A 42-minute Yoga routine, half standing flow, half on the mat. Stephanie Culen instructs.

Advanced beginners — you should already be familiar with Yoga poses, since the instruction isn't highly detailed, but the poses are easy for just about any level. You will need a sticky mat. A Yoga block is optional.

Personally, I find nearly every Yoga routine short of Astanga stress-releasing, so I found the name of this DVD to be redundant. What this particular de-stressing Yoga session boils down to is 21 minutes of standing postures, done in a light flow style. Culen starts you off easy, letting you ease into each pose gradually before having you flow through them one by one. There's nothing too demanding here, just your usual Warrior II, Triangle, Reverse Warrior-type poses. Then she eases you to the mat, where you continue the routine (or end, if you only have time to do half the workout). Culen has you do some core-strengthening work before the postures, most of them relaxing and easy — Bridges, Forward Bends and the like. Although she refers to the second half of the workout "restorative," this is something of a misnomer, since traditional restorative Yoga involves much deeper work and usually requires blankets, bolsters and other equipment to encourage your body to release into poses that you are holding for minutes at a time. Nothing is held anywhere near that long, and this is just your basic, relaxing Yoga mat work. As I mentioned earlier, you can do the full 42 minutes, or you can do either the standing or mat segments separately. It's a nice routine for those times where you don't want to be challenged, but you want to do something good for yourself. I did this DVD after recovering from a particularly nasty seasonal bug and it did a pleasant job of easing me back into physical activity.

 

To Order Self: Ultimate De-Stress Yoga

 

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