This review is from: Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga: Total Body Transformation and Weight Loss with Sadie Nardini (DVD)
I've practiced yoga at home for about 10 years without benefit of personal instruction. I own over 20 DVDs on yoga and at least a dozen books on the subject because although my life does not allow me to get out and go to classes, I am a very serious student. I'm 50 years old and I need to stay fit and balanced to take care of my aging body as well as a severely disabled loved one. That said, I count on instructors who can reach out to people they've never met and try to anticipate all the questions and various levels of ability of these many students.
I first encountered Sadie Nardini through her wonderful YouTube videos. If you are sitting on the fence and want to see for yourself how this woman instructs I suggest you go to her YouTube clips and watch some of her many offerings. After watching her videos I longed for a DVD with Sadie talking me through a good routine. Sadie really delivers with this DVD. You get the benefit of her explanations and unique approach to yoga with a routine that is beautifully designed. Sadie also has a preview of this DVD on her website.
Sadie moves through everything slowly and carefully. If you are a beginner or restarting after taking too much time off (raising my hand) this gives you plenty of time to adjust to getting into the various poses. If you've built up some stamina and you know the routine well, this slowness really forces you to develop grace, strength and really challenges your stamina.
The routines she has outlined is quite a bit like buying several DVDs in a set. Sadie could easily have made about 4-6 separate DVDs with the material she offers but she found a way to give it to you all in one DVD. Sadie doesn't cheat you anywhere during the workout. If you can't last through the whole thing - I was struggling toward the end. I just backed off and trusted that with time I would rebuild my endurance. The restorative phase is often rushed through in some DVDs in order to squeeze in a lot of poses but Sadie is very conscientious in this area as well. I love the way she takes you through the restorative phase and oh dear, it was really necessary by the time she got done with me.
If you don't have time to do any of her full length workouts you can select small sections to work on. This is useful also if there is something that really challenges you and you wish to study and practice it more. As one reviewer already stated, a matrix option would have been nice here but it really isn't that much of an effort to select a section, then select another and sometimes those matrix menus can be a pain in the rear to navigate anyway. So I can't really complain about this small thing when everything else is so outstanding.
Although I order a lot of material from Amazon I don't bother to write reviews very often so this lets you know how strongly I feel about this particular DVD. If you like Shiva Rhea but find her a bit hard to keep up with, try out Sadie. You won't find her easy but what you will find is some really good explanations and ways to build into some of the more difficult things you might find in other DVDs. This one DVD by itself has all you need to use yoga to build a fierce body but if you like to switch to other instructors and workouts to keep from being bored, then Sadie will help you to be better at all those other workouts as well. It's one of the best resource materials I now own on yoga. Thank-you Ms. Nardini for making this DVD.
