Fox;Molly Yoga Stretches and R

I just did this program this morning and have mixed emotions.

The reason I have mixed emotions about this program by Molly Fox is because there are aspects of this program that I do like. One is that aside from the VERY fast Sun Salutations she does actually hold the poses for a long time, about 5 or so breaths.

The basic sequencing is okay but there are quite a few poses which many people are not going to be able to do without risking injury, particularly to their knees.

While Ms. Fox comes across as friendly and sincere and does say that one shouldn't go further than they can, she does not show modifications. In my opinion this is a big flaw in the program. If I didn't have years of experience with yoga and known how to modify I would've definitely gotten hurt doing this!

To compare with other programs out there:

If you ever get any of Baron Baptiste's live videos ("Soul Of Strength", "Core Power", "Unlocking Athletic Power" or in fact any of his videos), while they are quite intense, he has lots of students doing the class and he makes a point of always having at least one student showing a modified posture.

One of the best videos out there is by Sherri Baptiste Freeman and called "Baptise Power Of Yoga" which is a challenging intermediate video yet everything is explained in a way that keeps it very safe and realistic. In that video there isn't a second person doing modifications but Sherri is such an excellent teacher that makes it very clear how to work within one's own abilities. She has also been doing Yoga her whole life (born into a family of Yoga teachers) so she's the REAL DEAL, a true master teacher.

Other videos I would consider looking into are by teachers such as Suzanne Deason, Rodney Yee, The Total yoga videos (Ganga White/Tracy Rich) even fitness star Kathy Smith (who actually has excellent Yoga Videos ), much to my surprise.... I bought her 3 DVD set because I liked them so much after trying them at my library) are careful to include modified postures (these are all designed by Rod Stryker who is also a master teacher and in fact in the 3rd video he actually leads the session with Kathy being more in a student role).

Anyway, I think that it is so important for Yoga to be done in a way that respects the uniqueness of each person's body. There are some poses, that no matter how many years you practice will never look like another persons pose and that is fine. That respect for oneself is part of what makes it yoga and not a "no pain, no gain" fitness program.

Also, the relaxation segment is so short in this video it's ridiculous. It's as if they cut it down to nothing so that the video would fit into a certain time frame. While I didn't find this video to be very rigorous (just unsound in many respects), relaxation pose is an integral part of any Yoga practice and shouldn't be treated as an after thought. It was almost as if the attitude here was "Yoga is supposed to have relaxation pose so we'll just throw one in for a few seconds" so we can say we included it....

I really dislike having to write a negative review because I believe that Ms Fox has put forth a sincere effort. Still, I do feel it is important to people buying a program like this (especially folks new to yoga) to be aware of aspects of it that could be potentially risky.