I'm a huge fan of yoga practices designed to be therapeutic in nature. Prior to acquiring GOOD MEDICINE WELLNESS, I read reviews and even watched video clips online, and it seemed like a perfect fit for me. In reality, however, I found the DVD to be disappointing.

This DVD was instructed by Roxanne Currie, a Raja Yoga instructor. Although it is a self-produced DVD, it is very nicely presented in a glossy, slim trifold cardboard case with easily navigable DVD menus. The DVD offers a short introduction to Raja Yoga (including information on the yoga yamas and niyamas) and three practices: Morning, Midday, and Evening. I have provided a brief overview of each below.

MORNING (14 minutes)
Currie (who instructs all three segments via voiceover, leading two background exercisers in a pretty outdoor setting) starts this routine with a facial massage. She uses several different hand strokes, adding in an ear massage as well. She also performs a few squats to stimulate blood flow. Breathing exercises including kapalabhati and nadi shodanam. Currie then leads approximately 4 minutes of guided progressive relaxation, cuing to tense and relax the muscles--unfortunately, she goes through this quite quickly.

MIDDAY (12 minute)
This segment begins with slow, gentle stretches, including shoulder rotations, rotations with arms on shoulders, arm crosses, wrist rotations (with hands flat, cupped, and fanned), and knee to ankle rotations. The last move is a balance on toes with a twist. Currie again performs the nadi shodanam breathing exercise. This routine concludes with an approximately 6-minute relaxation (Currie cuing breathing only this time) ending with a final minute of the Gayatri Mantra.

EVENING (12 minutes)
For this routine, Currie performs several SLOW rounds of sun salutations to start. She then moves right into nadi shodanam and then a guided relaxing. I found this practice to be the most disappointing; there just wasn't much to it.

I was extremely disappointed in this DVD overall. Although I have and enjoy MANY gentle yoga DVDs (such as Yoga for Stress Relief and Deep Stretch Yin Yoga), the practices offered here were MUCH too slow for me. Furthermore, I was not a big fan of Currie's instruction, as I often found her voiceover to be out-of-sync with her on-screen performance. This DVD may appeal to someone looking for VERY basic, simplistic yoga practices, but for anyone else, I wouldn't be able to recommend this product.

Instructor Comments:
As noted above, the main problem I had with Roxanne was that her cuing was out-of-sync with the screen. Otherwise, she had a pleasant (if overly soft) voice.

Beth C (aka toaster)