Item: Everyday Yoga for Stress Release (New Shoot Pictures)
What is it? A dynamic flow, hatha yoga DVD aimed at people who are stressed and/or anxious but not anxious about yoga. In other words, not beginners.
Format: Three 20-minute yoga programmes for advanced beginners and intermediates plus a five-minute guided relaxation in Savasana, a 4-minute deep-breathing practice and a 4-minute "loving kindness" meditation -- in which presenter Nadia Narain hunkers quietly on her mat while a voice (her own) tells her to think generous thoughts.
Throughout the DVD, Narain, a slender and graceful woman, silently performs fluidly changing poses on the mat atop a wooden floor in front of a rustic brick wall; meanwhile her calm, pleasantly British-accented voice cues her motions over soothing piano music.
What is a programme? That's the British spelling for program. Here it means chapter, session or practice.
Programme 1 flows slowly through a few familiar poses; Programme 2 is faster, with more standing work. Programme 3 takes aim at anxiety with a heavy focus on deep breathing as well as some bouncing and delightful wrist flailing, the knuckling of one's jaws and the pinching of one's nose.
Do I need to understand Sanskrit? No. If you know that Savasana involves lying on the floor like a corpse, you're good. She seldom even uses the English nicknames of the poses; she simply describes what to do with our parts.
If the workout is slow and doesn't involve Sanskrit, why isn't it for beginners?
Why does everyone think slow means easy?
• Several poses require a fair amount of flexibility and balance.
• She describes but doesn't demonstrate modifications.
Also, consider where you will display the video. On a TV above you? On a laptop on the floor? Someone familiar with hatha yoga would be able to glance at Narain now and then, but a beginner would be constantly craning to see what she's up to.
Gear: Mat, and for those with knee trouble or tight backs, a blanket or cushion
Distractions: Narain's diction is distracting in a lovely
way: She gives us eight fingers and two thumbs rather than 10 fingers; she has us sit on our bums.
But in the 4-minute breathing practice, she sits beside two flickering votive candles labeled Peace and Love. Possibly these are aromatherapy items for sale on her website; but I kept fretting about how deeply she might be inhaling smoke into her lungs and whether or not she would remember there were open flames on the floor when she stood up to get a drink.
Who is the presenter: Narain is a yoga teacher so well known in London that her publicist was able to get other well-known people to endorse her, including models Kate Moss and Lara Stone, actresses Reese Witherspoon and Rachel Weisz, Red Magazine editor Brigid Moss, Vogue writer Christa D'Souza and chefs Lisa Faulkner and Jamie Oliver. Because who knows more about the grinding stress endured by ordinary Americans than celebrities?
Cost: $12.99
Worth it? Very
ActiveStyle on 01/05/2015