Unlocking Athletic Power is one of the three videos from Baron's Live! series. Like in the other two practices in this series, Baron leads a large class through the postures, moving thruogh the participants to make adjustments and offer encouragements. The video is described as being for all levels, and some of the class members do perform modified versions of the postures, but there are also some more advanced postures included as described below.

As with all of his videos, Baron begins with sun salutations, moving from the A to the B series. He ends the latter with crow pose, an arm balance--a surprisingly challenging posture for this early in the practice. Next comes a warrior series with plenty of form pointers for where you should be feeling the work. Baron then moves into a series of hip openers, beginning with crescent pose and proceeding to lunge with forearms on floor, pigeon, and double pigeon; a variation on boat pose follows before moving on to the other side. Then it's down to the floor for bridge and wheel (a full backbend which is optional). Baron then throws in a few moves for the abdominals before moving into the final stretches, including dead bug, cobbler's pose, table, lying twist, and savasana. The actual practice is about 26 minutes long, but the music continues for another 2 minutes, allowing you to easily remain in relaxation pose for a longer period.

Overall, I thought this was a nice intermediate practice. It is longer and more challenging than Baron's Core Power (although obviously not as core-focused) but also shorter and not as advanced as his longer Live practice, Soul of Strength. I would recommend UAP for experienced yogis looking for a strong, powerful vinyasa yoga practice.

Instructor Comments:
Baron can be a little flowery in his language at times, but I like him, particularly how he encourages his students to use modifications, emphasizing that everyone will have their own version of the postures. One thing that bugged me a little here though is that he repeats many of the EXACT same comments from Core Power and Soul of Strength, but this was just a minor issue.

Beth C (aka toaster)