Review: DVD Penatal Yoga Complete with Mary Poppas-Sandonas

As I've previously stated, yoga and I don't really get along.  I've taken a handful of formal classes and followed the show Namaste Yoga on FitTV.  So, I'm not the expert on this field.  But I figure it's ok because as soon as I'm not pregnant anymore, I'm planning to continue my life's work of avoiding yoga at all costs.

But I promised I'd give ol' prenatal yoga a shot, just to make sure I wasn't missing out on something; it's my first time being pregnant, what do I know?  So I got the DVD "Prenatal Yoga Complete" with Mary Poppas-Sandonas.  And let's just say my attitude didn't change much.

1. There are no pregnant ladies in this video.  Instead it's just a skinny instructor who looks kind of silly using ten or fifteen props to get her lithe, flexible body into position.  I didn't think this would bother me so much, but it did.

2. This kind of yoga hurts.  The very first thing (after all the precautions, because nothing makes a pregnant lady feel like exercising than hearing about the eight hundred ways she's going to make her baby stupid if she does it wrong) was Hero's Pose, which is basically kneeling on the ground.  But the instructions says to "move your calf muscles away from your legs to make room for your butt."  Um, my calf muscles are attached to my legs.  Where am I supposed to move them to?  I did what she said and it just caused excruciating pain up and down my legs and knees.  So I stopped, per the cautionary instructions.

3. It requires too many props.  How many props to do Hero's Pose?  Four! Four things required for a pregnant lady to kneel on the ground -- a mat (fine, that was expected), two washcloths for my ankles, and a wooden block for my butt.  Every pose required many, many props, and I didn't really have any of them.  I used all the spare bathroom towels and pillows and couch cushions and still had the distinct feeling that they weren't good enough.

3. This is basically just laying or relaxing in a position for a few minutes before assembling the required props to set up the next position.  It was a lot of setting up (the instructions helpfully suggest pausing the video to get everything in the right place!) and then ... sitting in the position forever.  I was expecting more movement.  More, you know, exercising.

4. It claims to help with morning sickness.  Wrong.

5. It has literally hours of video for every trimester.  That's one thing I really liked.  There are sections for sleeping better, feeling more energized and getting rid of headaches in addition to the section on morning sickness.  And there are other sections for each of the trimesters, too, plus fertitility routines.  A lot of information packed into one DVD, that's nice.