Ahhh, yoga. Don’t you just love it? It is truly one of my favorite ways to not only work out and tone my body, but also to relieve stress effectively and blow off some steam after a long day at work or working at home, which I’m known to do a little too often 
That’s why I have quite a few yoga DVD’s that I can do in my own living room, and I love it that way. There’s nothing better than lighting a nice lightly scented candle, popping a yoga DVD in with it’s soothing melodies and usually great, relaxing scenery, and getting your body stretched and brought down a few notches on the stress scale.
That’s why I’m going to give you some reviews of the yoga DVD’s that I’ve enjoyed the most, the I feel offer the best overall experience, not just the best workout, but yoga DVD’s that are good enough that I feel like you will keep doing them because they are not boring, are easy to understand, have good instructors that hold your attention and are softly guiding, and also may have a great soundtrack of backdrop against which they practice yoga.
It’s all the complete package for a yoga DVD, as you probably know if you’re into doing them at home! My favorite thing to do is a great yoga DVD, followed by a nice long stay in our far infrared sauna, talk about luxury!
Now, without further delay, here are some reviews of what I feel are the best yoga DVD’s out there today, not only for their effectiveness, but also for the stick-to-it factor. Sure, a yoga DVD that’s highly effective is good, but what if it’s so boring that it turns you off from coming back to do it again? These DVD’s I feel are an overall good experience, and that will show in how much you want to come back and do them.
5 YOGA DVD REVIEWS :
1.) Yoga Zone DVD reviews - I’m putting these on as a group, because I’ve done quite a few of these (they have quite a few practices out, all targeted for different areas or for different purposes), and have found the instructors to be knowledgeable and easy to understand, likeable, and not boring. The scenery is very peaceful. Most of them are done at a Jamaican resort, with two instructors usually by a body of water, which helps create the feeling that you are not in your living room.
You can almost close your eyes and feel like you are there with them. You feel as though they are really pulling for you, and that these people really care about your personal health and well being, and I know that sounds corny, but that’s what will get you to come back and do some DVD’s over others – the affability of the trainers.
The moves are nothing too crazy, at least not with the ones I’ve gotten. You can go more advanced and purchase their more advanced DVD’s, which I’ve never done because I don’t do yoga more than once a week, and therefore I do not feel I’m really ready for something the requires anything like backbends or extreme postures. Yoga Zone does make advanced training session DVD’s also though, so you should check it out if you’re looking for a more advanced yoga class because their intermediate ones are great.
There is one set by Yoga zone that I really like in particular that has two fifteen to twenty minute sessions on each disc. It has a total of 6 discs in it, I believe for about forty dollars, which is a genuine bargain. This allows you to either get a more full time workout in, or just a quickie fifteen minute one in, depending on your time constraints. I often will do the second one even if I wasn’t planning on it, because the first one made me feel so good, which also says something about the enjoyment factor of these programs.
I’m giving Yoga Zone DVD’s a great review. I really like them. I like the choreography of the postures, the way the instructors don’t push you too far but encourage you to go to your personal limit, and the scenery in the videos themselves. They truly know how to create a relaxing, stress busting environment and make you want to come back for more. Out of all my yoga discs, these are the ones I always come back to and favor.
2.) Namaste Yoga DVD review - I’m very excited about these ones, because this is a Fit TV show that is a half hour long that I used to record on my DVR all the time, but now, just this past Christmas, the shows producers released the popular yoga practice show on DVD. The show and it’s moves were designed by experienced yoga instructor Kate Potter. The show is filmed in high definition, which adds to the crisp, clean look of the film and the backdrops, which are usually very karmically pleasing and relaxing to the eye.
The yoga practice sessions on Namaste yoga range from intermediate to somewhat advanced, and it is somewhat fast paced, so it’s not really for beginners, but is an excellent choice if you’re a beginner that’s ready to move to the next, enoyable level and enjoy what yoga has to offer a little more, at a little deeper level.
It features different yoga moves and styles also, including Vinyasa, and Hatha. The moves are very flowing and feel good to the body. The music is excellent, and the women who perform the moves, although they do not actually talk (it’s voiced over with the narrator telling you what to do as they do the moves), they are relaxing to look at, and they just make you WANT to do yoga because they look so healthy and incredibly toned – and peaceful.
3.) Suzanne Deason yoga DVD reviews (Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss) - I have only done one of the yoga practices that is taught by Suzanne Deason, but I enjoyed it and felt that I had gotten a good workout in after I was finished. I did her DVD Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss, and although I can’t say I really broke a sweat, the nearly hour long workout definitely left me feeling it the next day. The pace is great, not too fast, and there are people in her video that are beginners and intermediate that make you feel at ease doing the poses in a modified stance if you can’t do it the way presented.
The backdrop was lacking though – it’s filmed in a desert, and I just personally prefer a more lush setting or a beach, but that’s totally my own little quirky complaint, the desert is pretty enough, it has a lot of red rock and there’s a beautiful sky in the back ground. Suzanne herself is likeable enough, but not as enthhusiastic or encouraging as the instructors in Yoga Zone or Namaste, in my opinion. Her practice is solid though, and you should get good results if you do it consistently.
Her presentation is just a bit dry, so I find myself reaching for the first two I reviewed a little more often than this one to be honest. If it helps any though, this DVD is incredibly popular and well ranked by the users that purchased it online, so you definitely may find it to be a lot more enjoyable than me, remember taste is individual. Suzanne looks absolutely fantastic, you can tell she’s been at this for a long time, she’s got perfect muscle tone and a long, lean body, so she’s doing something right!
4.) Kathy Smith New Yoga Challenge Intermediate (and others) yoga DVD review- This is the DVD that sort of got me started on yoga. It’s from 2001, and I started it shortly after it came out, so I guess that means I’ve been into yoga for about eight years now. Kathy Smith is a huge fitness guru of our generation, and her workout DVD’s have sold very well because she is well known, and used to train a lot of Hollywood celebrities and whip their bodies into shape.
The only down side to the Kathy Smith yoga videos that I’ve done is the the backdrop is very dull. It’s a plain background, and there are no natural outdoor shots, which really seems to get me in the mood to get fit and start to relax. However, the music is relaxing and she has a steady, encouraging and authoritative voice. Some may consider her a bit dry, but I liked her DVD because it was really effective and didn’t hurt my back or twist me into any tough positions, and yet I felt the muscle drain the next day.
5.) Rodney Yee yoga reviews - Now, I can’t remember exactly which yoga DVD it was that I did of Rodney Yee, who is a real yogi, not just instructors that only do yoga part time, but he’s the real thing, but I can tell you that it whipped my butt! I liked his style of teaching, he was very encouraging and his backdrops were nice and the music was appropriately soothing and relaxing, however, I think his postures and methods are a bit too advanced, even when they say it’s beginners or intermediate.
I remember thinking, oh my gosh, how does he expect me to contort myself into that position so effortlessly like he just did? I also thought the DVD was a little too long for how strenuous the movements and postures were, but overall I was pleased with the workout I felt it gave me and would have done it again had it not been too long and intensive. I think this one would be hard to stick to.
