LITTLE ROCK — Title:
Kids Get Movin’
Have we seen that before?
Yes, this is a rerelease of a disc from 2006.
What’s the goal?
To encourage children to exercise.
Who’s it for?
Parents looking for an anti-obesity project to do with their children that won’t bore them. And children ages 7 to 12.
What’s it offer?
Two 20-minute workouts delivered in English, and the same workouts delivered in English with the voices on mute while a voice over narrator gives cues in Spanish. The Spanish voice-over might have seemed with-it in 2006, but not anymore. They couldn’t find any Spanish speaking dancers or yoga teachers in Los Angeles to reshoot these workouts?
What are the workouts
like?
The first is joyously fluid hip-hop aerobics that parents will do with their kids; the second is a yoga session that will appeal only to adults who are already into yoga and can help their kids with the postures.
In other words?
Hip-hop: yea! Yoga: zzzzzzz.
Gear needed:
Play clothes and sneakers for the dancing; a mat for the yoga.
Who leads the dance?
Hassan Christopher is a slender guy in a long-sleeved shirt and baggy pants who looks graceful and funky at the same time. Behind him, 14 elementary school-age children in everyday playclothes are clearly having fun.
His combinations are unusual, simple, jaunty and a snap to learn. No patronizing animal names or arcane dance terms - just marching, hops, walks, bounces. But he makes them look super cool.
The kids do not look cool, they look like little kids; but their faces suggest they think they look just like Christopher. The dance ends with freestyle wriggling.
Who demonstrates the yoga?
Liza Savage-Katz and seven authority pleasing children.
Savage-Katz wears pink; the kids are patient on pastel mats. She opens in a most promising fashion, telling them that yoga is a way to destress after a big test or a fight with their brothers.
But what follows is a discontinuous mishmash of English pose names and Sanskrit, salted with the peculiar, precious things yoga teachers say to adults to stress the nobility of the moment - hands coming out of heart spaces, that sort of thing.
There are obvious breaks in the action while she works with one child at a time in front of the rest; meanwhile, the rest are not watching.
Camera equipment edges into the frame twice; a loud noise is heard off set. The little girl on the forward-most mat hyper extends her elbows and over arches her back in hip bridges.
Creator:
CDK Productions and the Center for Movement Education and Research in Sebastopol, Calif.
Price:
$14.99
ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 07/23/2012