This is one of the latest Beginner videos from Living Arts and is 27 minutes long. I really like this tape (along with most of the others in the beginner's series.) It is slightly different from the others in that it really does feel more like a stretching tape. If you fast forwarded through Suzanne's short speech at the beginning and if she didn't occasionally mention the pose name, you might not realize you were doing yoga.

The poses do not flow from one to another in a sequence, but rather she usually does one side, pauses and then does the other side. There are a lot of stretches which you see in stretching segments of cardio tapes. I would have liked to see some of the poses/stretches held longer, but there are so many different stretches in this tape that you will stretch different body parts more than a few times to get a sufficient stretch. Also, I found that doing this tape the second time, I could personally hold the stretches longer, because Suzanne was fairly slow moving from one side to the other or on to the next pose. I could hold poses longer, but still did not feel like I had to rush to the next one. (I am not sure if I am explaining that correctly.) There are approximately 25 to 30 different stretches/poses in this tape. There are a few poses which require a little bit of strength and not just flexibility, like a downward dog, boat pose, and bridge pose, but not very many.

If you are not a fan of yoga, but like stretching tapes, you might like this one. It is yoga, but definitely seems less like yoga than other yoga tapes. Also, I think people of all flexibility levels can use this tape. The poses are mostly shown with a yoga block, so the more flexible can do it without and still get a good stretch. Like all other videos in this series, the production is good. It is filmed in Maui. I've noticed these tapes are always filmed in a different spot, so you always get a different view. This one is on a sandy beach surrounded by the ocean and black lava rocks. The pastel colors of the props and her outfit are almost, but not quite, too bright in my opinion, but overall it is an attractive and peaceful setting. There is still stuff to fast-forward through in the beginning, but it is slightly shorter than the earlier tapes and does not have the Yoga Journal commercial.

Instructor Comments:
I like Suzanne. Maybe not as much as Patricia Walden in PM Yoga, but I still think she is a good instructor and I don't find her voice irritating as others have.

Lisa C