Video Fitness

Jump & Stomp

Marcus Irwin

Another great workout by Marcus. This one is half step and half high/low. The choreography, as usual with Marcus, is advanced, but Marcus is known for his outstanding ability to teach complicated moves and he keeps the tradition here. The music is fun – Pointer Sisters and other songs of that style. The intensity is intermediate/advanced. The only drawback to Marcus’ tapes is the production quality, which is generally fair to below average. Normally that would make me get rid of a tape but Marcus is just too good. Grade A- (A+ if the production quality were better).

Annie S.
ann.stevenson@att.net
9-1-02

This was not one of my favorite Marcus tapes, which surprised me since it is one of his newest releases. The two main reasons for this are that is a combo step/hi-lo workout and also that he does not have as much variety in the combos as I would like. Some of his new combos, are simply variations of the ones he just finished teaching. Also, the choreography resembled his older tapes a bit too much for me.

The total workout is 70 minutes and does not include warm-up or cooldown.

The step workout was only 28 minutes, which is a little shorter than I would normally want. It contained 12 combos, about half of which were 16 counts and half 32 counts. Most of the 32-count combos contained earlier 16-count combos, or were variations of earlier combos. This routine felt a little repetitious to me because of it. I prefer Step Express and Step by the Numbers over this step workout. There really was not any new or exciting choreography in this tape, which I found disappointing. A nice difference in this workout from his others though, is that he does much less marching in place and he teaches at a little faster pace than normal, so the intensity is probably a little bit higher.

The hi/lo workout was 42 minutes, and included 12 combos also. This workout did have a surprise which was a full 64 count combo with all new pieces taught towards the end of the tape. It was an indication of how much fun a real workout from Marcus would be, however it was not taught in a totally balanced way. The choreography in this section was typical Marcus, which means I enjoy it, but overall, it did not feel much different than his other tapes.

The production quality on this tape is a little worse than his previous set of tapes (the ones with X in the titles, like Step Xpress.) It is not unbearably bad, but it isn't great. Also, the music was the same music he has used in other tapes. I like the soundtrack a lot, but not every time I work out to Marcus.

Marcus is his normal charming self in this video. In fact, I think I loved him more than usual, because he reminds me a lot of Christi her when he sings his cues. He yells out 'Whee' a few times, and he really likes to laugh at his mistakes, and those of his group, and I really enjoy all of that.

This is not a bad tape at all, and if you want to try Marcus, this would be a good tape to try, since you get to see his step and hi/lo. However, I decided to trade the tape, because in the end I do not think I need every Marcus tape out there. His choreography was not different enough from other tapes to warrant keeping this tape.

Lisa C.

12/17/03



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