There used to be a yoga and pilates instructor at my gym who was so irritated with Bally and how they treated her, that she punished the students for it with her bad attitude. She claimed the issue was not only her pay, but their ridiculous substitution policy, which apparently left her unable to find anyone to fill in for her when she couldn’t be at her class. (At the gym chain I work at, there are so many of us on the sub list I’m scrambling to respond immediately to any call for subs just so I have chance to teach.)

So this particular instructor would just show up late, leave early, or not show up at all on those days where she had a conflict. One time, she was in the middle of teaching her pilates class, and she left halfway through because she had to be on the other side of town “for filming.” She let one of the student regulars finish teaching the class. No joke!

I was so annoyed that I stopped going to her class and only recently tried the new class in that timeslot because she apparently quit or got fired. This new class is not quite yoga, and not quite pilates, but a hybrid. It’s actually a pretty good workout, but I notice that the new teacher spends half the class with her nose in her iPod, fiddling around with the dial to come up with her next song. It would be one thing if she were changing her playlist once or twice during the class, but no. It seems that she manually changes every single song that plays.

Once I saw her on her back, bicycling her feet along with us as she peered into her iPod display, giving half-hearted instructions when her attention was directed solely at the little machine in her hand.

I’ve yet to see her really pay attention to what the students are doing, and she absolutely never comes around to help people.

Personally, I would much rather have a teacher who is paying attention to her students than focusing on her music. There’s this cool little thing that you can do with your iPod. It’s called a playlist. It will play a list of songs in the order you want automatically, and you set it up beforehand. Use it.

Now, some of the yoga teachers I have tried at the gym chain I teach at are pretty fantastic, so maybe my local Bally is just a vortex of distraction and this is not typical of gyms. Unfortunately, the whole reason I got my Bally membership was because I could walk to it and it was convenient. If only they had a better group fitness instructor at my location, and some quality yoga classes with happy teachers who care. Sigh.

Don’t get me wrong – she looks good. I just want to be a tad bit softer and more natural. As such, the shape of Karen’s bod is a good indication of the kind of yoga you’ll get here: hard, sleek, and a bit plastic.

This is still a great DVD, however, if you are looking for a quick yoga workout that will challenge your muscles. The DVD is split up into two 20-minute sections: first, a yoga flow section, and then some Pilates-style mat work. You can do either one or both of the workouts in order.

The yoga is standard wham bam thank you ma’am power/flow yoga. There’s a lot of downward dogs and planks. There’s a bunch of warrior variations. There’s not a lot of deep stretching. Your arms are aching midway through and you just want to rest them for a second. But wait! It’s only 20 minutes: You can get through it!

Finally, a reprieve. Now it’s time for the Pilates mat work. What? You mean you want me to balance on my tailbone and stick my legs straight up into the air at a 45 degree angle? Riiight. Doesn’t look like Karen can do this straight through either: The video cuts to show a non-speaking version of herself at this point.

I do like this video but it’s not the deep, relaxing yoga that brings spiritual peace. It’s also not going to do much to add flexibility. YogaSculpt offers strengthening yoga that will make your body stronger, but probably not much more flexible than if you just went and did some weights.

Challenge level: Probably boring for advanced, and challenging for beginner/intermediate depending on your upper body stamina.

Once again, this was a terrific class that no-one else showed up to – lucky for me. I have taken some Pilates classes at my gym and this one was extremely challenging but not as brutal.