HD Yoga Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

HD Yoga Blu-ray Movie Review

Virtual nirvana.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 16, 2012

Yoga is an ancient set of practices that seeks to “yoke” (etymologically related to the word) the practitioner’s mind, body and spirit, unifying it and also unifying the practitioner to the “Great Beyond”, while in a perhaps more microcosmic way providing palpable health benefits. Though ancient, yoga wasn’t really part of the mass conciousness, at least in the West, until the rise of the youth counterculture in the sixties and seventies, when suddenly it became a hot topic (and practice) du jour. The kind of ironic thing is that many Baby Boomers who may have flirted with Yoga as twenty- somethings (or even younger) back in the day have returned to it now en masse now that the stresses of the modern world have taken their toll on their psyches, and the ravages of time have taken their toll on aging bodies. Seattle 8 Limbs Yoga Centers were founded in 1996 and have grown to a total of four community locations where people come to learn the fundamentals of this ancient art. 8 Limbs takes its name from the Sanskrit word Ashtanga, which refers to what the ancients thought were eight facets of yoga: Yama (ethical disciplines), Niyama (rules of conduct), Asana (postures), Pranayama (restraint or expansion of the breath), Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi (ultimate bliss). Most non-intensive yoga centers tend to emphasize only two of these, Pranayama and Asana, and 8 Limbs follows that tradition. 8 Limbs’ founder Anne Phyfe Palmer acts as hosts and one of the on screen guides in this four disc set which takes users through a variety of levels and techniques of yoga practice with different sets of goals in sight.

Each of these four programs lasts around an hour, give or take, and each contains some brief introductory comments by Anne Phyfe Palmer (that’s a dual first name according to the biography included on the discs). Ms. Palmer seems down to earth and friendly, but she needs a little coaching on her on screen demeanor, especially as it’s completely obvious she’s reading either cue cards or a teleprompter, meaning that there’s next to no “eye contact” from her during these comments. Each of the discs also has a disclaimer of sorts at a startup screen that lists a number of suggested prerequisites before starting any of these routines, including waiting several hours after meals and even more restrictions for women who are either pregnant or menstruating (see screencap 19 included with this review). The four programs are Basic, Core, Strength and Vinyasa, detailed below. The packaging advertises “three levels of difficulty” for each session, i.e., beginning, intermediate and advanced, but what that really amounts to is three practitioners on screen during each session. The one on the left does the easiest form of the routine, the one in the middle does normal difficulty, and the one on the right does the most advanced versions. This is generally excellently done, though occasionally some of the directorial decisions leave one or more participants out of the picture. (I must thank my wife for detailed information on what some of these routines include, as she does yoga twice a week at her office. I haven’t done yoga since I was in college and my then girlfriend “required” it of me to continue our relationship.)

Basic

This routine offers a generalized routine that anyone who’s ever done yoga (even if it was back in college many years ago) will recognize. The lead instructor here is Jen Yaros and she leads viewers through a number of well known poses and movements, including Cat and Cow, Downward Facing Dog, Pose of the Child and one of the more advanced poses, Mountain. There’s nothing very challenging here, although the advanced modifications by Jay Holby show just how far some of these “easy” poses and movements can be taken. As with most of the routines included on the four discs, there are also a variety of sun salutations, seating and standing poses included.

Strength

This routine looks like quite a workout (I must confess I did not attempt to do any of these routines and instead watched them from my extremely comfy chair in my home theater while dreaming of junk food.) Leader Jay Holmby leads this outing and all three on screen practitioners look like they’re working up a considerable amount of perspiration by the time this routine ends. This routine starts with Virasana Hero’s Pose and then moves through a lot of complex looking standing balancing sequences, including poses (seated and standing) like Eagle Arms and Ida, Pingala and Pyramid Poses. This may not exactly be aerobically challenging but some of these poses look like they are bears to sustain and all three teachers occasionally wobble slightly as they attempt to hold various poses. This routine features some licensed gamelan music that sounds nicely exotic playing in the background.

Core

This is one of the two longest routines on the four discs (the other one is the even longer Vinyasa) and contains some incredibly difficult looking poses that will certainly tighten and tone the midsection. According to Anne Phyfe Palmer this routine features what is called Uddiyana Bandha, a Sanskrit term which means “upward flying lock,” an upward lifting of the diaphragm which also contributes to building strength in the core. This routine is led by Chiari Guerrieri, whose thick accent can be just slightly hard to make out at times. Aside from some of the expected “sit up” type poses, this routine also features some challenging balancing elements utilizing blocks. The string pad infused music is by Carl Ratcliffe.

Vinyasa

This routine is led by Anne Phyfe Palmer and features the practice known as Vinyasa, a word based on the root Nyasa, which means to place intelligently. While all of these routines feature one pose segueing into the next, Vinyasa attempts to create a sequence of flowing movements that can almost be likened to slow motion ballet. This routine also features some Pranayama techniques, including alternate nostril breathing, to “balance” chakras. While a lot of these movements are relatively gentle, this routine contains the very difficult Crow pose, which requires excellent balance and strength.

HD Yoga Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

HD Yoga is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Topics Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. While this is perfectly acceptable for this kind of "training" video (for want of a better term), this presentation never really rises to eye popping high definition splendor, as might be expected. The overall image is slightly on the soft side, though colors are accurate and decently saturated. Contrast is fine, but fine object detail is notably lacking, especially in some of the set dressings placed upstage of the yoga instructors. Close-ups reveal decent enough fine detail, but again this is not going to set any videophile hearts on fire. This is decent, acceptable video quality without being spectacular.

HD Yoga Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kudos must be accorded to Topics Entertainment for their decision to include a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix on these Blu-rays, but as with the image quality, there's simply not a lot of "there" there that exploits what lossless audio has to offer. All of these training regimens include some decent (though very softly mixed) musical accompaniment playing behind the narration, which is voiced by the lead instructor of that particular routine. Fidelity is fine, though there is virtually no stereo separation to speak of, as should probably be expected. It would have been nice had Topics included a "music only" audio option for those who have learned the routines and don't need the narration any more.

HD Yoga Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with many Topics Entertainments releases, there aren't "real" Supplements per se on any of the discs. There are text based pages featuring biographies of all of the teachers, background on 8 Limbs and a separately accessible page that includes the "warnings" which start off every disc.

Packaging Note: As is also the case with many of the Topics Entertainment multi-disc sets, all four discs are placed one on top of each other on a spindle in a book sized keepcase. Getting the discs off of the spindle can be just a tad challenging, but what seems to work best is getting the bottom most disc in hand and pulling up on that, which will automatically dislodge the higher discs from the spindle.

HD Yoga Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As mentioned above in the main body of the review, my wife is the yoga expert in our family, and she watched these four discs with me and was quite enthused about them. She instantly said she would love to take a class from Anne Phyfe Palmer if we lived in Seattle, high praise indeed. But what she also liked was the "real person" feeling of these videos. Evidently there are yoga videos out there with bikini clad practitioners romping about on beaches and things like that, and my wife finds those ridiculous. She also stated that it was great to see the three levels here and that finally the "beginning" mode actually seemed to represent what a true beginner would experience and need, including helping aids like blankets to sit on. This is obviously a niche product, but for those interested in learning or even perfecting yoga, this release comes Recommended.