GI Jabb: Integrated Flexibility

This is a 28 min. workout. I really like this tape. It has a lot of variety and a lot of it is geared towards helping you with martial arts. It's divided into the following sections: warm-up and standing stretches, yoga, Pilates, floor stretch with Pilates mixed in, short ab series.

Warm-up and standing stretches: Katlin first has you warm-up with a few plie squats. Then she has us place our legs together and do outside crescents with our knees bent on our inside leg. By doing the crescent on the inside leg, it will let you move your leg out so that you can do a plie squat and do the crescent on the other leg. There are other standing stretches. The only ones I remember is standing in a wide stance facing front. Bend one leg so that you are stretching the inner thigh of the other leg. You turn your body towards the bent leg and end up in a warrior position. Go back to facing the front and repeat to the other side. You also do middle splits and then do push-ups in that position. This is similar to what Aaron did in Strong & Stretched. Another stretch is standing with legs wide apart and one leg is slightly forward. Bend the front leg and at the same time, thrust your arm with your palm out. The arm that's extending is the same side as your back leg. It's done slowly and it looks like a Tai Chi type move. At the same time, you are stretching the hip flexor of the back leg. There's other standing stretches where you move your arms into Tai Chi style (martial arts) movements while at the same time you stretch and move your legs. You will also do a standing quad stretch.

Yoga & Pilates - Katlin does not lead the yoga session. She has a guy in the background do it. You do a sun salutation and other yoga moves. One is a sitting spinal twist. While the other one works the back. You're on your knees and you bring your arms behind you. You tilt your pelvis up so that you stretch your lower back.

Then you do Pilates type movements. The only move that I really remember is sitting with your legs wide apart. Your arms are stretched out to the side and are parallel to the ground. You take one arm and try to go on the outside of the leg on the opposite side. Jennifer Kries does this on one of the Method tapes. She says to try to imagine that you're sawing off your baby toe.

Floor Stretches - Here's some of the stretches that I remember. You sit with your legs straight out in front of you. You bend one leg and then you stretch it straight and try to get it close to you. You slowly go down one hand at a time on your leg until your back touches the ground. You then slowly try to get back up using one hand at a time up your leg. Repeat on the other leg. Another stretch is where you lie down on the ground and you do inside and outside leg circles with your legs. Your legs are straight during this move. This might actually be one of the Pilates exercises. I think you will also do a wide angle sitting forward bend.

Ab session - I thought it was weird to have abs in a stretching tape. However, this is a short section and you do stretch out in most of the exercises. First, you do 10 fast crunches to warm-up. There's crunches where your legs are in a cobbler pose. This is where your legs are in a butterfly position and your feet are touching each other. You do crunches with one leg extended at a time. The other leg is bent. You also do an exercise where one leg is extended and off the ground. The other leg is also straight and you move it towards you. You also move your head towards the same leg. You use your arms to grab the leg towards you. You keep switching legs. I really like this exercise. I notice that Moira Stott is pictured doing something like this on the front cover of her Power Mat tape.

That's all the exercises that I remember. Sorry if I can't remember them all but if I did, this review would be very long. Stretches are difficult to describe.

It looks like this was filmed in somebody's attic. But it is a finished attic that is decorated in a light beige color. Katalin does not need a studio to film this tape since she only has two background exercisers. I don't recall the music so it's not like the music she plays for her kickboxing tapes. The production is similar to her other tapes.

Instructor Comments:
Katalin is very flexible in this tape. She has two background exercisers. One is the guy that leads the yoga segment. The other is a girl who is not very flexible. So this tape can be done by those that are less flexible. Katalin does give form pointers through out the tape.

Helen Stephens