I'm reviewing this tape as compared to other CIAs because before I found CIAs, I probably would have loved this tape. Now, I find it just okay. The hi/lo segment starts out very dull, but picks up with some interesting choreography. But the problem in the hi/lo, and the step as well, is that Charles repeats the moves so many times and when he does this with the low-impact moves, your heart rate dives, e.g. imagine what a soaring heart rate (from a series of lunges) does when you do about 30 v-steps right after that. Because of the reptition as well, the finished product is very short. By the time I've learned all of the moves in a combo and I do it from the top, I like it to be a long series and this was not. What I really found odd, though, was that when Charles was done doing it from the top three times, he teaches a couple new moves as though he's going to add them on (and they're pretty low-impact too so, again, the heart rate drops), and then the segment just ends and there's Charles ready to start step. Very strange. Also weird -- he takes a PE check in the very beginning of the hi/lo before you're really even working, then a heartrate in the middle and not once during the step segment. The 35-minute step segment follows the hi/lo and again, Charles spends way too much time going over the moves, especially the intial move, which is nothing more than a hamstring straddle, hardly brain surgery. His most complicated move was a shuffle repeater which most CF fans know already so it didn't seem like much, but the rest I found to be pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. The workout was probably high intermediate/low advanced so I got a decent workout from it, but it's not one I'd be jumping to do again anytime soon.

Grade: B-

Instructor Comments:
Charles is very likable, cues reasonably well (although there is an entire section in one of the sections where he doesn't say a work, just expects you to remember!) and doesn't chat a lot, which I like.

Donna Kahwaty