I almost didn't buy this video because based on the title, I thought it would be exactly like Breakthru Core Conditioning Pilates, with a few extra pilates moves thrown in. Actually, it's quite different--and deserves a title that would differentiate it from their earlier Pilates tape. It uses yoga, pilates and ballet to build strength and tone muscles.

The workout takes place in a very large living-room type space--what a living room might look like if it were really an exercise area. The exercise space is clear and open, but living room-type furniture and decorations line the walls and background. It's an attractive and pleasant space--different from the plain space of Breakthru Pilates.

Michele leads the warm-up, which consists of some yoga-ish moves, interspersed with ballet/modern dance-type movies, followed by more intensive yoga sun salutations series. One thing that bothers me a little bit in this yoga segment and in the final yoga segment is that they don't really refer to any of the positions by their names--downward dog becomes "inverted V" here.

Tracy then takes over to begin the pilates sequence. This is more advanced than the sequence in Breakthru Pilates and also offers some interesting, innovative moves that I haven't seen before in my other pilates tapes. You already need a fair amount of core strength to be able to do these exercises. The sequence is broken up with planks and a challenging series of push-ups.

They then move to standing floorwork and a ballet sequence, led by Michelle. There are plies, releves, tendus, grand battements, and something else whose name I can't remember (and I apologize for the spelling too!). As with the pilates sequence, the exercises move quickly and flow well.

Tracy concludes the tape with a more challenging standing yoga sequence that stretches the upper body while really working the legs (you stay in warrior lunge for quite awhile).

The one thing I would have liked is a couple of minutes of stretching at the end; the upper body gets a good stretch during the yoga sequence, but I found that my lower body needed more of a stretch after the ballet and yoga sections.

I really like this video a lot. If you're new to Pilates, you'd probably want to start with a different video; Breakthru Pilates offers better instruction in terms of form and also builds the core strength that's needed for some of these exercises. And if you're looking for a pilates video, this isn't the one, as only a few minutes are really spent on more or less traditional pilates exercises. But this tape does a good job of taking the core work in Breakthru Pilates to the next level and offering an interesting, fun sequence of strength training exercises drawn from yoga, ballet and pilates.

Instructor Comments:
Michelle and Tracy work so well together. They alternate teaching different sections; the one who is not in charge of that particular section shows modifications and offers extra tips or form pointers. They're pleasant and professional.

Elisabeth