Stepology

On cardio work, I am an intermediate exerciser who enjoys with intermediate to advanced choreography. Although I do enjoy advanced choreography, it does not come naturally or easily to me and I usually have to do complex workouts several times before I reach the end and feel like I have “gotten” it. This workout took me three tries, not too bad for me.

At the beginning of the workout, he stresses that this is NOT a workout for beginners. He’s right, it’s not. It is also a totally fun, flowing step workout that takes you all over and around the step. Marcos is one of those instructors that can teach steps, rearrange them, and then have you doing a combination you didn’t know you could do before you know you’re doing it.

He designed a "tapless" step program and for awhile my legs just wanted to tap down, so I'm retraining them. I’m not sure if his cueing is good in some parts and not so good in others. However, the whole way through, it’s fun and I managed to follow him. He does TIFT, taking it from the top after each combination except for the last combination. I was so looking forward to putting the whole thing together during the last combination and, instead, he went into the cool down. What was up with that?!?! I wanted my final TIFT!

Some quick observations:

Music - It's instrumental, but I thought it was better than the typical mix. I was humming along to melodies I knew from the radio, but when I'm concentrating on getting steps, don't ask me to come up with names of songs! It is softer in some places and louder in others, so it’s not consistent through the workout.

Set/Exercisers - Marcos has two background exercisers and the three of them exercise in front of a blue wall. Maros is dressed in a lime green colored shirt. The two background exercisers had tops that mixed the blue of the wall with the green of Marcos' shirt and black pants. To me, it looked like a pretty good set and much upgraded from his old Sara City workouts.

Camera Work - It was pretty straightforward with none of the dizzying angles of one of the previous workouts I tried and promptly traded.

Source - I got this workout from newideafitness.com.

Overall - It is a lot of fun. I had to laugh several times when we would say, “Now we are going to…” and he would explain the moves we were about to do. My response was “Huh?”, totally not getting it. Then, he’d start and I’d follow him through it.

Yee-hah! I am IN LOVE! This was an instant winner. But I’ll start by saying that not everyone is going to like this. The choreography is very intricate - not dancy, though - with complex footwork. Those who are ready for the complexity are going to have a *total blast.* I got lost a few times but was able to pick it up the first time through - except for part of the warmup (believe it or not). The music is great. It’s not new, but old CIA-style favorites. The length is about 43 minutes and it goes by really fast. No clock-watching for me here! One thing I should mention about the DVD is it has no chaptering at all, it just goes right into the workout. That’s okay with this particular workout, at least in my book, but Marcos might want to consider adding chapters in the future. This one has my absolute highest recommendation for advanced steppers. A+++++++++.