Workout Length: up to 2 hrs
Level: All
Equipment: Mat
Date Released: 1999
Availability: Amazon.com (and others)

This is a very nice, very versatile two CD set. There are 13 tracks in total so you can skip around and make up your own practice. Three suggested shorter practices are shown on the back of the CD, plus two to add on to another workout. The CD's come with a very well illustrated poster that you can follow along with. This helps to visualize the pose and see what's coming next.

The tracks are:

Disc One - Solar Practice
Sun Salutations
Dancing Warrior (modified Surya Namaskar B)
Standing Poses (tringle, side angle pose, wide leg forward bends)
Standing Pose Flow (includes half moon & standing splits)
Balance Poses (tree, dancer's pose, boat, firefly, crow)
Abdominal Strengthening (50 yogic bicycle!)
Backbends (cobra, locust, bow, camel, bridge, wheel)

Disc Two - Lunar Practice
Full Body Warm-up
Forward Bends & Twists (seated forward bend, twist, leg stretches)
Hip Openers & twists (double pigeon, twist, wide leg forward bend, twisting variation)
Inversions (shoulderstand, plough, fish)
Meditation & Ujayi Panayama
Deep Relaxation (Savasana)

I'm really glad she decided to include inversions here. So many workouts leave them out so I often have to pause and do them on my own.

I've had this workout for several months and have used it quite a lot. It is a little gentler than some of the more power type yoga practices so it adds a nice dimension to my practice. It is not vinyasa based so you don't build up so much heat in the body as you would in a power practice.

The poses are all pretty basic. If you've done any amount of yoga before there shouldn't be much, if anything, you haven't seen before. One track does include firefly and crow (which I can't do), but they're at the end of the track so it's easy to do the first part and skip to the next track (or give them a try if I feel like it!). I also like that she uses sanskrit terms for poses which will help to learn them.

The music is soft and new-agey - not intrusive at all. The "woo-woo" factor is pretty low for Shiva. She does read a poem at the beginning of Savasana but that's about it.

One thing that's really starting to bother me about this is that she takes a long time to set up the pose on the first side. This means that if you know the pose and can get into it quickly you end up holding it a lot longer on the first side than on the second side. From now on I will move to the second side before she tells me to.

Megan