A 50-minute cardio dance workout featuring a blend of tightly choreographed hip-hop, jazz, funk and modern dance moves. Tabitha D'umo instructs.

Advanced beginning and intermediate exercisers who love to dance and have a flair for it. In the introduction, D'Umo says, "You can learn this, even if you have two left feet!" but trust me, that's not true. If you have two left feet, you will never get the choreography.

I have mixed feelings about dancers and choreographers doing exercise DVDs. Sometimes they spend more time thinking up unique, creative moves than focusing on the real purpose of every cardio DVD - to burn as many calories as possible in the time allotted. So I felt dubious about this workout before I even tore off the wrapping, since I recognized Tabitha D'umo from Jamie King's Rock Your Body DVD — the very same DVD I never reviewed because I never could get the dance steps down all the way through, nor could I get anything close to a real fat-burning workout. But I slipped the disc into the player anyway and let 'er rip. I must say that eventually, when I got the steps down, I was pretty sweaty by the end — the last 10 minutes, when you do each of the three routines six times over is a killer! — but getting to the end took some work. In fact, I almost didn't get there because at one point or another I was either going to tear the DVD out of the player or tear out my hair. The first time I tried this workout, I was so frustrated, I had to do a Christi Taylor DVD to calm down (Taylor, in case you don't know, is no slouch in the choreography department, but she sticks to variations on more traditional aerobic moves). But as much as I was tempted to shove this workout somewhere dark and forget about it, I persisted. And to be honest, it only took me about three or four times through to learn the moves, and once I made it all the way through no one would ever guess that at one point I was convinced I'd get a better workout tossing the DVD across the room than trying to do these steps. The three routines are 10 minutes each. The first ("jazz funk") and third ("90s jam") are the toughest to learn. If you're having a hard time, I recommend you skip through to routine number two, which features hip hop moves. Even though the pace is slower, D'umo uses big moves that give you a good workout. If you get that down (and you might be able to do it in one pass — I did), then you may feel brave enough to go back and learn the other routines. It's definitely worth mastering this DVD, if only for the sense of accomplishment and the beads of sweat you'll shed getting there.

 

 

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