Shiva Rea’s Prenatal Yoga aka ex-sail

I borrowed Shiva Rea’s Prenatal Yoga DVD by Gaiam from friend. And basically I think it sucked.

There are a few reasons I didn’t like this DVD, one being that I expect the people walk you through the poses. For example, they say, out loud, something like, now exhale as you start to bend forward, reaching your arms toward the floor. I don’t like to have to watch the screen every second to be able to keep up. How do they expect you to follow along when some of the poses require you to be in a head down or sideways position that doesn’t lend so well to looking at the TV screen? (Duh.)

But the main reason I didn’t like this DVD is because the lady says exhale as if the hale part was spelled sail. Ex-sail. OMG, it was soooo annoying that it was all I could hear. Blah, blah, blah ex-sail, blah, blah, blah EX-SAIL. Could. Not. Take. It.

It did have three different levels to account for different trimesters and as far as I could tell the poses were fine, nothing hurt when I did it. But I will point out that I was so sick of listing to the lady talk that I fast forwarded a lot of the DVD.

I don’t know if they have a prenatal DVD but I would recommend the Yoga Zone DVD’s over any other. They are great. They talk you through every pose telling you where you should feel what and giving you lots of variations, easier and more advanced. And they don’t make you feel bad about where you are, quite the opposite in fact. Even some of the instructors can’t go as deep into some poses as others who are doing the poses with them. The music isn’t funky and they don’t have that ‘I’m so cool (and better than you) because I am a yoga master and I can make my studio look and sound new-age-y. ‘ (I hate that. I will stop watching something if I get even a little of that vibe.)

I own the Yoga Zone Ultimate Collection and I think it is the one the best things I have ever purchased.