Review of Darcey Bussel: Pilates For Life

Introduction

Jane Fonda has a lot to answer for. After injuring her foot whilst filming The China Syndrome, Fonda was unable to participate in her hobby of ballet. To compensate for this, Jane Fonda`s Workout was released in 1982. Selling 17 million copies, the workout video industry was born. Cheers, Jane.

Year on year the number of workout video`s has increased with what has seemed like every two bit `celebrity` and soap `star` getting in on the act. Beverly Callard, Jade Goody, Davina McCall, Barbara Windsor; the list goes on and on and on and on and on and…

Well, you get the picture.

The common denominator with all of the above is that none are natural athletes, although some may well look fit and athletic. To redress the balance a little, Darcy Bussell pirouettes in from The Royal Ballet to bring us her Pilates for Life regime.

Video

Good clear picture with some nice scenes on the beach with her family (presumably) before the serious stuff starts.

Audio

Well this makes a nice change. Dolby Digital Stereo soundtrack, but with a difference. Gone are the pumping bassy soundtracks of norm, in comes gentle classical music from the likes of Debussy, Mozart, Massenet, Chopin, Favre and Satie (and yes, I did just cut and paste that from the disc detail bit at the top…). It`s gentle exercise, and it just fits so well.

Features

Nowt.

Conclusion

I have a complete aversion to Workout videos, seeming to me like a cheap way of cashing in on `celebrity` popularity. I wasn`t convinced that this would be any better seeing as I would now be forced to watched it, and I didn`t have a clue what Pilates was either, but I actually quite enjoyed this.

The exercise is gentle, although it`s clear it has an effect. I had a go at a couple of the exercises myself and you can feel the muscles move, although it`s not the `burn` that Fonda was always encouraging people to go for. I know from a friend of mine that Pilates is used in rehabilitation programmes, which means I may also have used it myself without knowing after a bad ankle injury in the Forces in the 90`s (some of the exercises are a little familiar).

This is actually something that I could be tempted to do myself, the routines are very short, as I`ve reached a stage in my life where I`m still very busy but need to do something to keep myself active physically. Or I could just do the usual, do a couple of minutes, think `sod this` and boil the kettle for coffee and biscuits…