Vinyasa Flow Yoga, Grace, Power, Surf, and Sunset, Intermediate & Advanced, a ***Practice DVD***

I practiced yoga with this DVD this morning for the second time and thoroughly enjoyed it. My favorite thing about this DVD is that it includes headstand and shoulderstand. If I only do two poses per day, those are the two that I will do. When I practice to most other DVDs I have to pause and do my headstand / shoulderstand practice, or add it on to the end. In addition, I appreciate that it is headstand on forearms with a longer hold, vs many videos that only come into tripod headstand from prasarita padottonasana (spelling?). She holds headstand for a couple minutes, which if you want to hold it longer you can just continue and back up the DVD when you are finished.The practice included appropriate counterpose and felt very balanced. There are two women practicing to voice over. One woman will occasionally show the less advanced version of the pose. A couple of times I looked at the screen and they were moving a bit ahead of the instruction, but I tend to not look at the screen too much. I love the option to have no music, as I prefer to practice without most of the time.The DVD description indicates that this is for intermediate and advanced students, which of course is very subjective. Advanced yogis may feel it is easy while beginners may feel it is very advanced. I would say that it is not for a beginner in any way as you should already have learned headstand and other advanced poses. This DVD was described as a practice DVD and not an instructional DVD. There is some binding in side angle pose and other non-beginner poses include bird of paradise, mermaid pose, and jump backs from bakasana (crow). If you are a yogi that likes a fast paced sweaty practice filled with lots of arm balances and extremely advanced poses this may also not be your cup of tea.Honestly, I think that if you are an advanced practitioner it is good to always remember to keep the beginners mind. I feel great benefit even from the most basic beginner level practices if I am focusing on alignment and remaining present with my breath. It doesn't always have to be the most physically challenging practice in order to feel benefit. I find that this DVD has a balance of challenging poses and simple poses to create a perfect balance of doing and undoing. I will be using this DVD for years to come.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've been practicing yoga very actively (almost every day) for the past 4 months, and in a hit-or-miss way for the past year. With that in mind, at best I can consider myself an advanced beginner. Everyting I am about to say is intended to be descriptive, not critical. I think this will be a great DVD to follow when I'm ready for it.Which leads me to my first point... the cover doesn't lie - this is for intermediate and advanced practitioners, not beginners. Yes, I could follow along with almost all of it (even the headstand, although for some of the transitions I would have to be disassembled), but the overall issue really wasn't my flexibility. It was my endurance. Many of the poses are held for a long time with no break, and difficult poses (i.e., for beginners like me) flow into other difficult poses with no rest or vinyasa in between. By the time I was halfway through, I was exhausted, although not drenched in sweat like I am with most "power yoga" dvds.Second point: I usually practice from power yoga dvds, most notably those of Rodney Yee. They're great. I also use David Swenson's "Short Forms" dvd a lot, and I can follow his longest workout without much issue. But, the key to those dvds is near-constant movement: pose for 5 seconds, vinyasa, pose for 5 seconds, vinyasa... Wash, rinse, repeat. Your heart really amps up, and after 45 minutes to an hour, you feel like you've been through SEAL training. (No offense to you SEALs out there - I'm just trying to illustrate a point) An hour after that, I get this weird glow that lasts almost the whole rest of the day. It rocks.This DVD was different. Yes, I was totally wiped out, and yes my heart did get going; but like I said, it was more of an endurance challence... the metaphor I keep coming back to is, this workout is like a marathon, while Rodney and David's are long sprints. Even though those workouts last almost the same amount of time, this one left me more tired in a deeper way. And less sweaty.There are definitely some advanced poses here, too; but you can work around that. My frustration was, once I got to a pose I couldn't do (or couldn't stay in for as long as needed), I had to advance the dvd to find the next pose that I could do, which inevitably cooled me down a bit. That's the big reason I don't recommend it for beginners. Again, though, that's not a criticism of the DVD, it's a recognition that I wasn't ready for a workout of this intensity. But I'll keep at it!

I have a solid 15 year yoga background, practicing from the broad spectrum of hatha yoga to Iyengar specific training, to Bikrim to Ashtanga and others. I have historically been disappointed in yoga DVD's, as they typically do not cover as much of the poses as you would experience in a class - especially a general hatha style session. Usually I would end up adding my own poses as needed or would just skip them altogether and do my own thing. This dvd however, took me by surprise in a very great way! I had not been practicing yoga on a regular basis for a couple of years and, when revisiting it a short while ago realized that I am really in need of some of the basic, foundational flows and poses I was used to in a general hatha yoga session. After reading the reviews I decided to *rent* this one and, after one try I will surely be purchasing it. I agree with some of the other reviews in that 70 minutes may seem long, however many traditional yoga sessions tend to run about this length, so on the positive side please know you are getting about as authentic of an experience without attending an actual class!On that note I would suggest folks have some experience with these poses before jumping in - it was helpful for me to already have some knowledge of the tiny nuances of each pose as to not become frustrated with those which I may not be able to fully execute, so I could see someone getting flustered if not aware of the variations and modifications available!