Jessica Smith Dance Party!!

What I picked and why

I picked Jessica Smith's Dance Party. It's on YouTube and totally free. This was a dancy type walking workout. I'm not much of a dance workout kind of girl. You might remember what happened when I tried to do Richard Simmon's Sweatin' to the Oldies 2. I just don't do well with choreography which I proved again when I tried Kristi Taylor's Totally Cool Step 2. I really like Jessica Smith's workouts though and I'm on a mission to get through all of the walking workouts on her website. I had posted something on Facebook or Twitter and she had suggested this workout, so I picked it for my week of Jessica Smith. (I call this my week of Jessica Smith, but I'm waiting on a Leslie Sansone DVD from the library, and if it shows up, I have to do it since I only get it for a short window.)

The Workout

There wasn't much of a warm up with this workout, but it wasn't too intense to start off with. It did build up in intensity. You can keep this workout as low impact, but she does include some things that are higher impact. You can just skip the bouncy stuff though. I skipped most of the bouncy stuff and just kept it low. There wasn't a cool down in this workout either. It slowed down in intensity, but there was no deep breathing or stretching at the end.

The music was from the 80s and 90s, but I'll be honest, I spent so much time focusing on what I was doing that I barely even heard the music. I do have to keep it down a bit low though since I workout while my husband is asleep.

There were so many moves in this workout that it's impossible to do a play by play like I do with Leslie Sansone stuff, but I'll give an overview of how I felt while doing the stuff. I was behind for the entire workout. I wasn't able to keep pace with her, and my brain couldn't seem to get my body to do the steps that she was doing. The moves were pretty much stacked on top of each other with little time in the middle to grab a sip or two of water. It's only 30 minutes, so that might not be an issue for a lot of people, but I drink a lot of water while working out.

I'm not trashing on this workout. It's a good workout, and it gets pretty intense at times. It was just more than I could handle as far as the choreography, which is pretty sad because it wasn't that intense in terms of choreography. It's not like the Tahitian Cardio Dance workout that I did where I was supposed to learn an actual dance. This workout had small dance sequences that were tied together with a lot of side stepping, but all four of my limbs were going at the same time and they weren't always going in the same direction. That just never goes well for me. I found myself having to watch a few times before I figured out what I was doing and then by the time I thought I knew what I was doing, we moved on to another move. A lot of the moves started off with something basic, but then we'd do the basic step four time times and then do a double move before going back to the basic. Throwing that double move in there really messed with my flow.

None of the moves were very physically intense, but they were mentally intense for me. There were some squats in this, and we all know how much I love (not) squats.

My BodyMedia device lost the connection with my phone mid workout, so I have to do this workout again in order to get the calories burned and all the other stuff from the workout tab. Maybe a second time through it will be better. I had really hoped to love this workout and get over my issue with dancy workouts. I'm going to try the disco one next because someone commented that she really liked that one. We'll see how that one goes.

BodyMedia Screen Shot

I don't have the BodyMedia workout tab to display since the connection died mid workout. I'm pretty bummed about that, but it's only happened on two workouts so far. I still haven't redone the Leslie Sansone Start! Walking 3 mile to get the screen shots.