Cathie Murakami
This video wins the prize for least imaginative
non-descriptive title, but it's actually a fairly
decent introductory Pilates routine. Cathie Murakami
is an attractive, pleasant, and careful instructor and
the exercises she chooses are manageable and
non-threatening. The workout was enjoyable enough, but
the tape does have its quirks.
For one thing, the actual workout is preceded by ten
eternal minutes of chitchat that may have been
instructive, but frankly, had me fast-forwarding
impatiently in vain search of the exercise part. After
about three minutes, I started to worry that the whole
tape was like this, and there would never be exercises
at all. Finally though, we did get to the routine.
Pilates is known for complicated toys, but I have
never seen any used in a plain old mat routine. Cathie
uses a towel for assisted crunches and a dynaband for
assisted roll-downs. These innovations work
surprisingly well. She has you hold the crunch at the
top for a very long time, but the towel really does
keep the neck relaxed. And the dynaband roll-downs
help isolate the lower back and add a stabilizer for
balancing.
The pace of the workout was a little bit odd. Cathie
frequently pauses between exercises to offer
explanations. Or worse, she'll get you into ready
position before she stops to talk, and as a result
leave you hanging there with nothing to do for a
minute. And in most cases, it felt like one rep too
many for my pathetic attention span. Maybe Pilates
will cure me of this!
Cathie instructs very carefully (in fact, she filled
in several gaps of mislearning I had acquired
elsewhere) but she has a few verbal patterns that had
me cringing. For one thing, she over-subjects things.
Where most instructors would say "now twist your
pelvis to the right" she says "now you twist your
pelvis to the right." And she finishes the exercises
with a Firm-style flourish: "that was the spinal
twist!"
I feel I will enjoy this tape more in future uses than
I did the first time. I will know where to cue the
tape to start at the actual workout, for one thing.
And I will learn the order of the exercises so I can
work ahead when she pauses to give instruction. The
workout is very gentle and relaxing, yet effective.
However, I could see myself outgrowing it because
Cathie offers few clues on how to intensify the
modified poses she so competently presents.
Joanna C.
8/21/01
