Dancing Like the Pros
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Movie Reviews of Dancing Like the Pros
Movie Review: Great!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great video. It teaches couples dancing so you can learn little routines with your partner. This isn't as much for exercise as their fitness DVD but focuses on the dance steps. They start out slow and speed up. They demonstrate and explain everything very well. Just make sure you know they always use the man's steps so don't focus too much on that until Edyta gets to the woman's steps. Really great.Movie Review: Great for those with a little dance experience under their belts!
Summary: 4 Stars
I took my first dance lesson ten years ago and have taken classes off and on since then.
I found the pace here to be fine, although as other reviewers have mentioned, Alec and Edyta do not reverse their steps or dance with their backs to the camera for the most part. However, I was able to catch on much more quickly on a second viewing.
I wouldn't recommend this for an absolute beginner, but for an advanced beginner to an intermediate dancer, it's a great workout, fun, lively, and will make you look like a pro!
Movie Review: Good, but needs to repeat each step more slowly
Summary: 4 Stars
I agree with the previous reviewers in that this video goes through the instruction process too quickly. Each step begins with a slow explanation, which is good. BUT, instead of slowly picking up the pace (slow counts, then medium counts), the instruction skips right to tempo (the speed of the music). I usually pick up moves faster than other people, because I did ballet and hip hop for many years. But this instruction DVD went too fast, and didn't allow for enough practice time. It's ok if you keep rewinding, and using slow motion, and then rewinding again, but it's kind of a hassle. That being said, the content is very good, and I would rather mess with the rewinding and such in my living room, trying to perfect the basic components of each dance, instead of wasting $15 per class at a studio. Thus, overall, I think it's a good product and would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn ballroom, but I hope the distributors will tweak the editing and make it an even better product. Movie Review: Not for Fitness
Summary: 2 Stars
This was not good for a cardio workout. This is for instruction to dancing. You need a partner. I do love fitness with the pros. This is a lot better for a cardio workout.Movie Review: Not Very Instructional
Summary: 1 Stars
Though beautiful to watch, this DVD is NOT for beginners and not for people who just want to learn to dance socially. It's obvious it was produced more to piggyback on the succes of "Dancing with the Stars" than to help anyone learn to dance. There seems to be no thought at all put into making the instruction accessible to the home viewer.
Despite being divided into sections labeled "Beginner", "Intermediate", and "Advanced", there's no real attempt to modify the instuction for beginners. Basically, the pros demonstrate a step one time slowly, then a couple of times quickly to music, then it's on to the next step. Besides the pace being rather fast, all the dancers are facing the camera, so you either have to try to dance the opposite direction of the dancers on TV or turn your back and try to follow as you're looking over your shoulder, both of which are hard to do. Alec often wears flowing pants that cover his shoes and Edyta wears big ankle warmers, which makes it hard to discern what they're feet are doing. At times the camera moves back and forth continuously as the pros are dancing, which is makes it hard to follow them.
There's little to no explanation of technique or terminology, and what little there is is not very helpful. For example, in the Beginner section of the Cha Cha, Edyta gives a vague instruction to "make sure you're bending and straightening your knees" without saying exactly when or how, and as she's giving this instruction, the camera is only showing her upper body. Dance steps and terms are called out as if the audience already knows what they are. Sometimes they're explained, sometimes they're not.
If you have some experience as a ballroom dancer and are interested in competitive ballroom dancing you might be able to glean some useful information from this DVD, but for most people this DVD will just be frustrating.