Hula Workout: Beginners

It's good to try something different. Enjoyable exercises and dance moves. Gentle. Yes country and western sounding music a touch of hula music. The music's makes it easy to keep the beat and movements. Some of us have had back knee neck shoulder surgeries between the 4 of us who get together to exercise. These are gentle fun and a good workout we can all do

Though it's not like the workout "Hot Hula" as I has hoping to supplement, it has turned out to be a great, authentic hula guide. If only I had muscles like that beautiful wahini!

If you are expecting the old hula style, don't buy this video. But if you would like something new, energetic and pumped up to work out too, then this is the video for you!!!I am doing this work out 5 days a week through out the month of April and I am LOVING it!!In May, I am moving up to her weight loss work out as well!!

It comes in 5.1 surround sound & just her at the beach. It has chapter choices, bonus features of her dancing an authentic dance & trailer for her weight loss DVD.Most of the moves were authentic, such as the Kaholo (walking bellydance vertical figure 8), Ka'o (bellydance vertical figure 8), 'uniu (bellydance outward figure 8), hela (leg forward/back), 'uwehe (knees together & spread them), ami (small hip circle), kawelu (step forward w/half figure 8).She's in great shape, good cleear voice, seemed nice & straight forward no small talk except to give her many good cues. She teaches the step first in it's most simple/bare bones in 1/2 time, then slowly speeds it up & then building up the hips, then the arms to it's graceful finish. The music seems like a fusion of native Hawaiian & american country twang, not bad, decent beat simple & goes with the learning.The bad part that everyone hates is the dance routine you learn tells a story like all hula does & this one is a simple one but uses 60s american music & a couple mashed potatos in it. This is only about 15% of the dance, but kinda kills it a bit. Otherwise I'd give it 5 stars.After a 4 min intro including seeing the dance of what you will learn, is a 5 min warm up with some basic stretching & also learning some of the basic steps like the Kaholo & K'ao until your hips turn to stone ;-) It ends with a 5 min cooldown w/some yoga poses & back stretches & other muscles stretched for a full 38 min. [...].Her new "Island Girl" hula workouts are more authentic. Just like her other ones, you get a great workout, your abs burn, your hips, legs get a nice workout. It's all authentic dance moves with some added quick squats, etc. added in so you barely notice it for adding toning. The authentic drum Hawaiian music is beautiful & does keep you stimulted too keep going just like a dance/rock beat would.I had no trouble following & learning the steps, there are plenty of dance DVDs that I have had trouble with, but she breaks everything down well & shows it slowly several times before speeding it up. She even cues YOUR left & right, not hers.There's a trailer for her "Hula Workout" DVDs & another authentic Hula workout like this called "Island Girl: Hula Abs & Buns" at collagevideo.com

One would expect to hear Hawaiian music if a DVD has "Hula" in its title. Country rock music is offered instead. Music is more suitable for line dancing!

I tried this workout on a whim, but I was really surprised at what a great workout this actually was. Now I'm not terribly in shape, but my legs, rear, and abs were sore (in a good way) for a couple days after doing the Hula Rock dance, so I know it did what it was supposed to do. It was good not insanely over-the-top cardio exercise, and I did work up a bit of a sweat. I had fun working out, and found myself concentrating on how to do the steps, so I wasn't so aware that I was actually exercising (always a plus in my book).Some reviewers mentioned that the music made the workout less enjoyable, but I appreciated the music. The lyrics helped me remember the dance routine and which steps came where. I think if the music had been more traditionally Hawaiian, I would have lost my place rather easily.I also liked that Kili broke the routine down into parts before tossing it at us all at once, *and* I liked that there *was* a full dance at the end of the workout, not just a bunch of moves that were never put into a full dance. I thought the instruction was pretty easy to understand, and the camera was focusing on the right parts of Kili's body at the right times.It's probably not for the wannabe Hula dancer, or for the Hula purist, and it does require a little bit of coordination (or the ability to laugh at yourself). But if you want to try kind of a fun and different workout, then it might be worth a look. It beats the torture of a stair-climbing machine!

Hard work but worth it! The workout time is approximately 20 minutes. I can only take at the most, 10 minutes.

The technique itself is not bad but you are almost forced to learn a whole dance in one sitting. It would be better if the steps to each dance were a separate menu option.