It’s like riding a bicycle … or not.

I thought the Walk Your Way Slim workout would be great, because walking is something I do all the time, and I hardly ever trip and fall down (at least not recently). Though I’m not a teenage girl in the 1950s who aspires to be “slim” (does anyone even use that word anymore?), I know that walking is a great way to be fit.

It also appealed to me that the DVD had three different levels of exercisers; I figured I could surely keep up with the beginner level person. It didn’t occur to me to ask why there would be a need for three different levels of walking skill.

Don’t let the name fool you – this is not a walking DVD. It is only “based on” walking, according to the introductory remarks by instructor Michelle Dozois. She also says that walking is simple, and can be done by almost everyone, but apparently the same is not true for movements that are only “based on” walking.

This workout was chock full of super-complicated choreography. I’m embarrassed to say I had trouble keeping up with the beginner person. Half the time I would end up just plain old marching in place, and feel ashamed about it.

There is only one workout on the DVD, and no special features (probably another conversion from VHS). The runtime is listed at 49 minutes, but the actual workout (minus introduction and credits) is closer to 45 minutes.

The workout features three exercisers, each demonstrating different variations of the moves suitable for different fitness levels. Instructor Dozois demonstrates Level 2 (intermediate) in the center, and there an exerciser on either side of her: one demonstrating Level 1 (beginner) and the other demonstrating Level 3 (advanced).

The three exercisers were each on their own elevated circular platform. Even before the workout really started, I thought to myself that if that was me up there, I would fall off the edge of the platform and hurt myself. They didn’t seem to have any trouble though.

The first move after the warmup was a mambo. I hardly ever mambo my way into the office or to the mailbox … I walk. In fact, I have a particular aversion to the mambo. Someday, I may tell you about my disastrous past experience with the Crunch Cardio Salsa DVD.

The moves in Walk Your Way Slim are extremely quick, without a lot of warning (sometimes none) when you are switching from one move to the next. Instructor Dozois rarely describes the move before doing it, and the 3-level concept makes this even more pronounced; she will often just say “Hit your level!” when it’s time to change moves, so you’re left without even a name for the move to help you figure out what you’re supposed to be doing.

The workout is designed so that you don’t do any given move enough times for the clueless to catch up after watching the exercisers do it a couple of times; they’ve already moved on to the next segment. This rapid switching between moves, plus the fast pace of the moves themselves meant that I often ended up doing things at a different time than the exercisers did, because I just couldn’t keep up. This added to the frustration in trying to copy what they were doing (several beats after they did it).

Even the Level 1 exerciser appeared to be getting confused towards the end of the workout.

The cooldown was the only saving grace of this DVD. Because it was a cooldown, the pace slowed down to a point where I could keep up with the moves. Dozois also did some interesting variations on standard cooldown stretches that I really enjoyed. I particularly liked one where you were doing a lunge to stretch out one leg, and at the same time, taking your arms overhead and stretching out one side of your torso. There were also a surprising number of sweeping arm movements in the cooldown that made me feel graceful (possibly only graceful in comparison to the mess that was me during the main workout, but I’ll take what I can get).

I don’t think that the cool cooldown was enough to keep this DVD in my roster though. The cuing was not great (even in the cooldown), plus the pace for the rest of the workout was too fast for me. I found that not doing the arm movements helped some, but it was still a real struggle overall to follow the choreography.

I usually do a workout two or three times before writing the review, but this one took me the entire week to get through it once. I would get as far as I could (typically 8-10 minutes) before I would get too confused and frustrated, then I would throw my hands up in the air and finish out the workout with boring, ordinary treadmill walking. Then I’d pick up where I left off the next day.

Luckily, throughout this multi-day single workout, I was secure in the knowledge that I already had another walking DVD which was much better suited to my level of uncoordinated-ness. I’ll review this superior walking DVD later this year … probably next month, since I don’t want to leave you hanging too long, feeling like you can’t even do something as simple as walking. I have it on good authority that almost everyone can walk.