CIA 2903 Stepping Up - Thoughts

CIA 2903 Stepping Up with Seasun Zieger is approximately a 55 minute step workout. It does contain an additional core section but I did not do that portion of the workout.

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I believe this workout came out in the Spring of 2009. I bought the workout when it came out. I even think I pre-ordered it, but I haven't gotten around to doing the whole workout until this year.

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I had actually scheduled the workout in my rotation several times but always chose something else because I didn't want to put in the time it would was probably going to take me to learn the combinations. I think in 2009, I got as far as learning the warm up and maybe part of the first combination.

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So in October of this year, when I pull the workout back out I was really starting from scratch.

This was a difficult step workout to master. By far, out of all my step workouts, this was the most challenging. The step workout contains a warm up, 3 step combinations and a cool down. Even the warm up and cool down has more complexity than other step workouts.

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It took me over an hour to learn each combination. I lessened the frustration by just trying to learn one combination a day. A week after I "learned" the workout, I mark through it again to see how I would do putting it all together. Then, I put it away and pulled it out yesterday as it is in my rotation for December.

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Putting the difficulty of the choreography aside for a second, the workout is mostly athletic in nature with a little dance thrown in. There are lots of turns and direction changes. There is a modifier who at times I followed and who at times I thought was doing a completely different routine that Seasun.

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The workout has a great contemporary soundtrack, with fresh music that I don't hear in other workouts. It also has music you can sing too.

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The workout is taught traditionally where you learn the combo on 1 side and then you learn to do the combo on the other side and then once learn, you alternate the combo from side to side.

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So the pattern is:

warm up, combo 1 (both sides) , combo 2 (both sides), combine 1 + 2, combo 3 (both sides), combine 1, 2, + 3 and repeat all the combos in a zigzag pattern three times. Seasun's zigzag patter had you do Combos 1, 2, & 3 on one side and then repeat the combos on the other side.

By the time we hit repeating the combination a third time in a zigzag pattern, I thought three times through was too much and two would have been satisfactory. Although, I really like that she went back after combo two and combine 1 and 2 together.

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Seasun cues very well - the caveat - "once you know the workout".

Picking up the routine a month and 1/2 after I learned it, I thought I did a pretty good job keeping up with the choreography. Only once I stopped the DVD and that was in combo 2 during the "windmill" move.

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I did do some of my own modifications and also I kept switching between the more advance moves that Seasun was teaching and the moves, the modifier (Kristen), were doing.

I waited to review this workout because had I reviewed the workout back in October, I would have probably slammed Seasun for how difficult the workout is to learn.

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There isn't a lot of breakdown and some moves she just throws at you (force feed - her words) without any break down at all. She will tell you about it and then just do it.

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My main issue in her teaching (and I notice this with Patrick Goudeau as well) is she doesn't do a good job in teaching the splices (when you combine two combinations together). She will teach one part of the combination and then the next, but when she goes to put the two together she changes the way you enter into the second part without teaching the change. Very frustrating at times for me.

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However, like many things once you know something, it is easier to look it at it from a different perspective and this is a very fun and high energy step workout when you are not staring at the television screen dumbfounded.

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I certainly think a break down chapter in this workout would have help. Especially, as Seasun states the reason that she didn't do a lot of break down within the workout is because she wanted the workout to have a long shelf life.

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My thought on that is if the workout is going to be too difficult to learn, it isn't going to have any shelf life at all. I was seriously considering putting it in my "to go pile" without even trying to do the rest of the workout I didn't do previously.

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I am giving the workout 4 stars.

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Because once you do learn it, the music, the cuing, the energy, the cast (they were with Seasun every step of the way) and the combos themselves make it an excellent workout.

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I know this review is a lengthy one. :)

Sorry for all the periods but blogger keeps crushing my post and taking out the spaces I am putting in between paragraphs.