A 35-minute Pilates routine for beginners, plus a 14-minute sculpting session with the Magic Circle. Jennifer Kries instructs.

Anyone who is new to Pilates and wants a good introduction. The Magic Circle segment, short as it is, is really for those with a little more Pilates experience. You will need a mat, and if you want to do the sculpting routine, you'll need a Magic Circle (which is actually a great workout tool to have anyhow).

I'm not really sure why Jennifer Kries put out two excellent DVDs, Hot Body Cool Mind: Level 1 and Hot Body Cool Mind: Waking Energy and then proceeded to repackage workouts from them less than a year later. If you already have the two Hot Body Cool Mind DVDs, you already have the workouts featured here. And if you don't own them, they're a great value, since each disc has over 2 hours of mix-and-match mind-body workouts, including Yoga, Qi Gong and Pilates. If your focus is Pilates and you don't really care about the rest, I suppose you can get this beginner's mat workout DVD, which is a great introduction. Kries is very thorough in giving instruction about breathing, posture and good form, and she introduces exercises like the Hundred, Roll Up and Bridge in a way that newbies will easily grasp. She also shows modified versions of a couple more advanced exercises, like the Teaser. The 14-minute Magic Circle routine is actually a little advanced for Pilates beginners — if you are really new to the form, you may have to work your way up to this, because these small, subtle moves are deceptively challenging. Overall, this is good Pilates (Kries is a leader in her field), but you're really better off getting the Hot Body Cool Mind discs.

 

 

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