Ballet Beautiful Classic 60-Minute Workout by Mary Helen Bowers

I just tried the BB Classic for the first time yesterday.I had purchased the "blasts" from BB website back in the spring,so I had something else to compare this to.The exercises themselves were challenging, but I didn't care for the sequencing.The sequences are as follows:bridge,inner thighs,outer thighs, abs, arms,and standing (which includes plies,tandu?,etc).I believe they are in that order.I know for sure the bridge sequence is first and standing last, which felt a bit odd.I would have liked the standing first bc of the "warm up" and cardio factor.Mary Helen wastes no time with the exercises, but there is a pause between sequences.This workout didn't seem to flow.Except for the standing sequence, this is a mat workout.I didn't feel like there was anything new.I prefer her lower body blasts online to these.I love my barre workouts-P57,Booty Barre, Bar Method-and usually compare any workout to these.I always feel like I get my "exercise time's worth" with these. workouts.I didn't feel that way with this one.

I'm really not one to review products unless I feel strongly, and I admit, the feeling that spurs me on is usually negative. But not in this case. I am a former soccer player who is years out from her last match and I've gained too much weight. I'd always been interested in ballet, and now that I am trying to lose weight, am especially interested in trying to get myself down to a ballerina's body (with a little more meat on it than a real ballerina, of course). I had done a lot of research on amazon between the numerous ballet-themed DVDs here on Amazon and saw a lot of good reviews for this one in particular, so I took the plunge.I got it quickly (Thanks, Amazon!) but was intimidated by the 60 minute tagline. It's been a LONG TIME since I'd worked out for longer than 30-45 minutes, and what's more I'm usually so bored by exercise DVDs that I'm checking the clock every couple of minutes, and am battling to make it through the 30 minutes.Color me surprised when, even though every part of my body was burning, I hadn't checked the clock once and I was already at 45 minutes! It's all body weight strength training. Each move is done in 4 successive 8 count sets; sometimes there's a break after the 4 sets, sometimes you move directly into a new 4-set exercise. Your muscles will definitely start to burn! Even my legs, which are my strongest part of my body thanks to years of soccer, gave into the burn eventually. And once you get there, guess what, you have a couple more sets to go!The DVD comes with the option of with or without music (i.e. instructor's voice only). The music is really beautiful relaxing classical music that made things go by quickly. Plus, the instructor's voice is very soothing. She just oozes sweetness and it makes you want to go the extra set or two so you don't disappoint her, even though she's obviously not there. She's very soft spoken, and she keeps count well and I just generally found it a pleasing experience.Another plus is that the instructor pauses for quick mini-stretches after almost every set. I've only done this one time, but I do think this will 1) make sure that even though you're fatiguing your muscles you won't be unbearably sore tomorrow and 2) make sure your muscles don't bulk up, but rather get long and lean like a ballerina (hence, ballet beautiful).Three things to note. First, there is a brief arms exercise where you do tricep dips that might hurt people with weak wrists like me. You bend your knees, keeping your legs zipped tight together, arms behind you with fingers pointing towards your back. You then lift your body up off the ground and do the tricep dips from that position. I found that really hurt my wrists, so I did the dips without adding the strain of lifting my body up at the same time - I still felt the burn! Second, this isn't a full 60 minutes. The dvd itself runs for about 55 minutes, and there are breaks between the different sections for different parts of the body. But you truly do work out every part of your body, and somehow manage to feel at peace the entire time you're doing it, and even more blissful afterwards! Third, there is no dedicated stretching period - if you want a good long stretch, you'll have to do that on your own.Overall, this is the best workout DVD I've done, and I have LOTS of them! This will be a great strength training one to throw into the mix.

The main thing that threw me off were her body proportions. Yes I know she is a professional dancer but her waist and hips are non existent. It made it very difficult to tell if I was doing a move correctly when her body is perfectly flat in ever aspect. She looks a little thinspiration to me and since I have suffered with anorexia it was very hard to do this video.Secondly very little is explained and for some exercises especially the thighs I have no idea how she was holding herself in certain crazy positions.The music was very good and I really like the feature that let you turn the music on and off.I love the part at the end where we actually did some ballet dancing. She needs to make a video that is only her doing the dance step not all the exercises. With maybe some stretching at the end. All very slow and well explained.If you are a dancer or have a great body already this is the DVD for you. For anyone else I would take a pass on this. I'm planning on donating the DVD.