::more than somewhat::

Well, another lovely DVD discovery! “Facial Workout: Because muscles don’t end at the neck” is a beautifully created video, filmed in a lovely place, with exercises demonstrated by two women with two women beautiful youthful girl-next-door faces.

This video sets out to give you a facelift. But it’s not like you just there and don’t do any work. The whole theory here is that we get lines on our faces because we don’t exercise our face muscles enough. Give those muscles a workout and you can prevent or at least lessen the lines, depending on how long you’ve had them and how deep they are.

The video starts with a short explanation of its basic premise. But before you can think of getting bored, we get into the exercises. These are divided into short segments for each part of the face – forehead, eyes, mouth, and neck. There are many exercises to each segment, except perhaps the neck which only has one, disappointingly.

All the exercises are taught in a single format. First, a girl demonstrates the exercise and invites you to hold the pose with her for two rounds of 5 seconds. You get a brief explanation of what we’re doing and why and see anatomical diagrams on the side, leaving no room for confusion on which muscles we’re working. You are guided by a clear voiceover. Next, you go through 10 repetitions of the exercise. And finally 10 faster repetitions. That’s the format followed throughout the teaching segment.

The exercises themselves are great and doing them just makes you feel better and more relaxed! Here’s an example or two of exercises for the yes — and there are quite a few of those. Put your fingers at the sides of your eyes and pull them towards the temples gently making them sort of oriental. Gently,, but firmly. Now try to close your eyes without closing the lids. That is, constrict the muscles. Hold for 5 seconds. And then do 10 quick 1-second repetitions. If you’re doing it right, you’ll feel a slight pull on each finger from the muscles. Become aware of which outer eye muscles are being exercised.

The exercises are taught in the first two thirds of this video. The last third involves a quicker run through of the exercises in a routine that you can use everyday. You could also make your own routine of course but I found it nice to be guided through them. I’ve put the video on to my ipod and am mow tending to do them when I lie down. Well, all except the neck slide, which i don’t feel confident is going to do much to take away the lines for me now.

Tags: Belly dance videos, Fitness by Mala
6 Comments »

I’ve known myself to have almost toppled over just standing around. And weave dangerously when walking. No, it isn’t the margaritas but some problem I seem to have with balance. It’s a balance malfunction that caused me to fall smack on my face in jazz class some four years ago, ending in a bit of a fracture and a cut in the corner of my eye. That was the end of jazz for me, unfortunately because by the time I recovered, I’d lost momentum. The abrupt cessation of exercise also kick started weight gain.

But to my major delight, I chanced upon a DVD with a balance workout. Led by Kaitlin Rodriguez, it’s from The Method series and called Standing Pilates Blend. However, I think of it more as a ballet workout. Apparently the exercises are related to those done on the pilates reformer, but because I haven’t worked with that, I can’t confirm this either way. All I can say is, the workout is wonderful. Like Element: Ballet Conditioning, it’s divided into two major segments: standing work and mat work. And both are “seaside videos”, meaning they’re filmed on the beach, where I’d love to be. Knowing me though I’d topple over in the sand!

I’ve been working with this video for a few weeks now and finally, today, I completed the standing balance segment doing it right through without a stop. I am exhilarated. My balance has improved re-mark-ably!

The standing work, which makes up most of the DVD, is made up of lovely series of exercises that include a variety of foot circles and sweeps, attitudes and left lifts/kicks, passe while doing arm work, courtesy lunges and more. For most of these you’re on one foot. Quite a challenge, which is why I’m so thrilled to have been able to do the whole thing. I stumble now and then, but it’s getting better each day.

While you attempt to balance, you obviously have to hold your stomach in and strengthen the core or powerhouse. That results in toning, hugely improved posture, and grace. The instructor teaches along with two other companions who echo her moves but with different ranges of motion. All of them look great. The instruction is clear, no nonsense, no stupid cheerleading at all, and is well-paced. The exercises are all connected in one big flow and this, I think, very much adds to the whole balance challenge. When you go from one series of exercises to the next smoothly, it takes concentration and control. I just totally love it and have a bunch of favorite exercises from among the lot. For example, the very first exercise has you standing on one foot and swinging the other leg back and forth in a walking movement, with your arms outstretched and swinging in opposition. You stay stretched right to the fingertips and your foot brushes the floor very softly at the midpoint as it swings  Without a break, you move to the build up exercise for this series which is arms up in fifth and tendue foot taps with an extended stretched leg in front. So your foot doesn’t settle down on the floor throughout this series. Not until you’re switching to a new lot.

The mat segment is more like the pilates I know but somewhat modified here and there. It’s fairly gentle, actually. The pace goes very well with the standing segment but I switch to another video for pilates because I’m trying to do an intense and complete pilates routine.

Lovely workout and highly recommended for anyone who wants better balance and grace. It’s just got an average of 3.5 stars on Amazon from 16 reviews, but one of the reasons is that the title led people to expect something else. It’s not a new DVD – from way back 2003. But I have so enjoyed the balance exercises!

Tags: Belly dance videos by Mala
16 Comments »

Thanks to Rania Bosonis for discovering and sharing this mad birdie.

Oh my god, that bird is not a one off. Thank you, Dina

And this is the ultimate. Having a wonderful time, shakin it to Britney Spears, singing along… oh my god

Irresistibly funny

And this dog is doing the best he can!

Tags: General by Mala
5 Comments »

I am an absolute, confirmed fan of Ellen Barrett’s now. Her Pick Your Spot – Pilates was so easy and smooth to work with and made a great introduction to Pilates. Now, I find her Bikini Ready Fast equally clear and straightforward to work with. It’s a 40-minute workout from Self Magazine’s fitness series and focuses on strength training and sculpting using light weights. It’s only after working with Ellen’s DVDs that I realize how important it is to have an instructor who tells it like it is without making a whole lot of noise. In other words, Ellen’s signal to noise ratio is rather good. An occasional “good job” is about all the cheerleading you’ll hear, and yet she keeps you motivated and going. Quite possibly it’s to do with the flowing pace and clarity of instructions. I worked on Bikini Ready Fast today for the first time. And loved it. In fact, I feel like having another go at it now, a few hours later, am thinking I’d better not push it. Obviously the Bikini Ready workout is set on the beach. How wonderful it must feel to work out there… but for those of us who can only but dream of that, we’ll have to remain contented with just looking. The workout starts with a good warm up. It uses lots of wide plies and reaches, which keeps it close to the moves you’ll actually be doing in the main workout. You pick up your weights straight after the warm up. Now, Ellen and her two companions keep to a restricted set of exercises. To add variety, challenge and to target more muscles, they introduce variations on the same exercises. That makes easy to learn the workout. I managed to do the workout straight through without watching it first — and that’s saying something. The exercises include lots of squats (with the weights), expansive arm moves, curls and reaches, plies. Nothing goes on long enough to become boring, though overall I can see that one will need to move up to something mroe challenging soon enough or perhaps add it to a collection of favorite workouts to do now and then. Have a look The beach girls then move on to a segment of the workout in which you do a few easy enjoyable jumps and one-leg squats. That’s minus weights, thankfully.And then you slow down and cool off. But before the end of the DVD, there’s a 10 minute bonus workout. This is a pilates section targeting the abs in particular. Ellen gives some solid and good advice on exercise and diet. She says to lose weight, you have to add cardio aerobics to this workout. Walking, cycling, aerobics, dancing.. anything that keeps your heart reate up and keeps you moving. Also, a sensible diet, which doesn’t mean giving up stuff so that you go about craving it but rather, eating what you want more carefully, now and then, in nice little quantities.

Tags: Fitness by Mala
2 Comments »

Another advanced tribal fusion video, this one looks like the next step on from Anasma’s 2-dicc set. I’m not likely to be able to do any of it – I haven’t even worked on any of the combos from the beginner tribal videos, for that matter. But I do like looking at them and when possible, working with the isolations.

Rubylooks beautiful as she dances, and she also looks like she knows what she’s talking about. I’m not a hundred percent sure I can manage a lot of floorwork, but I like the look of her approach and conditioning.

Tags: Belly dance videos by Mala
22 Comments »