Bollywood Boogie

Some background:
I keep getting sucked into buying Hemalayaa's workouts because I like Bollywood music and dance moves, and because they're aesthetically pleasing, but I never end up liking them. Closer to the truth, I often end up HATING them. In the past I've had her Bollywood Dance Workout, Dance of the Kama Sutra, Beautiful Belly (Joni O'd within 10 minutes three different times before giving up), Yoga for Young Bodies, and an Acacia compilation with part of her Yoga for Beginners on it. And I got rid of all of them.

My main issues with all of her releases have been:
1) Inconsistent and abrupt cueing making the workout difficult to follow.
2) Combined with very abrupt changes between moves, and an inconsistent and occasionally frantic pace, the cueing made the routines seem like she was making them up as she went along.
3) Frequent making of sexy-face and come hither eyes at the camera, which is simultaneously off-putting and distracting. I always found myself wondering who she was making the faces at -- is she romantically involved with a camera person?
4) I'm all for happy, but the constant giggling and weird comments got tiresome.
5) I didn't find the dance workouts as fun as expected, partly because of all of the above, but this realization was amplified by Hemalayaa's constant references to just how much FUN we were having.

The reason I was interested in Bollywood Boogie is that the clips suggested to me that the addition of a male dance partner seemed to cool down the flirting with the camera thing and her instruction looked calmed down. Also the dance moves looked a little more authentically Bollywood and a little less frantically jumping around like at a pajama party. And while many of my previous complaints were definitely improved upon, others were far worse. After doing the workout once, I have no desire to revisit it or keep it in my collection. And I think I've finally learned my lesson and will trust myself that Hemalayaa's products aren't right for me.

The workout:
Bollywood Boogie is around 45 minutes long, divided into three equal length sections. The case describes them as 3 workouts, but that's inaccurate since the first section is mainly warm-up and only the last section has a cool-down or stretch. The workout is filmed outside on a stage in what looks like the back yard of a business or something - there is corrugated metal fencing which I recall as being slightly rusty, and palms in the background. It's not unpleasant, but not exactly picturesque either. Hemalayaa is alone for the first section and is joined by one male backgrounder in the other two sections. They both wear purple and gold outfits appropriate to the theme, and which do not obscure what they're doing.

Section one: Hemalayaa describes this as being more feminine moves. It starts with a slow warm-up which involves one stretch on the floor. Eventually it moves into some cardio moves. I found the transitions and cueing in this section to be the worst of the workout, possibly because she didn't have to maintain a predictable pattern for a backgrounder to follow.

Section Two: Hemalayaa says this section has more masculine moves, although they weren't noticably different from the cardio movements in section one to me - only the warm-ups were really flowy. The cardio movements are almost entirely doing a "pony" type back and forth step with different arm movements, facing different directions, and going around in a circle. It got repetetive. There was a short section of floorwork moves in either section two or three, which seemed a little out of place, but at least gave a break from the endless ponying. I can't remember what section it was in because the workout was repetetive enough that I can't distinguish between the second and third sections in my memory, which is typically very good.

Section Three: This section has absolutely no new moves - it's just moves from sections one and two endlessly repeating. By this point the different arm movements and directional changes started to feel exactly the same, and I started totally screwing up moves I'd been able to perform fine five minutes earlier because the monotony was making me totally zone out and disconnect. The stretch at the end was sweet relief from the boredom.

Take away: While there was significantly less sexy-face and significantly better and less annoying cueing than in other releases, I cannot emphasize enough how repetetive this workout is. To give some perspective, I got out my remote and a pen and paper afterward to actually track of how much time is spent doing ponies in this and in Barefoot Cardio by Ellen Barrett, which many people complain is unbearably repetetive because of all of the ponies. Barefoot Cardio is a 47 minute long workout, 3 and a half minutes of which is spent doing ponies. By comparison, Bollywood Boogie is a 46 minute long workout, 11 and half minutes of which is spent doing ponies. And even with the arm movements to distract you from the fact that you are endlessly repeating the same footwork -- it feels like so much more than 12 minutes.

If you love repetetive and love Hemalayaa, you might like Bollywood Boogie - there are some good reviews of it on Amazon, so clearly not everyone is as grumpy as I. It might be more tolerable if you did just one of the three sections to reduce the repetetiveness, but that also runs into issues of inadequate warm-ups or cool-downs, and also if you like doing workouts more than 15 minutes long. Ultimately if you don't think ponying for 6 and a half minutes straight (the longest stretch) sounds like fun, RUN AWAY!! RUN AWAY!!! AVOID Bollywood Boogie LIKE THE PONY PLAGUE IT IS!!!

Instructor Comments:
Hemalayaa seems like such a sweetheart that I actually feel bad that I dislike her workouts so much. But I am who I am, and they keep making them so clearly some people love them.

Eibhinn

Bollywood Boogie (2010)

Some background:
I keep getting sucked into buying Hemalayaa's workouts because I like Bollywood music and dance moves, and because they're aesthetically pleasing, but I never end up liking them. Closer to the truth, I often end up HATING them. In the past I've had her Bollywood Dance Workout, Dance of the Kama Sutra, Beautiful Belly (Joni O'd within 10 minutes three different times before giving up), Yoga for Young Bodies, and an Acacia compilation with part of her Yoga for Beginners on it. And I got rid of all of them.

My main issues with all of her releases have been:
1) Inconsistent and abrupt cueing making the workout difficult to follow.
2) Combined with very abrupt changes between moves, and an inconsistent and occasionally frantic pace, the cueing made the routines seem like she was making them up as she went along.
3) Frequent making of sexy-face and come hither eyes at the camera, which is simultaneously off-putting and distracting. I always found myself wondering who she was making the faces at -- is she romantically involved with a camera person?
4) I'm all for happy, but the constant giggling and weird comments got tiresome.
5) I didn't find the dance workouts as fun as expected, partly because of all of the above, but this realization was amplified by Hemalayaa's constant references to just how much FUN we were having.

The reason I was interested in Bollywood Boogie is that the clips suggested to me that the addition of a male dance partner seemed to cool down the flirting with the camera thing and her instruction looked calmed down. Also the dance moves looked a little more authentically Bollywood and a little less frantically jumping around like at a pajama party. And while many of my previous complaints were definitely improved upon, others were far worse. After doing the workout once, I have no desire to revisit it or keep it in my collection. And I think I've finally learned my lesson and will trust myself that Hemalayaa's products aren't right for me.

The workout:
Bollywood Boogie is around 45 minutes long, divided into three equal length sections. The case describes them as 3 workouts, but that's inaccurate since the first section is mainly warm-up and only the last section has a cool-down or stretch. The workout is filmed outside on a stage in what looks like the back yard of a business or something - there is corrugated metal fencing which I recall as being slightly rusty, and palms in the background. It's not unpleasant, but not exactly picturesque either. Hemalayaa is alone for the first section and is joined by one male backgrounder in the other two sections. They both wear purple and gold outfits appropriate to the theme, and which do not obscure what they're doing.

Section one: Hemalayaa describes this as being more feminine moves. It starts with a slow warm-up which involves one stretch on the floor. Eventually it moves into some cardio moves. I found the transitions and cueing in this section to be the worst of the workout, possibly because she didn't have to maintain a predictable pattern for a backgrounder to follow.

Section Two: Hemalayaa says this section has more masculine moves, although they weren't noticably different from the cardio movements in section one to me - only the warm-ups were really flowy. The cardio movements are almost entirely doing a "pony" type back and forth step with different arm movements, facing different directions, and going around in a circle. It got repetetive. There was a short section of floorwork moves in either section two or three, which seemed a little out of place, but at least gave a break from the endless ponying. I can't remember what section it was in because the workout was repetetive enough that I can't distinguish between the second and third sections in my memory, which is typically very good.

Section Three: This section has absolutely no new moves - it's just moves from sections one and two endlessly repeating. By this point the different arm movements and directional changes started to feel exactly the same, and I started totally screwing up moves I'd been able to perform fine five minutes earlier because the monotony was making me totally zone out and disconnect. The stretch at the end was sweet relief from the boredom.

Take away: While there was significantly less sexy-face and significantly better and less annoying cueing than in other releases, I cannot emphasize enough how repetetive this workout is. To give some perspective, I got out my remote and a pen and paper afterward to actually track of how much time is spent doing ponies in this and in Barefoot Cardio by Ellen Barrett, which many people complain is unbearably repetetive because of all of the ponies. Barefoot Cardio is a 47 minute long workout, 3 and a half minutes of which is spent doing ponies. By comparison, Bollywood Boogie is a 46 minute long workout, 11 and half minutes of which is spent doing ponies. And even with the arm movements to distract you from the fact that you are endlessly repeating the same footwork -- it feels like so much more than 12 minutes.

If you love repetetive and love Hemalayaa, you might like Bollywood Boogie - there are some good reviews of it on Amazon, so clearly not everyone is as grumpy as I. It might be more tolerable if you did just one of the three sections to reduce the repetetiveness, but that also runs into issues of inadequate warm-ups or cool-downs, and also if you like doing workouts more than 15 minutes long. Ultimately if you don't think ponying for 6 and a half minutes straight (the longest stretch) sounds like fun, RUN AWAY!! RUN AWAY!!! AVOID Bollywood Boogie LIKE THE PONY PLAGUE IT IS!!!

Eibhinn