Pump It Up! Dancemix - Thoughts

Oh my new favorite workout of 2012. I really really like this workout. Pump It Up Dancemix stars Gareth Walker as the lead. Gareth is a dancer choreographer for many Ministry of Sound workout videos.
I will start first by talking about the DVD.
The main menu looks like this:
Introduction/Tips and Techniques
Play Full Workout
Skip to section
Create Routine
Extras
Options

Extras has interviews with the cast members including Gareth, Ministry of Sound Videos, Trailers, Behind the Scenes and Mobile Downloads.
Options allows you to play the workout with or without commentary. It also allows you to play only the music.
Skip to Section breaks down as:
Warm It up - ~ 8 min
Tone It Up - ~ 11 min
Dancemix 1 - ~ 15 min
Dancemix 2 - ~ 15 min
Dancemix 3 - ~ 15 min
Cool It Off - ~ 11 min

So the workout. Love love the music. The energy was absolutely fantastic and Gareth, he was fun. Gareth teaches the workout in a layered approach. He first starts by showing you the move. He will do the move two to four times and then he will have you join him. He then adds on. Gareth teaches all sections of the workout this way even the Toning section. The toning section is standing work only - no floor work.

Now the dances. Fun Fun Fun, but challenging. The dances feature cool and funky moves from pop, hip hop, jazz, and latin. Gareth states "When it doubt, strut it out." Meaning if you can't get the step, just march to the music.
As you went from one dance mix to the next, the dances got progressively harder. So I found, Dancemix 1 fairly easy to follow, Dancemix 2 was a little bit more complicated than Dancemix 1. By the way, Dancemix 2 was my favorite of the three. Dancemix 3 was the hardest of the three to learn. I admit that while I was having a blast with Dancemix 3, I was also tripping all over myself. Gareth tells you not to panic with Dancemix 3 because it is suppose to be hard.

There is not a lot of taking it from the top. Several times during the workout, I felt I could have used one more run through of a move or even the routine. For instance, once you learn all the choreography in Dancemix 2 and 3, he only runs through the finish routines twice. For Dancemix 1, we got to do three iterations of the final routine. However, this is not a big negative. Once I know the routines better, I think I will appreciate the conciseness of the dance routines.

The Cool It Off sections contains ab work on the floor along with stretching you out. The entire workout is a bit lengthy clocking in at 75 minutes.
Other than the length, and wishing they had separated the ab section from the Cool It Off section, I love this workout.
4 & 3/4 stars