Element: Yoga for Stress Relief & Flexibility

GREAT YOGA DVD
I really like this video and Ashley is great! I am a college student about to graduate my undergrad-and begin grad school for my masters. I spend most of my time sitting, reading, studying, and typing on my computer and this has made my legs, back, shoulders, and especially my neck extremely tense. It has become very painful and I have a hard time trying to relax and loosen those tight/sore muscles. It’s become so bad that I was frustrated because I didn’t even know where to start….but this DVD has been a great way for me to get some much needed stress relief and it is helping me work on my flexibility. Other yoga DVDs either move too quickly for me where I get frustrated, or they move too slowly where I lose interest and feel like I should be doing something else.. but this yoga DVD is the perfect mixture where I can stay focused and easily keep up with the routine. I just got it recently, but every time I have used it, I walk away it a great mood. I feel relaxed, less uptight, and SO much calmer. I like how she does a voice-over the dvd rather than talking while she is doing the routine and her voice is calming and soothing. I usually use the Stress Relief portion, but I look forward to doing the flexibility part more. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to work on calming their minds if the are very stressed and feeling overwhelmed, and wants to work on loosening tight muscles that have been causing them pain. I’m looking forward to using this yoga DVD more to keep becoming more flexible and getting more control over my stress level. I hope it works for you as well as it has for me!

Great workout
I love this work out – either the flexibility and stress relief done separately (30 minutes each) or together. The best effect is to do them both for the full hour workout, but if you don’t have time they are sufficient on their own. I love Ashley’s flowing, stretchy style, and her careful attention to the breath. I find her commentary to be insightful and did not find it too “chatty.” I also did not find the music annoying as one rater did. Ashley has put together two very effective work outs, with careful instruction on proper position and sequencing with the breath. I have been doing yoga for about 4 years and have a serious home practice, doing one to one-and-a-half hours per day. This is one of my favorite DVDs and I do it often. However I don’t think it is appropriate for most beginners, unless you are physically fit and have already done stretching for flexibility as part of your fitness routine. Highly recommended.

Good for Practice at Home
This isn’t my favorite of the yoga dvds that I’ve done, but both routines are good and nice for when I only have a half hour to work out. I also have done both routines back to back and I feel that they work well together; one is a little faster and more active and the other a little slower and relaxing.The instructor is slightly annoying IMO, but I find the vast majority of instructors on workout dvds to be annoying, so I don’t know how helpful that is to most people. She’s okay though, and I like the routines enough that I can ignore the aspects I find annoying, namely the faces that she makes and her voice. I have found that I got used to her voice/cadence after using the dvd a few times and once you are more familiar with the routines you don’t look at her face much. So I guess you can say she grew on me a bit.For those of you who try to avoid the more “spiritual” aspects of the yoga instructors, this is a good one for that. She doesn’t say too many things that cause me to roll my eyes, which is nice. I think each person should be able to determine his or her own perspective/spiritual experience/whatever when doing yoga, so I’m a not a fan of the instructors who talk so much about their own spiritual beliefs that you can’t even think for yourself while doing your practice. I’m not a religious person at all, and I prefer no preachiness, which seems hard to come by with yoga dvds. All in all, it’s a good DVD for the price and I like the variety her routines offer.A little background: I’m a beginner at yoga and working out in general, only been doing this stuff for about a year now. I joined a gym last year and while I like using the cardio machines, I have found that the time and effort it takes to get to the gym regularly makes me much less likely to work out 30 mins to an hour 3-5 days a week, which is my goal. So, I am currently seeking at home alternatives.I started doing yoga at home using Sara Ivanhoe’s Candlelight Yoga routine and Jenny Cornero’s Yoga for Health, both of which were available on Netflix instant. Thus far they are still my favorite instructors. I’m not really looking for fast yoga routines; I work out in other ways to get my cardio in. I am using yoga to strengthen my body, in particular my back which I’ve had some issues with, and as a way to work out on days when I’m not feeling the cardio so that I don’t just do nothing.

I absolutely love this DVD! I do a lot of high intensity yogalates DVDs, so I bought this for a change of pace, and I love it. The stress relief half is like heaven! I suffer with a lot of back pain and tension which affects my posture and sleeping, but the first time I did it my body felt like jelly and I had the best night’s sleep I’d had in so long! That relief lasted almost a week before I sorted feeling the tension in my neck and back again, it was amazing to be pain free for so long without using medication! Would recommend to anyone and everyone!

I love Element Yoga DVDs and this quickly became one of my favorites (if not the one).As the others Element DVDs, it was filmed in a nice garden overseeing the Pacific Ocean (which I find very pleasing and relaxing). Ashley’s voice is soothing and her instructions are very clear and precise – it allows me to close my eyes and tune in my breath in several poses, especially during the “Stress Relief” sequence.The DVD has 2 sequences: Stress Relief (~35 min) and Flexibility (~30 min). You can play each of them separately or the complete program. The “Flexibility” sequence consists in vinyasa techniques with hip openers, hamstring stretches, shoulder openers to increase not only flexibility in the muscles, but also in the connective tissues. The “Stress Relief” sequence focuses in breathing techniques, forward bends, and longer holds. I find this sequence lives up to its name – after practice, I’m calmer, more relaxed, and refreshed and I prefer to do it before I go to bed.Overall, it is a great addition to my Yoga practice at home and a great balance to my p90x/asylum workouts.