Marcus Irwin
I am a 9-year vidiot, at an advanced fitness level for my age (over 50, which means
I don?t do much high intensity high impact cardio for the sake of my knees and feet),
and love doing complex choreography, but hate learning it when it's not well taught.
With over 350 workouts in my collection, I rarely reach for even my favorite cardio
workouts more than once every 3 months or so. Even with new workouts that I'm still
learning, I rarely go back to them in less than a month. Marcus' latest Evolution
workouts are the first in years that I?ve felt compelled to do again in the same
week! I've done Airborne twice in the last 4 days! This workout is hi-lo as it
was meant to be. (Just watching it now as I'm writing this review makes me want
to get up and do it again!)
This is a long workout - cardio 71 minutes, cool-down & stretch 4 minutes,
total 75 minutes. The workout consists of 6 32-count combos; there is no separate
warm-up. There is TIFTTing but not a lot of it - you only TIFTT after combo 4 and
after combo 6. The TIFTTing takes a split form, i.e. combo 1 right lead, combo
2 left lead, combo 3 right lead, etc. so that the final TIFTT feels like one long
192-count combo. The choreography is fairly complex (about the same level as Rob
Glick or Christi Taylor) but is so well taught that it's more easily learnable because
Marcus breaks it down very logically and does a good job of layering. I was able
to get all the combos individually the first time, but tripped all over myself trying
to keep up during the TIFTTing, especially with all the turns and twirls. (Marcus
makes a remark at one point that it feels like "being in a blender".) The intensity
is moderate. The impact is low to moderate. The music, new to this series, is
energetic and motivating, but nothing that I recognized.
Here's a list of the moves from the DVD chapter menu, which should give you a good
idea of the type of choreography: mambo reverse hitch; mambo swivel; quickie; chasse
tango; kick ball change; grapevine double Elvis; 3 curl swivel; pivot mambo cha
cha; freeze. The tango, ball-change, and swivel/Elvis seem to be Marcus' moves
du jour.
The set is industrial looking, with concrete floors, a green backdrop, and several
screens with giant floating/twirling green letter e's (the Evolution logo). There
are two new female ?backup babes?, one from Germany and one from Belgium. Marcus
wears white pants with a black stripe down the side and a black short-sleeved t-shirt.
The babes wear white pants and white tops.
The DVD also includes previews from other videos produced by Marcus - 20 minutes
from the Evolution line and 12 minutes from the Free2Be line.
Instructor comments:
Marcus has a great personality and a good rapport with the backup babes. The charming
Aussie accent adds to the attraction.
Pam L
9/5/2005
On cardio work, I am an intermediate to advanced exerciser who enjoys with complex
choreography at some level. I also enjoy my "easier" workouts on those mornings
I don't feel like thinking that much. After trying many different cardio workouts
with varying complexity, I have found that I enjoy many different workouts, but
my absolute favorites are those that many complexity lovers on VF would classify
as intermediate because the instructor takes awhile to build combinations and/or
explains more than the most complex instructors (like Christi, Patrick, or Andre).
Airborne is Marcus Irwin's newest hi/lo workout. The set has changed and is much
lighter than the set in previous workouts. The floor and walls are white and the
exercisers are dressed mostly in white. Marcus is backed up by two "backup babes"
and has a lot of interaction with them throughout the workout. He is his usual
personable, pleasant, funny self. This workout moves faster than his previous workouts.
He still builds each combination block, layering complexity as he goes, but there
is less down time, or holding patterns, between moves, so the workout flows faster.
The complexity of the moves is intermediate, maybe low advanced at times. He starts
with fairly simple patterns and layers on complexity as he goes.
The workout is well done and pretty typical of other Marcus Irwin workouts, except
that it flows faster. Those that read the VF Forum may know that I LOVE Marcus
Irwin workouts - he is probably my favorite instructor. Imagine my shock and surprise,
then, to find that I did not enjoy this workout. And, I am not sure why. The paragraph
above pretty much describes what the intellectual side of my brain thinks of this
workout. However, I just could not bond with the workout ? I just didn't enjoy
it while I was doing it. There is nothing specific I can point to as to why though.
I just didn?t bond with it. Go figure.
Instructor comments:
Marcus is his usual laid-back, humorous, motivating instructor.
Laura S.
October 17, 2005
