Pilates for Beginners

Cover has picture of blonde-haired woman doing a side mermaid stretch

Produced directed and edited by Michael Wohl

My SIL gave me this DVD because it hurt her back - this was her first pilates workout. She usually does Tae Bo. I previewed but did not do the workout, therefore, my review is a breakdown of what is included on the disk. I traded this disk only because I already have too many pilates workouts. I think this is a good basic workout for beginners or even anyone beyond that level. The cueing seems decent. The speed is slow and controlled.

There was very little information on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. regarding this DVD. Even the cover does not have the name of the instructor, but when you play the DVD, there’s a written paragraph about Karen Garcia. It does not indicate which person Karen is (the 2 separate workout options have a brunette woman and the other features a blonde woman who looks like the one on the cover).

Style: done in voice-over

Music: pleasant and very audible

Setting: living room looking, but with plants and nice furnishings

Clarity: audio, music, and visual are very clear and distinct; high quality

Outfits: snug fitting top and Capri pants allowing you to see the body posturing

This is an extract of 2 Bodywisdom pilates discs - Pilates Complete for Every Body (PCFEB) and Pilates Complete for Weight Loss (PCFWL). Some sites list the total minutes as 180, but after preview, I can account for only 143 minutes of content. Some of the segments from the beginner series from the 2 aforementioned discs are included, but not all. I did a visual comparison of the chapter menus for the 2 discs shown on BarnesandNoble.com compared with what I saw on the Pilates for Beginners (PFB) disc. I have never done nor previewed neither PCFEB nor PCFWL.

You can choose whatever segment you want as shown on the menu. However, the DVD does not have a programmable feature. The segments appear to be useful on their own as an add-on. You can probably do several of the segments to increase the length.

Main menu and duration in minutes:

Lesson: Principles & Cautions: 5 min

Lesson: Beginning Basics: 14

Pilates Complete for Everyone (brunette woman): total of 24 min

~basics: 7 min

~variation: 8

~for less flexible people: 9

Pilates Complete for Weight Loss (blonde woman): total of 100 min

~basic: 10

~basic variation: 15

~basic with warm up: 30 (uses light dumbbells)

~challenging: 20

~Challenging with warm up: 25

The Instructor (in paragraph form - no audio or video) about Karen Garcia

Other Information: screens showing covers of other BodyWisdom workouts but with no clips.

this would be good to own if you want add-ons or want to get a sample of the 2 discs that this video came from.