Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good moderately paced, moderately complex dance workout, January 14, 2007
Sizzling Salsa is one of the latest offerings from the Dance Off the Inches series, which has produced fun, generally easy-to-follow dance workouts. This one is led by Stella Sandoval, and as in the other DVDs, she teaches a class of four in what almost looks to be someone's living room. This time, two of the background exercisers are other instructors, Michelle Dozios and Marie Forleo.
This DVD has a particularly nice feature called the Step Guide. This is a 17-minute segment in which Stella breaks down some of the dance steps from the workout, first showing the move, then performing it slowly, and finally, bringing it up to tempo. Even though I've done some Latin dance workouts before, I found it very helpful to review this section before attempting the main program. However, keep in mind that Stella does not teach every step from the workout here and also that some of the steps are performed a bit differently once they appear in the workout.
The workout itself consists of a 5 minute warm-up, 3 dance routines (Spicy Salsa, Latin Lime Twist, and Mucho Mambo Combo), and a 2.5 minute cool-down. Each dance routine is approximately 9 minutes long. Stella teaches in an add-on style, showing you a couple of moves at time, having you practice these, and then gradually adding more moves to the mix until you have worked your way up to the full routine. One you have learned all of the moves in the routine, Stella "takes you to the dance floor" (her way of saying that you complete the entire dance) four times total. Each of the three dance segments is stand-alone (ie, the Mucho Mambo Combo doesn't repeat any of the moves from Spicy Salsa), and the DVD is nicely chaptered so that you could mix-and-match if you chose to do so.
I would rate the choreography of this video as moderate: those who enjoy complex choreo might find this a bit on the easy side, whereas those who prefer very simple cardio might get lost a few times here. I tend to be on the latter side, and while I was generally able to follow along my first time through, I did have to really concentrate. I'd say the intensity level is about low moderate as well: the workout did get my heart rate up into my target zone, although it dipped below during some of the teaching/other inbetween moments. I clocked the workout in at just under 37 minutes.
Overall, I found this to be a nice dance routine that was enjoyable, moderately complex, and seemed to have a real Latin dance feel to it. It would probably be suited to advanced beginners to intermediate exercisers who enjoy fun dance steps and easily able to pick up moderately choreographed combinations.
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fat Burning Fiesta!, November 19, 2006
This is another workout in the Dance off the Inches series, led by Stella Sandoval who I haven't seen in another video. She is joined by 4 other ladies including Michelle Dozois and Marie Forleo, who are leads in other Dance off the Inches workouts. They are in a comfortable living room setting all ready to dance to some fun and spicy latin moves.
One of the features on this DVD is a step guide which teaches many of the moves that make up the foundation of the dance routines. I found this very helpful, some dance workouts look easy but once you attempt them it's not the case so this came in handy. Each step is demonstrated slowly, then faster, then arm movements are added, then any other variations that might take place in the workout.
There are 3 dance routines plus a warmup and cooldown, the first dance routine is called Spicy Salsa. The steps seen here are the salsa, cha chas, merengue, hip rolls and walking cha chas. Stella will lead you through each step, repeating each one a few times then adding one step at a time. As the steps are added you will take the routine from the top which might be repetitive for some but it didn't bother me.
The next dance routine is called Latin Lime Twist. Here you will see the latin twist, box step, sambas, mambos, shimmeys, stomps plus some interesting arm movements such as flamenco and ole arms. The final dance segment is called Mucho Mambo Combo, which is mainly a mambo and a tango. Some additional steps are mixed in though such as tap hops, cha chas, and salsa steps.
I liked this workout a lot, thought it was fun and Stella does a good job leading this video. She is enthusiastic and seems to be enjoying herself. I thought that she and all the backgrounders did a nice job with the moves too. The moves aren't too terribly hard, though it might take a few tries to get them down, but there is the handy step guide if you need to review them. I think I will be using that feature of the DVD a lot. The music was decent, I thought it fit the workout well, though it was on the softer side. Overall I give this workout 4 and a half stars.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointing!, July 18, 2007
I agree thoroughly with Kate and Donna! I wish I'd seen their reviews before ordering this. After an evening of salsa or merengue dancing, I have often thought what a great workout it was, so when I saw this, I thought it would be perfect. I was so wrong! On the plus side, she's definitely enthusiastic. However, this is really aerobics with a hint of Latin dance steps (or Latin steps the way an aerobics instructor would do them) set to Latin elevator music. I've TRIED to do this twice now with the hope that it wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought, but I had to stop and write this review. Here's what's going on while I type: "Let's go into the Mambo move. Now let's add the Ole arms. Tap it out. Go back to your Ole arms.... box step, mambo ole, tap it out, ...flamenco arms, samba, mambo ole... tap and then hop..." Boy, it would be interesting to picture them doing this at a dance club.
When I searched for "dance" I got this. I think that if I'd searched for "aerobics" I wouldn't have been as completely disappointed.
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