Crunch videos have a certain "look and feel" and this one goes with the flow: that is, it is professionally produced and presented in a colorful studio with extremely pretty 20-something, all female, "whooping" participants (I think some of the whooping is overdubbed). This is only about 35 minutes long with intermediate level choreography and advanced-beginner intensity. The choreography is definitely in the street dance style and it’s a blast with no really dumb moves. Not surprisingly, it does have a few too many half-time presentations to make it as intense as it could have been if they had let us flounder for a while trying to learn all the steps. The teaching, cueing and presentation are all excellent and untainted by the too-cool, trendy talk you might expect given the young cast and funk style of the moves (not like The Grind tapes!).

With this tape, I’ve begun marking on the back of the box the point where they begin several executions of the full routine at tempo (in this case there are 5 repetitions that run from 26:00 to about 30:00). This gives me a bit of an (unwanted!) interval training effect while the tape rewinds but so it goes; it’s better than half-time executions again and again and again. Doing it this way does increase the cardio intensity a bit along with making the kinesthetic quality of the workout more stimulating. Overall grade: A-.

Instructor Comments:
Malin Zaki is very young (looks 20-something) and excellent in her teaching and cueing. She is upbeat without being too bubbly. I’d love to see her in more tapes especially doing her own choreography. The box blurb states her "Fitness philosophy" as "Energy feeds energy." I like it.

Annie O.

01/19/1998