Video Fitness

Step Combat

Sara Kooperman

The instructor: I admire Sara Kooperman and her dedication to the field of fitness, particularly in training instructors and enhancing their skills. She is very knowledgeable and has commitment and passion about fitness. Her communication skills are excellent and she has a great smile that is very engaging. I have other videos with Sara and she particularly shines in strength training videos. Her video Strong Women: The Elegance of Power is one of the toughest workouts I've done and it is fun to boot.

Her video Step Combat is not her best. From an instructor's perspective the combinations are fine and she has some interesting moves that work well together. For the most part, the choreography is fun, but she does have some moves than can be tricky and awkward. I wrote the combinations down and with some modifications though, they have worked fine for me. The instruction on the video drags on for too long and may frustrate any instructor with some experience. She is too repetitive with the same move. After 2-3 times of performing a part of the combo, you have it and are itching to move on. As for a workout, there are several mistakes in the video (the background exerciser trips on the step at one point trying to accomplish a tricky move) and Sara loses track and screws up the routine at another time. Some of the moves did not flow well and were uncomfortable. I am careful with moves that require a lot of turning on the step where a torque of the knee is possible. The music was too slow and Sara went over the breakdown too much. Since this video is geared for instructors I wish she could have put more combinations in and taught them at a faster pace.

If you are looking at this workout to do at home, I think you are better served by Becky Chamberlain's CIA step kickboxing video. I enjoyed many of the moves Sara showed, and how they progressed, but this tape is not up to speed with the rest of her videos.

Janet O'Neil
10/11/00



Video Fitness copyright © 1996 - 2024 Wendy Niemi Kremer    All rights reserved