I had just purchased this yesterday (along with the new Kathy Smith) as my New Year's present, and thought I would come to this site and check out the reviews. YIKES! Even though it's cheap, I hate to waste money on videos that are duds. After all the bad reviews, I had to take a look at it this morning.

I was looking for a short step tape, to accompany two short (1/2 hour) workouts I like to do; Molly Fox's "Total Body Workout", which is a super little free weight workout, and good old Jane Fonda Beginner's original vintage audiotape of floor exercise (1/2 hour, and gets the job done well in that amount of time). So here was this cool-looking Reebok tape that fit in that time frame.

Visuals: In a word, YUCK. A dreary post-industrial set, dominated by a giant video screen which flashes Big Brother- like semi-subliminal messages like "STEP" and "HEARTRATE", along with exciting footage of blood rushing through veins, and mostly inscrutable, creepy video snippets. I felt like we were on the U2 Zoo TV tour. And what are those outfits Petra and the other female participant are wearing? How could such outstanding bodies look so dorky? (I think it's the skin-tight coach's shorts - EEUUWWW.)

Production: Apparently the camera crew has never shot an exercise video before. Close-ups of Petra's face instead of her feet. Columns seem to get in the way frequently. I thought Karen Voight's "Strong and Smooth Moves" had weird camera angles; Dance Step is the new winner!

Music: Being a fan of the wonderfully produced, very motivating music found on most of the Jane Fonda videos, I found the music on this video to be completely unmotivating. It got a little more interesting near the end, but the opening half was like the music at a trendy hair salon where no matter how cool you think you are, you are not as cool as the regular patrons. Mechanical and austere.

Routine: Though the steps are familiar and put together to make a challenging short routine, what is the deal with the arms? I couldn't follow these arms if my life depended on it. It seemed like a lot of the arm movements threw my body off-balance, causing a lot of the form problems noted by others in this forum. I think adaptation is going to be the key here.

Closing: If I knew nothing else about the Reebok tapes, I would never buy another one after this one. Because of the convenient length, I will stick with it and modify it for my needs.

Kathy Diemer