Actually, Kathleen, I was thinking of the Veena & Neena ("the bellydance twins") and some Dance & Be Fit videos I tried. The instructors were rather...vapid. "Now prance... prance... prance. [pause] Good job." And the one chick in the Dance & Be Fit seemed surprised by the routine, at one point saying something like, "Oh, we turned there?!" Uh, hello, it's your routine that you supposedly did before doing the voiceover. At least Kim's sounds amusing!
I think the problem with voiceover for cardio especially is that too often instructors seem to treat it as commentary (like the director's or actor's commentary on a movie) rather than as instruction. For whatever reason more yoga instructors don't seem to have this issue, perhaps because the way many teach yoga lends itself better to voiceover instruction.
The mix of live and voiceover on Kim's reminds me of Hilary Burnett's, which is mostly live but has a few voiceover comments in there, and I won't reveal how long it took me to figure out that she was doing a combo thereof. The key to getting those to blend smoothly is to keep the volume, tone, pacing, etc., the same; far too often it's obviously something was inserted later.
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Kath
I listen to my body and respond compassionately. - sankalpa from Jill Miller's Yoga at Home level 1, month 5 practice
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