Island Girl Fitness Workout for Beginners: Tahitian Cardio - Review

I have become a fan of dance DVDs in the past few years, and I have started to compile quite a collection, with some I like a lot better than others. Because it can be difficult to know which dance DVD is right for you without trying it out first (believe me, I know, I've done some I just did not like), I have been writing reviews of the various ones I have to help people figure out which DVD would be best for them. While I do give my personal opinions in these reviews, I do try to consider everything from various standpoints. If you are interested, I have more reviews of dance DVDs on Associated Content to read. This particular review covers the DVD Island Girl Dance Fitness Workout for Beginners: Tahitian Cardio.

Island Girl Dance Fitness Workout is a series of dance DVDs which are instructed by a woman named Kili and filmed outside in Hawaii. Tahitian Cardio focuses specifically on three general Tahitian dance moves, which all involve various movements of the hips.

This sounds great, right? I thought so too, and I got it on amazon.com for an amazing $4.38, including shipping. However, now that I've done it a few times, I'm not even sure it was worth that.
This DVD was quite disappointing to me. First of all, while the "outside in Hawaii" setting appealed to me, the video quality is not all that good so the colors and tones end up looking muted and rather bland, making it hard to enjoy the setting aspect of the video at all.

Second of all, I don't see how this DVD can even use the word cardio (or fitness, or workout, for that matter) in its name; I hardly felt like I got a cardio workout at all. When I finished, I wasn't really sweating, I wasn't really thirsty, and I certainly didn't feel tired at all. The moves are far too slow and simple to really get a good workout. You end up hardly moving your feet at all, and only moving your arms very slowly. Really, the only part of your body that moves with any speed here is your hips.

And about that: the entire dance focuses on the hips, with the three different but very similar hip moves. Because the moves are so similar and rather simple, and then to elongate the dance she just ends up doing similar things with the different hip movements, this dance gets boring quite quickly. There is so little variation and not very much challenge, so after awhile you just begin to feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. That's not good for staying engaged or motivated. And I really like moving my hips, and doing dances that focus on the hips. But this was just way too much focus on the hips, and little to no focus on anything else.

The DVD is set up so that it begins with an introduction (pointless), then it goes on to show you the instructor and dancers dancing the dance you will learn (why?), then there is a section where the dance is broken down and taught in pieces, then a section where you perform the whole dance with the instructor and her two dancers (which is basically similar to the section where they show you the dance but she talks you through it a little here), then there's a cool down. Well, the first two sections are basically unnecessary, and the cool down was infuriatingly just more hip movements that were very similar to the dance. I thought maybe at least during the cool down she would shake it up a little, maybe do some nice slow stretches, maybe even sitting or lying down, but no, she just does more and more hip circles. It got so boring I had to turn it off. I just don't see how you can stretch out the muscles you were using by continuing to use them in the same way you were already using them, so I just don't see the point of that cool down. And while the instruction section is fairly well done, with her slowly teaching you the moves and giving you ample time to practice them, once you get the hang of the moves (which took me one watch), you can just go on to the section where you dance it all together with the instructor and other dancers, and that section is only about 5 minutes long. So I feel like at this point, I can use this video to get a 5 minute workout that wouldn't be much of a cardio workout even if it lasted for 30 minutes.

I would only recommend this DVD to people who don't care that much about getting a workout and just want to learn a bit of Tahitian dance. I would also recommend that prospective buyers don't pay too much for this one, because there's not much to it and you may not get your money's worth if you spend over a few dollars. And if you're looking for a video to help you get a good workout and learn some fun dance moves, don't be fooled by the word "cardio" in the name. Forget about this video and try something else instead.