Yoga for Beginners

This DVD has 2 yoga sessions of 25 minutes each demonstrated by Desi Bartlett.  Bartlett gives the instruction in voice over, and there are language choices of English, Spanish, or Spanglish.  These practices are, as you would expect from Yoga for Beginners, quite simple and not too challenging.  The Solar practice is the more active: it has sequences of forward bends, downward dogs, push ups, upward dogs, Warrior 1 & 2, crunches and twists.  The Lunar practice is slower, starting from a seated position with stretching, then going to all fours and more stretching, some lunges and twists, then sitting stretches for the legs, some table position, and leg stretches from a lying position, and ending with a bridge, a forward bend from sitting, and a final relaxation.  In both practices Desi speaks a very cheerful voice and she gives good clear instructions.  The production has typical James Wvinner features: the room is nicely decorated in earth tones with pleasant decorative items in the background.  The room is well lit with what looks like sunlight until you realize that it can't be, unless the practices were filmed on a planet with three suns that never move in the sky.  In the background is electronic eastern style ambient music.  Personally speaking, I can't say this is my favorite yoga DVDs -- there's a sense of artificiality to too much of it, including the music and the room set up, and I actually prefer more amateurish productions.   Yet this is a nice DVD package for beginners -- 25 minutes is a good time length for a yoga practice for people in a hurry, and so it would be good for use a few times a week. 

© 2010 Christian Perring        

Christian Perring, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York