Dance with Julianne: Cardio Ballroom

I have many dance workout DVDs, and this is by far the best one that I own. It isn't plagued by all the problems that typical dance videos have (boring instructors, ineffective workouts, etc.) Julianne is very engaging, motivating, and fun. And the routines are great exercise. I even found the warm-up and cool-down portions to be effective and much different from what you usually get on these types of DVDs.Pros:- The workout is fun. It's one of the only ones I do where I am not constantly checking the time to see how much longer I have to torture myself.- Most of the steps are real dance steps, so if your goal is not only to get in shape but also to learn Latin ballroom dance steps, you'll love this video. Julianne doesn't turn everything into dance aerobics moves that you do 50 times and then you're done. She teaches real moves that you've seen on Dancing with the Stars countless times.- She puts the steps into actual dance routines that flow from one move to the next. She doesn't just take a few basic steps like mambo breaks or grapevines, do each one 3 or 4 times, and call that a "routine."- She has one of the backup dancers demonstrate some modifications of her moves that may be easier for people who have bad knees or are really out of shape and can't do everything exactly the way Julianne does it.Cons:- Julianne's "personal dance lesson" doesn't go through all of the steps, and some of the moves not included in the lesson are difficult to pick up on without rewinding a lot or playing in slow motion. I know it will take a lot of practice to get these steps down regardless of how well she breaks them down, but I just feel like if you're going to add a section to the DVD where you explain how to do specific steps, you could explain a lot more of them than she does.- The camerawork is not the best I've ever seen. It frequently will show only Julianne's face, and that's not what you need to see to be able to pick up the steps. At other times, it only shows her hips or the top half of her body so you can't really see what her feet and legs are doing. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I want to learn how to do the moves correctly from top to bottom. The camera angles make that difficult sometimes.- The individual dance routines (cha cha, jive, paso doble) are grouped together so you can do the entire workout without having to manually switch from one dance to the next, and they are also available in separate chapters if you only want to do one at a time. But the warm-up and cool-down portions are only available if you choose to play the entire workout. That makes it more of a pain to try to do the warm-up and cool-down with just one or two of the routines when you don't have time to do the entire workout.Overall, this DVD is more than worth the money. It has its flaws, but it is MUCH better than any other Latin cardio DVD that I've tried. You will come away feeling like you got a great workout, and the dances are so fun that I actually want to keep going even after I've finished my workout. If you liked Julianne on DWTS, you will really enjoy this workout.

This is a fantastic workout! Each of the dances really works a different part of your body to provide a complete workout. That said, do not expect to be successful quickly if you don't have prior dance experience. You will be able to learn it but it will take a lot of repetition. Some potentially difficult aspects of the DVD: I agree that camera angles aren't always conducive to seeing Julianne's feet and there wasn't an explanation at the beginning for whether she was mirroring or not (she is) so I was a little thrown off for a bit. I am a "counter" when I dance, so I did hate that no counts were provided. Luckily, I could pretty easily figure them out on my own (but didn't always know when Julianne was going to start dancing since there was no count off). Finally, although the music was well stylized and fit to the music, I kept feeling like I was off the beat of the music. Something just didn't quite gel for me there.Now the positives! The workout moves along quickly, so once you've gotten comfortable with the steps, you can still do the video without feeling like you're constantly getting a beginner's lesson in what you already know. The routines flow nicely, like a real dance, and are made up of steps that you will actually see Julianne doing on Dancing with the Stars. So you can sit at home and throw out "he wasn't low enough on those flick kicks in the jive" or "what lousy hip action for a cha cha" in your best British accent and actually know what you're talking about! Seriously, the routines are fairly short (4 8-counts) but they're legitimate ballroom dance.The cha cha works your hips and abs primarily. I didn't know my hips could get such a workout! I really like this routine and feel like you could take a lot of the moves straight over to a Latin dance club and fit right in. The jive is a killer for your legs and cardio. For the first week, I couldn't make it through the whole jive sequence and resorted to hitting pause and gulping water. It's super fast with lots of quick leg kicks, but once you get a hang of it, the moves fit together really well. The paso is mostly an arm workout, but I also found that it really worked my core as well because of how strong and rigid your frame needs to be. I thought I would feel really stupid pretending to have a cape and dancing the "man's dance" without a man, but I actually really love this routine!Even though the workout does move quickly, once I really learned the routines fully, I didn't have much interest in going through the whole video. I'm not so into following a strict workout plan but enjoy doing the dances themselves. Therefore, I made a playlist of songs at the right tempo and with the right beat for each style (most of them being songs that couples danced to on Dancing with the Stars!) and now just put it on in my living and dance for a quick 15-20 minute workout. It's great for someone who doesn't have a lot of time to dedicate to a workout video but still wants to get something in to tone up, get the heart rate going, and have fun!

I would have liked a 4th dance (Rumba/Lambada) as I got though the others very quickley. The dance lessons were very helpful: she knows what she is talking about. On the strength of this dvd I bought her Just Dance dvd, which is amazing tooooo. You need space and a mirror for both. You also need to like to dance - it always makes me laugh when people buy a dance/aerobics dvd to lose weight, but they do it 3 times (if your lucky) and never do it again. You need to do it 3 times a week, at least! Learn it, own it and then get more dvds from Amazon!

Annoying that the product information is not clear about not being able to play the on a UK dvd player, was one step away from having to send it back. Luckily I've been able to play it on my laptop but its not the same and feeling slighty duped..The plus side is the dvd is great...I was happy with how much I picked up and was able to do on my first go...It would have been more stars but not happy as to how I've got to watch it!

This isn't aimed at me (I'm a man) but it's a workout I really enjoyed!She's bubbly, not annoying at all and makes this such fun.She breaks down the moves well and moves at a reasonable pace so you can follow.Some steps are hard but you can get there.I'd say that as a workout it's moderate rather than tough but in terms of beefing up how you move this does give you skill!

Arrived super quick, doesn't work on UK dvd player (as previously stated) however it does work on my laptop, and i love it! such a fun workout.

This product doesn't work on uk appliances, so useless. Gives an error message of wrong region. I presume only suitable for USA.