Step Factory
Reviews from VideoFitness
I couldn't wait for the new Marcus Prolo videos to come out, and I got them from newideafitness today. So tonight I tore open Step Factory.
It is approximately 35 minutes of complex choreography at what I would say is upper- intermediate intensity.
Marcus works out by himself in a room decorated with solid-color banners. Pretty minimalist decor, basically. The music is instrumental but I haven't heard it before, and I thought it had a really good beat--hard to describe, but kinda like a good rock-n-roll beat.
How to describe the moves? Marcus does his thing of starting off with fairly simple though not totally basic moves (stomps, knee raises, skates on the step, cha chas on the step and layers on so seamlessly and efficiently that before you know it you're doing a combo like: Knee-up straddle, stomps off the front of the step into a reverse skate/stomp on the floor, quick-scissors over the step, stomp- over-the-top. Whew!
Another combo is something like: three- steps over the step, stomps around the corner, reverse-straddle over the top!
The "quick scissor" I'm talking about is that move where you go over the top, but swing your back leg behind to land in front of the step first. Marcus speeds it up a bit, but it's very doable. In general you want a step that's got length, rather than height. He does a lot of moves on top of the step, like a "quick rocking horse" and the triple step.
The only beef I might have about Marcus Prolo videos is that they're typically only about 30-35 minutes. Although the DVD here says 43 minutes, the 35 minute includes an active warmup.
But any Marcus fan will be very pleased with this one! I give it an A.
Fantastic! Marcus just gets better and better. IMO he is one of the ablest cuers out there. He has a way of edging you into doing complex choreography without any pressure or hoopla. Good visual cueing, good timing and a relaxed, down-to-earth demeanor. And of course, he is easy on the eyes!
Marcus is one of the step instructors I credit with first having given me hope that I could master complex step. This still holds true; there aren't many other instructors whose cueing could've guided me through the kind of complex moves he introduces here...without constant rewinding on my part. I got 95% of the moves with minimal rewinds, and I'm no choreo expert.