Tessie Ettie
This video is from Sara City Workouts and is geared toward instructors. This workout is designed to combine kick/punch aerobic segments with strength work using a ball (Resistaball or Flexaball). The workout has a warm up, interval section, then a cool down. There is a lecture section at the end of the tape as well that cover the moves and work out structure. The workout is around 50 minutes total.
I bought this tape because I like both kickboxing moves and using the ball. I thought what a great combination. From the description I thought the workout was going to be rigourous. BUT.. that's not what I felt. I do a variety of tapes from beginner to advanced and I would say that this is at a beginner level both aerobically and strengthwise. Also I felt that the workout was done on the fly. Tessie spent more time talking than actually showing you anything. The demonstrations were lopsided, focusing primarily on one side of the body. You spend most of the workout doing a boxer shuffle side to side. This kept the heart rate quite low.
I felt that Tessie was more familiar with working on the ball since her descriptions and moves were much more accurate and controlled. Actually if she did a ball workout it might be pretty good.
Overall I would not recommend this to be used consistantly for a workout tape. However, the idea of using kickboxing intervals and ball work is still quite a good idea. I will probably put this up on the exchange. It would be good for someone curious about setting up a workout like this on their own, or for a beginner to test out something new. Also, this is fairly typical Sara City Production Quality. Basically it's set up to show you something, the sound and picture quality is along the lines of a home video. It's too bad that this company doens't focus on improving this. In my mind just because your prime audience is "instructors" doesn't excuse poor presentation techniques. Could you imagine other businesses doing this?
Instructor comments: Lots of energy, likes to shout and whoop it up. Seems like a person who teaches to large groups, uses a lot of gestures but doesn't always cue verbally very well. Also, she uses different expressions, I believe that she may be French-Canadian, which is kind of fun to hear.
Lisa Kucharski
eenah@aol.com
4/29/99
