I, too, an surprised by the negative and lukewarm reviews of this video. I bought it about a year ago. Although my cardiovascular fitness was fine, my strength and flexibility weren't great so I was hoping to improve in those areas and I was a total novice at yoga and Pilates. The first time I did this tape there were several things I just couldn't do, largely because I was lacking in strength and/or balance. Over the course of this year I've done quite a few different yoga videos (Living Arts, Yoga Zone, Baron Baptiste, Ali MacGraw) as well as core strength videos, and now I find that I can do all of this workout and enjoy it.

I find myself coming back to this tape again and again because I enjoy the pace -- poses are held long enough that they challenge my strength and improve my flexibility. I find that Power Yoga tapes tend to move too quickly for me from one pose to another, and I don't feel like I've fully settled into them. Although this is not a relaxation tape, I feel nicely stretched out after I've done it, my joints feel open and my muscles feel long. The ab section is still challenging.

Karen's pointers are terrific - she mentions small postural things to check that seem to keep pointing me in the right direction. I'm still not great at this sort of thing, but I've made tremendous improvement. I try to remember her cues when I'm doing other yoga tapes and that helps me a lot.

I'm not wild about the colors and her outfit, but now that I've learned the moves I don't watch the screen much anyway -- listening is 90% of it, and occasionally looking up to check form. I expect to keep this video and use it every few weeks for a long time to come.

Randy Pollack