Katalin Rodriguez Zamiar
This is a 28 min. workout. I really like this tape. It has a
lot of variety and a lot of it is geared towards helping you with
martial arts. It's divided into the following sections: warm-up and
standing stretches, yoga, Pilates, floor stretch with Pilates mixed in,
short ab series.
Warm-up and standing stretches: Katlin first has you warm-up with
a few plie squats. Then she has us place our legs together and do
outside crescents with our knees bent on our inside leg. By doing
the crescent on the inside leg, it will let you move your leg out so
that you can do a plie squat and do the crescent on the other leg.
There are other standing stretches. The only ones I remember is
standing in a wide stance facing front. Bend one leg so that you
are stretching the inner thigh of the other leg. You turn your body
towards the bent leg and end up in a warrior position. Go back to
facing the front and repeat to the other side. You also do middle
splits and then do push-ups in that position. This is similar to what
Aaron did in Strong & Stretched. Another stretch is standing with
legs wide apart and one leg is slightly forward. Bend the front leg
and at the same time, thrust your arm with your palm out. The arm
that's extending is the same side as your back leg. It's done slowly
and it looks like a Tai Chi type move. At the same time, you are
stretching the hip flexor of the back leg. There's other standing
stretches where you move your arms into Tai Chi style (martial
arts) movements while at the same time you stretch and move your
legs. You will also do a standing quad stretch.
Yoga & Pilates - Katlin does not lead the yoga session. She has a
guy in the background do it. You do a sun salutation and other
yoga moves. One is a sitting spinal twist. While the other one works
the back. You're on your knees and you bring your arms behind you.
You tilt your pelvis up so that you stretch your lower back.
Then you do Pilates type movements. The only move
that I really remember is sitting with your legs wide apart. Your
arms are stretched out to the side and are parallel to the ground.
You take one arm and try to go on the outside of the leg on the
opposite side. Jennifer Kries does this on one of the Method tapes.
She says to try to imagine that you're sawing off your baby toe.
Floor Stretches - Here's some of the stretches that I remember.
You sit with your legs straight out in front of you. You bend one leg
and then you stretch it straight and try to get it close to you. You
slowly go down one hand at a time on your leg until your back
touches the ground. You then slowly try to get back up using one
hand at a time up your leg. Repeat on the other leg. Another
stretch is where you lie down on the ground and you do inside and
outside leg circles with your legs. Your legs are straight during this
move. This might actually be one of the Pilates exercises.
I think you will also do a wide angle sitting forward bend.
Ab session - I thought it was weird to have abs in a stretching
tape. However, this is a short section and you do stretch out in
most of the exercises. First, you do 10 fast crunches to warm-up.
There's crunches where your legs are in a cobbler pose. This is
where your legs are in a butterfly position and your feet are
touching each other. You do crunches with one leg extended at a
time. The other leg is bent. You also do an exercise where one leg
is extended and off the ground. The other leg is also straight and
you move it towards you. You also move your head towards the
same leg. You use your arms to grab the leg towards you. You keep
switching legs. I really like this exercise. I notice that Moira Stott is
pictured doing something like this on the front cover of her Power
Mat tape.
That's all the exercises that I remember. Sorry if I can't remember
them all but if I did, this review would be very long. Stretches are
difficult to describe.
It looks like this was filmed in somebody's attic. But it is
a finished attic that is decorated in a light beige color. Katalin
does not need a studio to film this tape since she only has two
background exercisers. I don't recall the music so it's not like
the music she plays for her kickboxing tapes. The production
is similar to her other tapes.
Instructor comments: Katalin is very flexible in this tape. She has two
background
exercisers. One is the guy that leads the yoga segment. The other
is a girl who is not very flexible. So this tape can be done by
those that are less flexible. Katalin does give form pointers
through out the tape.
Helen Stephens
3/3/01