About me: I am on a Pilates kick right now and have been since January 2000. I have never attended a Pilates class and have never been professionally advised about it.

Instructor Comments:
Moira Stott is deeply knowledgeable about Pilates and its effect on the body. She has a soft voice and is more involved in explaining the workout than she is in projecting excitement or sex appeal to the audience. I find this approach very reassuring and as a result I have a lot of confidence in her instruction.

The workout: I was originally attracted to this tape because the flex-band was said to give a workout experience similar to that with a Pilates Reformer.

The joy of the flex-band is that it provides resistance, which gives a completely different experience from Pilates using a mat. It was so much fun to be able to almost effortlessly do moves that usually kill me--like moving out of a rollup and staying there without going all the way down. The problem is that because of that resistance, different muscles are working and it's easy to overwork them. I ended up with a very stiff and sore right trapezius muscle after my first Flex-band Workout.

Another problem with the flex-band is that even though this tape uses a special five foot length, I think it is still too short for my (almost) six foot long body. It will take me awhile to figure out how to modify some of the moves to accommodate my length.

The video mimics some traditional Pilates matwork moves using the flex-band as a prop. It also includes other moves I haven't seen before, including a long series of leg exercises where one puts the band around toes, arch, and heel and straightens the legs. I find this section dull and have a hard time figuring out exactly where to put the band to differentiate one move from another. Yet, because I have so much confidence in Moira Stott, I figure that this section, too, is a valuable part of the whole.

The advantage of the flex-band is that it provides more variety to the workout--moves that work the lats, the biceps, pecs, and triceps, different leg moves, in addition to the traditional "core" work.

The workout is about 55 minutes long. I recommend it for anyone who wants a different type of Pilates experience. No one should use this as an introduction to Pilates.

In conclusion, and reluctantly as a dedicated vidiot, I am forced to admit that taking expensive classes on the Reformer at some Studio is probably necessary in order to fully understand the purpose and proper form of the moves. But I'm glad to have this imitation of a pricey workout on hand.

Margaret Mary