Dance With me Cardio Fit

THE WORKOUT: Dance With Me Cardio Fit

WHO CAN DO THIS: You don’t have to be fit but you do need rhythm.

THE BREAKDOWN: Billy Blanks, Jr., has an abundance of happy, as does his wife, Sharon, who dances next to him in these three fast-paced 10-minute dance workouts—hip-hop, country, and Bollywood—interspersed with two minute faster-paced cardio blasts of jumping jacks, ponies, and such.

The first time I did this DVD, much profanity and hate occurred. The problem is busyness. An overly busy background makes it hard to see what’s happening; overly flava-full dancers confuse the choreography; the sometimes haphazard cueing is hard to hear over the music.

So I tripped over my own feet while I fought to focus on choreography that moves pretty fast, uses feet, arms, head, and chest with flava, and even adds a little vocalizing here and there—a huh in the hip-hop, a yee-haw in the country. I was distracted by the dancers, and then there was Sharon getting all up in my face. I wanted everything and everyone to ratchet back a notch or two.

Often I’ll drop a DVD that frustrates me on the first go-around. But something about this one appealed to me so I gave it another shot, focusing on Billy and the basic steps and ignoring the other dancers. And that time, I got the choreography right and had lots of fun. The steps are fresh and dancey and once I’d mastered them, I got overly flava-ful myself. Well with the hip-hop and country, anyway. My first experience with Bollywood was so humiliatingly awful, I didn’t have the heart to try again yet. Maybe another day. Maybe.

THE SWEAT FACTOR: Pretty sweaty if you do the two-minute cardio blasts. Otherwise, just slightly sweaty.

BUT IS IT FUN? Yep, if you give it a chance.

WHEN IT'S OVER: I felt good, though I probably should work a little longer.

GEAR AND APPAREL: You’ll need enough uncarpeted floor space to go four steps forward, eight grapevines side to side.

FINAL WORD: Thumbs up. And, by the way, if your cable TV offers Video On Demand (Comcast, Time Warner and others) you can try before you buy this workout.

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