage drills, hip drills, arm practice, an insanely lengthy, never-give-up, shimmy drill, and finally, a cool down.

The warm-up is thorough, involves a lot of breathing, parallel-foot plies, gentle head movements, bends and arm work, and really does get you ready to practice. (To give you a sense of it, Ava Fleming suggests you do this warmup before using her own DVDs, so it’s a keeper.) Posture is covered in detail, but relatively quickly. To jump to the end, the cool-down is even better, involving good leg and back stretches to stretch out the muscles you’ve just used. Aziza gives posture reminders throughout the program, and is careful to guide your knee placement and to encourage gentle movement of the head for safe exercise.

The ribcage and hip sections include what I find a very fun drill which involves moving the body part in question in six different directions, in a variety of different ways. You really have to use both your back muscles and (especially) your abdominal muscles to keep your posture and do the movement.

The arm section consists of a series of port-de-bras combinations. While still valuable, the arm section is the least unique and innovative part of the DVD. It does, however, have an exercise for learning to move your hands slowly while moving another part of your body quickly. I could imagine this being useful for flamenco dancers as well.

And then there’s the shimmy drill. Imagine shimmying. Now imaging shimmying some more. Now imagine doing all sorts of movements with your arms, head, and torso while you shimmy. Now imagine making all sorts of shapes with your hips while you shimmy. Now choo-choo shimmy. Now shoulder shimmy. Oh, now back to normal shimmying, with increased force! Now repeat all the exercises from the ribcage and hip sections while shimmying. After enough time, if you just keep on going, your body enters this zen space where all it knows how to do is shimmy: that’s where you start being able to layer things, and you almost don’t mind. You think it’s about to be over, and then Aziza makes you write the alphabet horizontally with your hips (while shimmying). And then vertically with your ribcage. And then you shimmy some more. And at the end, you find out you were shimmying for twenty minutes, and you can’t believe it, because you know you never would even have attempted such a thing if you knew what was in store for you.

In case I haven’t made it clear enough, this video is a gem: so is Aziza. She has charm and a sense of humour, and a kind of sadistic gleam in her eye when she’s promised one more repetition and says, “I lied! Another one on your right.” The two performances at the end are just the kind of flirtatious, playful Egyptian style bellydance I love, and it occurred to me as I watched them that trying to imitate those dances would be an entire other workshop! However, this video would really be good for anyone working on their drills, and Aziza’s focus on driving the movements with muscles would probably sit well with many tribal or fusion dancers.

After such a glowing review, I almost feel it necessary to say that I don’t know Aziza at all. I just think that this video has so much to give to so many different kinds of dancers that it’s an unregrettable buy. I tried for a long time to find it used, and now I know why I couldn’t: this isn’t something you let go.

Review: Rachel Brice’s Bellydance Arms and Posture

Rachel Brice’s Bellydance Arms and Posture is a good, self-contained practice for arm and shoulder work with a distinctly tribal flavour.

What it’s not:
It’s not a thorough guide to tribal bellydance arm work, nor does Brice go over hand movements. The important distinction to draw is that this video is actually not instruction in using your arms to dance, although it includes some dance components. There are two aspects to arm movements: what the muscles and joints should be doing (pull arm up, rotate elbow, shoulder down, etc.) and what you should be visualizing or feeling in order to get the look right (feel as though you’re pressing, pulling molasses, moving your hands through water, etc.) Rachel covers the first part, the muscles and joints, very well for the moves she shows, and I was able to “get” some tricky moves after her explanation. She doesn’t explain how to get her “look”, that is, her way of moving her arms through space veeeery slowly and deliciously and graciously. If you’ve had some dance instruction, you can probably imagine visualizations for yourself, but this DVD is not a key to that.

I should also mention that the DVD is slightly misnamed. It should have been called “Arms & Shoulders.” Although Brice does give posture reminders, there is no longer discussion of or practice for correct posture.

 What it is:
It’s a great little practice you can do all in one go (and it lasts under an hour). (I did skip two leg-strengthening parts involving deep squats that would have killed my knees.) There are many exercises for improving shoulder mobility and strength, some of which I had not seen before. Some of the arm movements reminded me of the arm practice session of my flamenco class.

If you’re interested in tribal, you’ve probably already bought this video. However, it would be very useful for any dancer looking to work and stretch the shoulder region, bellydancers, yes, but if you’re learning flamenco this would be great too. This is also a video I’d file under “Great for People Sitting at Desks/Computers All Day Long” — if you’re even a bit curious about this kind of dance, this video will help you move exactly those muscles which are most damaged by sedentary desk work.

Other notes:
The video is also a really good deal for the price. I like Brice, but am not an acolyte, and her choreographies kind of all look the same to me (amazing, but the same), so I’m not in a position to judge the performance. There is a cute chit-chat segment between her and Miles Copeland in the “Extras” section in which she comes across as funny and down-to-earth. I would also add extra stretching to the end of the program.

Review: Sera’s Bellydance East Coast Tribal

I finally worked through Sera’s Bellydance: East Coast Tribal after owning it for a while, and I was stunned at how excellent it is. There are a few flaws (which I’ll get to later), but those aside, it’s a superb video.

First things first. This is not a beginner’s DVD. Sera neither gives the kind of explanations of basic movements a beginner would want, nor does she present all the basics of bellydance. No way. It is, however, a great DVD for intermediate dancers. Sera goes over some basic movements (especially in the warmup), but in such a way as to help you increase your flexibility and power.

The 20-minute warmup and the 10-minute drill section get you doing some basic stretches, focusing on your isolations, and quite importantly, working on powering moves from particular muscles. The dancers mirror your movements (so when she calls “left,” they actually move to their right) which I prefer. Sera is extremely thorough about calling out which muscle to use for a move, and always managed to remind me as soon as I forgot. I *was* worried about the neck stretch, since she moves the head all the way back, and some moves also seemed quite hard on the knees, so I modified them. In the choreography Sera is careful to point out which sections are knee-unfriendly, and sometimes offers a modification, but this is not the case in the workout. She does, however, tell you when certain moves are difficult for beginners, so you don’t get discouraged.

I would say that, considering how cheap the DVD is, the warmup is worth the price alone. I know I’m going to use this (with some extra stretching) as an introduction to other bellydance videos.

Next comes a demonstration of the combinations to be learned, and then very detailed instructions for each of six movement combinations. I had watched the video before, but only by doing it could I see what a brilliant teacher Sera is. She has that uncanny ability to know *just* when you’re relaxing a certain muscle, or doing a movement lazily, or forgetting about your posture, and to give a perfectly-timed reminder.

On the other hand, the combos themselves are challenging and, to my eye, beautiful. It’s not hard to get the basics of each, but to do them right, with the correct arm movements, good timing, and perfect form, is hard. This is a major strength of the DVD: you can grow into it a little. Both the warmup and the dance instruction are basically doable for an advanced beginner/intermediate, but they have enough layering and little details that you have a reason to go back and do the video again.

As you can probably tell by the length of this review, I am impressed! I do want to say though that it’s not the right DVD for you if you just want to pop something in the player and shake your hips around. Some of the muscular movements can be quite strenuous. You need to pay attention to the instructions, you need to listen to your body to avoid injury, and you may even need to pause it and practice a movement slowly and carefully on your own. And you need to stretch thoroughly at the end. But this is what makes it so good.