Archives for January 5, 2012

We received the DVDs in the mail today and I was going to wait until tomorrow to pop in the first one and I just couldn’t wait.  I have been excited about this since I heard about them and even more excited since my wife was on board and we are going to do this together.

In the package were ten DVDs, The Diamond Dozen poster, and guidebook.  I will do an article in down the road about contents and quality once I get the chance to really dive into all of it but now I want to discuss the first workout.

The first disc you encounter is The Diamond Dozen.  It teaches you 13 essential moves/positions (DDP acknowledges he is not that good at math) that you will use throughout the series and for this reason it is recommended that you learn these before moving on.  After doing them all it will not take most people more than once or twice through to learn them especially if you keep the poster on your wall.

My first thought – this is going to hurt!  And it does a little if you have not exercised or stretched real well in a while.  However, it feels great just to stretch my body out.  I am a tad sore but feel good after stretching out.

Each move is broken down into a “watch us do it then you do it” teaching method which I quite like.  You don’t have to do the back and forth thing to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

For those that cannot do the moves as intended there are also modifiers shown for several of the them.  This allows you to work you way up to doing them the way they were designed to be done.  I like that this is put out in front on the DDPYoga site because it is saying “Not everyone can do this but we are going to work with you.”  Other DVDs it is an all or nothing process and is why some people give up after a couple weeks.  Leave that frustration at the door and modify the moves and you will get through this workout just fine.

My most favorite thing of all is when Page points out where you may be faulting.  What I mean by this is the person on the video may have their foot flat on the floor and DDP will point this out and say your foot may not be flat on the floor right now but it will be.  When I looked down my foot isn’t on the floor but I feel reassured that I am not screwing up – I am just baby-stepping to the level where I can do it.

All in all my first impression of the workout is extremely positive.  I feel like Page is coaching me through the steps, pointing out where I may not be doing it exactly right at the point but will get there, and it makes me want to continue.  I don’t have that “falling behind” feeling that many other fitness videos give you where you are moved through quickly like you should have mastered what they should be teaching you.

I’ll have another article soon about the next workout.  In the meantime, if you want to learn more about the workouts you can visit the DDPYoga site.