Review: New York City Ballet Workout
I tried the New York City Ballet Workout last night, and OMG OMG it is so freakin' awesome. It is not only challenging, fun, and relaxing, but it has to be the least annoying workout tape I have ever seen in my life.
It starts out with the music. First off, you have two options for the music: classical or modern. The modern is slightly cheesy, but of a much higher caliber than you've come to expect from workout videos. The classical, though, is utterly fucking fantastic. It's my boy Bach kickin' it with Verdi and various baroque composers, you know what I'm saying? And generally the music is very well coreographed with the movements, not obtrusive at all.
Then, the visuals are relaxed and simple. The exercises are demonstrated by four dancers, two men and two women. They're all wearing simple black, and they're standing in front of simple blueish-grey field. (And speaking of color, they actually have a decent mix of races, though both the women are white.) None of them talk, which means none of them have to grunt and yell over the music; the announcer (who sounds like some relaxed old grey-bearded cigar-smoker) calmly mentions what the dancers are doing from time to time. You have the option in the DVD setup to turn him off, too, if you'd like.
I've seen a lot of reviews, both on Amazon and Netflix (where I got the DVD) that it's "too hard to follow" and "not for beginners" and "good, but only if you've had ballet experience." Ha! I am a fat, clumsy oaf, with no knowledge of ballet, and I absolutely loved this experience. It's true that he doesn't explain what the terms mean right away - he's used the term "first position" like 10 times, before he explains 36 minutes or so into the DVD that it means standing with your heels together and toes pointed straight out to the sides - but it doesn't matter, because you just follow the dancers. (Or in my case, kind of mostly follow them most of the time.)
Also, there's no question that the workout is challenging. At one point, you lie on your side, and the announcer calmly says, "Now lift both legs off the floor." WhatEVER! I made it maybe half a centimeter up, which I couldn't keep up for long. But they're pretty good about giving alternative positions, and even you just do most of the workout, adapting the impossible bits to the capabilities of your mere mortal's frame, you still get a fantastic workout.
What's really great is that even the dancers can't do the whole workout as described - for example, one of the women looked like she was about to topple over during a couple of exercises that involved balancing on one foot while extending your other limbs in various graceful configurations. Also, the men totally fail to get their toes pointed out enough for first position; they're standing around with maybe a 90-degree angle between their feet. And, even though all of the dancers are graceful, superhuman gods, you still see them shaking and trembling slightly as their holding their positions. So you know that this workout tape is going to be useful to you for a long time; even the professional golden children of ballet who've done this every day for years still find the workout challenging.
It's not explictly an aerobic workout, but at the end of it, my heart was thumping and I was covered in sweat. It's focused mainly on strength, balance, and flexibility.
The only complaint I have about the DVD is that there's something screwy with the way it was set up; if you select the option to go to the workout, there's an interminable introduction by Sarah Jessica-Parker that you can't skip over using the "next chapter" button, though you can fast-forward though it. Also, if you go to the chapter select menu to hit the exercises directly, you're booted back into the chapter menu after each segment. So that's pretty annoying.
The workout time is an hour, and the DVD is still in print. The cheapest place I found it was at MovieMars.com for $11; it's $14 or so at Amazon, and the list price is $20.
Edit: Doh, I see you reviewed this before, and it was ajudged Not Awesome. Impossible! But there you have it.
It starts out with the music. First off, you have two options for the music: classical or modern. The modern is slightly cheesy, but of a much higher caliber than you've come to expect from workout videos. The classical, though, is utterly fucking fantastic. It's my boy Bach kickin' it with Verdi and various baroque composers, you know what I'm saying? And generally the music is very well coreographed with the movements, not obtrusive at all.
Then, the visuals are relaxed and simple. The exercises are demonstrated by four dancers, two men and two women. They're all wearing simple black, and they're standing in front of simple blueish-grey field. (And speaking of color, they actually have a decent mix of races, though both the women are white.) None of them talk, which means none of them have to grunt and yell over the music; the announcer (who sounds like some relaxed old grey-bearded cigar-smoker) calmly mentions what the dancers are doing from time to time. You have the option in the DVD setup to turn him off, too, if you'd like.
I've seen a lot of reviews, both on Amazon and Netflix (where I got the DVD) that it's "too hard to follow" and "not for beginners" and "good, but only if you've had ballet experience." Ha! I am a fat, clumsy oaf, with no knowledge of ballet, and I absolutely loved this experience. It's true that he doesn't explain what the terms mean right away - he's used the term "first position" like 10 times, before he explains 36 minutes or so into the DVD that it means standing with your heels together and toes pointed straight out to the sides - but it doesn't matter, because you just follow the dancers. (Or in my case, kind of mostly follow them most of the time.)
Also, there's no question that the workout is challenging. At one point, you lie on your side, and the announcer calmly says, "Now lift both legs off the floor." WhatEVER! I made it maybe half a centimeter up, which I couldn't keep up for long. But they're pretty good about giving alternative positions, and even you just do most of the workout, adapting the impossible bits to the capabilities of your mere mortal's frame, you still get a fantastic workout.
What's really great is that even the dancers can't do the whole workout as described - for example, one of the women looked like she was about to topple over during a couple of exercises that involved balancing on one foot while extending your other limbs in various graceful configurations. Also, the men totally fail to get their toes pointed out enough for first position; they're standing around with maybe a 90-degree angle between their feet. And, even though all of the dancers are graceful, superhuman gods, you still see them shaking and trembling slightly as their holding their positions. So you know that this workout tape is going to be useful to you for a long time; even the professional golden children of ballet who've done this every day for years still find the workout challenging.
It's not explictly an aerobic workout, but at the end of it, my heart was thumping and I was covered in sweat. It's focused mainly on strength, balance, and flexibility.
The only complaint I have about the DVD is that there's something screwy with the way it was set up; if you select the option to go to the workout, there's an interminable introduction by Sarah Jessica-Parker that you can't skip over using the "next chapter" button, though you can fast-forward though it. Also, if you go to the chapter select menu to hit the exercises directly, you're booted back into the chapter menu after each segment. So that's pretty annoying.
The workout time is an hour, and the DVD is still in print. The cheapest place I found it was at MovieMars.com for $11; it's $14 or so at Amazon, and the list price is $20.
Edit: Doh, I see you reviewed this before, and it was ajudged Not Awesome. Impossible! But there you have it.
