| Customer Reviews (or write your own review) |
African Healing Dance |
 Great whole body, mind, and soul workout |
| I love doing African Healing Dance especially when I have been doing aerobics body parts focused workouts for a long time. This video is for the soul like fresh spring water is for a parched throat. The graph shown is kind of misleading because when you do the whole video its about 70 minutes of dance time. You DO get a good whole body workout. I sweat every time I do this video, and by the time the African-Caribbean dances come, I can really feel my shoulders working, yet I don't want to stop because its so fun! Some of the moves may be more advanced and I learned several of them first from belly dancing videos so the tape didn't seem intimidating to me at all. If you have problems following along, I suggest doing Veena and Neena Bidasha's belly dancing videos first. Contrary to past reviews, I don't think the instructional time between dances is too lengthy. Wyoma is explaining where the dance came from and what is means to those people. It's a beautiful inclusion, and it brings a whole new level of meaning to the already beautiful dances. I LOVE the free dance at the end. It teaches you to let go and express yourself physically, not merely work your body out. This tape taught me a whole new way to think about being creative; by moving my body and connecting to the music, and I thank Wyoma for opening this awareness in me. - posted by Jessica on 6/10/2009 |
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*The star rating system began in April 2007. Reviews posted before then do not have stars.
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| I LOVE IT |
| I rented this from the library and was so intrigued with it, I may have to get 2 copies so that one can be borrowed quite frequently. The drums and the dances surge through my soul. As each animal, element and dance has meaning, I see myself becoming those images, always giving tribute to the life of the drum. My ancestors have long been removed from our natural habitat, Mother Africa, and this is it for me. I can feel the rythm as my great, great, great, great grandmother felt as she moved to her drums. It's like a miracle. Thank you Wyoma. - posted by Jacquelyn Holloway on 7/7/2004 |
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| Fun and different!! |
| I really enjoyed this tape. It's not the most intensive cardio workout available. But if you really work the movements, you can get a good workout. I took african dance in college and this provides a similar experience. It really is like active meditation. - posted by Alisa Dawn Ingram, MD on 2/12/2004 |
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| I gave it away |
| This video sounded very interesting and different. It was interesting and educational about African dance. however, every time I started to enjoy myself and get my heart rate up, there was a several minute-long instructional break! I felt like I could have gotten a good workout, but would spend too much time cueing the VCR to get to a point where I was dancing instead of listening. I gave the video to my brother who teaches music from around the world so he could show parts of it when he teaches African music. - posted by Daria on 3/4/2003 |
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| Interesting and Inspirational |
| Wyoma does a great job of presenting the dance moves as well as making it interesting. She also gives the meaning of the moves and where the dances come from. An unusual and worthwhile workout. - posted by Karol H. on 3/22/2002 |
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| You better already know these moves... |
| If the lack of instruction wasn't bad enough, the camera zooms in for close-ups making it impossible to determine what Wyoma is doing with her arms and legs. I've done some African dance in the past, but attempting to follow this video was frustrating and made a good workout impossible. - posted by Amy on 1/26/2002 |
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| great tape |
| Sensuous, and good for flexibility, I use this tape often to warmup by doing several of the dances at a time. The dancers move beautifully. It's easy to move with the drumbeats but some of the dances have moves that are very unfamiliar and for me, difficult. This tape is like active meditation - it connects me by sound and movement to something ancient. - posted by martha on 1/20/2002 |
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| I liked it. |
| I thought this one was a lot of fun. Even though its more of a dance instruction tape than a traditional aerobics class, I got a pretty good workout. Its interesting how each of the moves in the dances mean something, so that you can tell a story with a dance. I also liked the sound of the drums. I taught one of the dances to a youth group I help with and the kids loved it. - posted by Mary on 7/28/2001 |
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| Very challenging |
| This is a beautiful tape: the dances are wonderful and the dancers amazingly fluid. I think it's more of a performance tape than one for a beginner to follow. May be better for dancers. I once took a really fun African dance class but this instructor takes it all very, very seriously. - posted by Tiger Kaplan on 2/24/2000 |