Sizzling Salsa is one of the latest offerings from the Dance Off the Inches series, which has produced fun, generally easy-to-follow dance workouts. This one is led by Stella Sandoval, and as in the other DVDs, she teaches a class of four in what almost looks to be someone's living room. This time, two of the background exercisers are other instructors, Michelle Dozios and Marie Forleo.

This DVD has a particularly nice feature called the Step Guide. This is a 17-minute segment in which Stella breaks down some of the dance steps from the workout, first showing the move, then performing it slowly, and finally, bringing it up to tempo. Even though I've done some Latin dance workouts before, I found it very helpful to review this section before attempting the main program. However, keep in mind that Stella does not teach every step from the workout here and also that some of the steps are performed a bit differently once they appear in the workout.

The workout itself consists of a 5 minute warm-up, 3 dance routines (Spicy Salsa, Latin Lime Twist, and Mucho Mambo Combo), and a 2.5 minute cool-down. Each dance routine is approximately 9 minutes long. Stella teaches in an add-on style, showing you a couple of moves at time, having you practice these, and then gradually adding more moves to the mix until you have worked your way up to the full routine. One you have learned all of the moves in the routine, Stella "takes you to the dance floor" (her way of saying that you complete the entire dance) four times total. Each of the three dance segments is stand-alone (ie, the Mucho Mambo Combo doesn't repeat any of the moves from Spicy Salsa), and the DVD is nicely chaptered so that you could mix-and-match if you chose to do so.

I would rate the choreography of this video as moderate: those who enjoy complex choreo might find this a bit on the easy side, whereas those who prefer very simple cardio might get lost a few times here. I tend to be on the latter side, and while I was generally able to follow along my first time through, I did have to really concentrate. I'd say the intensity level is about low moderate as well: the workout did get my heart rate up into my target zone, although it dipped below during some of the teaching/other inbetween moments. I clocked the workout in at just under 37 minutes.

Overall, I found this to be a nice dance routine that was enjoyable, moderately complex, and seemed to have a real Latin dance feel to it. It would probably be suited to advanced beginners to intermediate exercisers who enjoy fun dance steps and easily able to pick up moderately choreographed combinations.

Instructor Comments:
I thought Stella generally did a good job; she mirror cued well throughout each dance sequence. She did have a habit of repeating some of the same comments over and over again (eg, the thing about "I'm taking you out to the dance floor" as well as saying "I like how Michelle does this dance"), but overall, I have no complaints about her teaching style.

Beth C (aka toaster)