Search - Shiva Rea: Daily Energy - Vinyasa Flow Yoga on DVD

Another Fantastic DVD from Shiva Rea!!

Yoga Teacher | OM-aha, Nebraska | 11/19/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am so excited that Shiva Rea has a new DVD!! I have all of her DVDs and practice to them on a regular basis.

This DVD has seven 20-minute practices, 2 meditations, core, counterposes, and shavasana. I would say it's for experienced beginners and beyond.

Here are the chapter titles:

Solar Meditation (active movement meditation)
Lunar Meditation (seated meditation and breathing)

20-Minute Practices:
Earth (standing Poses within a vinyasa format)
Heart + Air (backbending within a vinyasa format)
Water (fluid vinyasa)
Fire + Water (standing poses, arm balances, and vinyasa)
Fire (similar to the Agni Namaskar, contains push-ups and active vinyasa)
Chakra Vinyasa (vinyasa to stimulate earth, water, fire, and air)
Shanti (this is an amazing sequence!!! She calls it relaxation flow. it's yoga poses approached in such a mellow way that you don't realize you're actually doing yoga! a great one to do on a day where you're feeling under the weather, or wanna start slow, or end deliciously.)

7 minute Core/Abs
6 minute Forward Bends/Counterposes

6 minute Relaxation


The beauty is you can do any one section, or combine them to your liking with the "yoga matrix". Shiva also offers many pre-set practices, combining several sequences together for differing affects. All of these practices are new, and are not repeated on any of her earlier DVDs. The only exception might be the Fire section, but even that has several differences to make it distinctive from her earlier versions.

This is the latest offering from Shiva, and is very reflective of her actual teaching style in a live class. I had the pleasure of spending another week with her in LA a few weeks ago, and we did some practices very similar to these. It's a fantastic DVD, and a great way to get Shiva right in your own home!!!"

The Best Vinyasa Practices Around

Yoni | Israel | 11/28/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I really love Shiva's new DVD and I already tried all of it a few times(except earth which was too basic for me). These are wonderful 20 minute (actually 21-23 min.) complete practices on their own but also work great combined with each other or with other DVDs. There is a matrix and pre set practices. Here is a description of the practices:
Earth - the most basic practice. It's like a combination of foundation vinyasa from "Shiva Rea - Fluid Power - Vinyasa Flow Yoga" and some of her dancing warrior variations from "Yoga Shakti" .
Heart-Air - my favorite and the most unique practice in this dvd in my opinion. This backbending sequence starts slowly with cat pose and variations and continues to a wonderful flow of poses like several quad stretches in different positions such as kneeling bow , lunge position and in standing half split position. There's also dolphin and dancer's bridge and a single legged bow to a stretch I still haven't seen before - you move on your side to a kind of side one leggeg bow , it's not as hard as it sounds. Then its full bow , bridge and wheel and then one legged wheel that I actually managed to do thanks to Shiva's backbend preperations. In the end she does a lying twist with a straight leg as a counter pose.
Chakra Namaskar - a vinyasa combining the elements of earth, water , fire and heart-air with a series of poses such as cat , lunge with a twist , warrior 1 to 3, three variations of side plank and more.
Fire-Water - a great combination vinyasa of standing poses such as yogic squat, bound triangle , reverse warrior , half moon with quad stretch , lunges , arm balances such as bhujapidasana and vishma something (I don't remember the name) and backbends such as cobra and bow. It really reminded me of the standing pose flows from Yoga Shakti but still different and unique.
Fire - another variation to the agni namaskar, it's very similar to the one from the upper body DVD but with less emphasis on pushups (although you do quite a few but not 108) and more emphasis on poses such as revolved lunge and chair , half splits, cobra and bow variations . it ends with camel, crow and side crow which were nice for a change. it has a nice music with a slow reggae beat and I really enjoyed it , it's my favorite variation of this namaskar.
Water - a fluid circular vinyasa similar to her Jala and Mandala namaskar , it was very mellow and nice.
Shanti - a great relaxing practice focusing on slow stretches. It starts with lunges with side bends and half splits and continues to pigeon with a nice variation of moving with your hands to each side and then a long hold of pigeon. One legged head to knee forward bend , cow and a seated twist . she also repeats lying on your stomach and twisting to the side twice during the practice.
The bonus segments are also nice additions that make this DVD almost perfect: Solar meditation - a moving meditation with arm movements , yogic squat , wide angle forward bend and a twisting kriya similar to the one from "Shiva Rea - Radiant Heart" it's a great little warm up.
Lunar Meditation - a seated meditation. Core - very similar to the one from Shiva Rea: Creative Core and Upper Body and even with the same music but with some different fun variations. Forward Bends - always great to add for every practice although each of the longer practices already has counter poses in the end, you can see the clip. There's also an almost 5 minute shavasana with great relaxing music. This time the DVD was shot in an inside studio set and although I always prefer outdoor sets the set is very nice looking and relaxing. The music is excellent! and mostly new. I would say most of the practices are suitable for beginners with some experience except fire, fire water and heart air which are slightly more advanced. I highly recommend it.

"

The BEST yoga DVD out there

Dominik Zakrzewski | Maspeth, NY United States | 12/03/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I usually don't bother leaving reviews but this DVD really warranted it. I've never been a fan of Shiva Rea's DVDs because thye seemed more like a movie to me rather than an instructional practice. This DVD contains 7 main workouts that when done on their own give you a great workout. She also pairs them into 7 practices between 40 and 60 minutes. This really is the total package. I personally cannot do an hour of yoga daily or every other day. I am usually pressed for time and after a while my body starts to break down. Like it says on the package that it's better to do a little bit of yoga daily than a full routine every now and again. Don't lt the short time of the workouts fool you, they really ARE effective. I do a different one each day, every day and my body is reallly toning, getting muscular, and this really gives me the peace and grounding that yoga is known to induce. I am statign to face the day with a serene gaze like Shiva dones in this workout, and all of her DVDs."

Not really vinyasa and not for beginners

Sabeth Mzier | Switzerland | 03/26/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"There are a lot of things to like about this DVD, provided you already know all of the basics (and then some) of vinyasa yoga. But to be clear, it's an intermediate-to-advanced DVD.

Pros (Why you should buy this DVD):
1. There are lots of creative variations on classic poses.
2. The sequences offer lovely interpretations of elemental energy.
3. Flexible folks with good body awareness will get a good workout no matter which sequence they choose.
4. There are some great backbend sequences, which is rare.
5. Few viewers will be able to do everything in this DVD at once, so the learning process will stay interesting, even in the long term.

Cons (Why this DVD might not be for you):
1. The transitions from pose to pose are often awkward and poorly timed, making true "flow" (synchronized breathing with a set of poses) very challenging.
2. Her instructions may confuse because they often do not describe her own movements in the video, especially regarding how and when to breathe.
3. The risk of injury is even greater than usual because she offers no modifications for (often very advanced) poses that might be safer for less experienced or flexible students.
4. Some poses are not cued at all, so you might find yourself craning to look up at the screen just when you really need to be focusing on doing the pose.

In sum (my overall opinion):
I quite like this DVD, and I'd love to love it (really - the poses are so neat), but the awkward cuing makes it difficult to use.
"