Cathe is very creative with her step choreography, and herein lies my problem. I can't follow her choeography cueing to save my life! I have tried for about 6 weeks to catch on to this tape. I'm not *that* patient with learning a new workout. I like to spend no more than a week figuring out choreography. Any more than that, I feel like I'm wasting valuable workout time. Also, I find this video a little bit too "commentary-intensive" for my tastes. I guess I don't like a video instructor saying "You look so HOT!" and other things along those lines.
Step Max is an intense, advanced-level workout. Cathe uses a lot of combinations, variations and add-ons. There are quite a few times where your back or side are facing the T.V., and you can't really see what's going on. I *might* be able to catch on to this Cathe video if I had four T.V.s running the video simultaneously in each direction I need to face.
Also, I wish that Cathe would add abs and upper body toning to the end of the workout. The exclusively step routine isn't enough to qualify the video as a "complete" workout.
The one thing I did like was the cool down. I don't know why, but I caught on to it quickly, and it was fun. My dogs really got excited when I walked completely around the step. It made me laugh.
I would recommend this video to anyone who likes step, catches on to choreography quickly, likes instructor commentary/motivation and is an advanced level exerciser. Personally, I found StepMax to be a solid-sweat tape, but it really did not suit my personal tastes.

Christine Letsky