Yoga for Athletes is like the other BodyWisdom DVDs in that it has lots of different poses, each with its own title, and the menus let you select from a whole bunch of practices which combine some of the poses in different ways. The menu of this DVD lets you select a sport, and then the menu for each sport lets you select a practice by bodypart (hips, shoulders, twists, legs, etc.). (Since I don't do a particular sport, I use the chaptering information that Kimberly33 put together in this thread --
http://69.93.245.62/forum/showthread.php?t=26124 -- to pick the practice I'm interested in based on the bodypart focus and the specific poses included, and then just go to one of the sports that has that practice.) I really enjoy some of the practices for hips, shoulders, and legs. (I especially like that the hip practices tend to focus on all sides of the hips, including lunges to open the hip flexors - it seem like some hip practices focus more on stretching your glutes.) The practices range from 20 minutes to 60 minutes long, and each body part has practices of various lengths for it.

The poses are held pretty long - most are 3-5 minutes, and there's *very* detailed instruction on form and breathing. The instruction is given in voiceovers by Barbara Benagh, and one of her students (a very strong and flexible young man) demonstrates. She has a very relaxing voice with a very slight southern accent, I think. Some of the poses and practices are quite challenging, but the pace of her voice and the detailed instruction and focus on breathing at each stage of moving into the pose make it seem calming at the same time that it's physically challenging. (Even though it's not power yoga, though, some of the practices can definitely make your legs tired and will make you sweat!)

The production is pretty simple - just the guy on his yoga mat with a curtain covering the back wall. There's a black screen with the name of the next pose in between each pose. The sound and visuals are of fine quality.

When I first tried this DVD, I felt like it just moved too slowly, but after doing other yoga for awhile, I came back to this one and really enjoyed it. It's really helped me understand some of the poses better because of the detailed instruction and the amount of time you spend working carefully into the pose and then holding it. I think it's added a lot to my experience of other yoga practices because of that. It also has some great practices for when you feel like slowing down and really focusing on some poses, or if you want to focus on particular areas rather than doing a more general practice. If you like the concept of this DVD but find that it moves too slowly for you, you may prefer BodyWisdom’s Yoga for Every Body, which is set up similarly but holds poses for less time and includes several flow series.

Instructor Comments:
Barbara Benagh is a wonderful instructor with a relaxing voice and really helpful comments on form. She is very encouraging and gives lots of options about how far to go in the poses so that you have something to work towards but don't feel a need to push yourself too far.

KathyW