TLDR:
- Information seems solid.
- DVDs have VERY low production quality.
The other day I got my Animal Flow DVDs, and today I tried them.
Animal Flow Yoga, or just “Animal Flow”, is a form of yoga I stumbled across on Instagram. I follow quite a few people in the fitness industry and a shockingly large number of them do it, or incorporate it into their workouts. As part of my “50 Year Plan” I’ve been trying to increase my fitness and improve my fitness habits, and this caught my eye. Not sure if it was the “primal” feel of it, or just the coolness factor in the movements.
Before buying the DVDs I’d been looking into trying a local class or seminar, but couldn’t find much. Its not super wide spread or as common as other styles of yoga, at this stage its still a bit of a niche or fad. There were a few seminars in my area, if you can call a 5hr drive “in my area” but like much of the yoga industry, the expense of them bordered on ridiculous. So I took a chance and ordered the DVDs after only looking at some YouTube videos and watching a few instructional videos on the Animal Flow website.
First impressions were definitely mixed. I’ve only done a few of the introductory exercises, and will continue to do so for a while to avoid injuring my self, but my impression of the instruction itself seems good. The delivery is straight forward and easy to follow, and divided into short, easy to digest segments.
My problem is that, basically, the DVDs seem cheap. The menus are extremely basic, even a bit glitchy, and the videos are very low resolution. While I understand that the quality of the instruction and information is the important part, my very first impression after putting the DVDs on was “I paid $60 USD for this?!?” I genuinely feel as if the person putting the DVD together put conscious and deliberate thought into making the DVDs as inexpensive as possible to maximize their profit, and it shows. I found that the poor quality of the video actually distracted me from the instruction.
I hope that the quality of instruction will be better than quality of the DELIVERY of the instruction. The person that makes these videos needs to understand that they reflect the brand itself, and that first impressions are important. Since I have not had much of a chance to learn much at this point, based purely on the quality of the DVDs, I feel like I’ve been ripped off. The instruction better be damned good, because if nothing else replaces it, that “scammed” feeling will apply to Animal Flow itself.
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