Ballet Bootcamp is a great tape. It's misnamed. It's tough, but it's not boot camp. It's a ballet floor /barre routine with a dance combination at the end. It includes abdominal, arm and leg strengthening segments that, properly done, are quite challenging. The 10 minute dance combination uses add-on choreography and is challenging for someone who has never done that kind of work. The tape is over an hour so even if the last ten minutes are beyond you, there's still lots of interesting stuff to do.

It is an intense tape, but it is not a cardio tape in the sense of keeping your heart rate consistently elevated for any length of time.

I gather this routine is taught in different New York City gyms, including Crunch and New York Sports, but the packaging and official website are mysteriously secretive about the instructor's name. I gather from Collage that it's Jessica Sherwood. She is the quintessential ballerina.

The set is a nice, sunny loft space and there is a fairly large class of diverse gender, ethnicity and body types.

Sherwood uses real ballet terms, interspersed with more generic descriptions. The tape remains true to a ballet sensibility but is not haughty or pandering. It's a glimpse into the ballet world, and many of us are fascinated with that. Fans of NYC Ballet Workout will like this tape, and it's actually very similar in concept. The ending dance sequence is much more challenging than anything in NYC ballet, but the floor/barre work is similar, maybe a little tougher.

Complaints are minor. The dance cuing could be better, the audio over dubs help but they aren't enough. There's some dreaded "creative camera work" (head shot while a leg move is demonstrated, that sort of thing). The dance segments are space hogs. Still, these points are nitpicking. The routines terrific, the production values are good, the classical score is quite good. Overall, Ballet Bootcamp is fun and beneficial. Recommended!

Jane C.