DVD Review: Fluid Transitions with Sara Beaman

Fluid Transitions by Sara Beaman is an excellent DVD for dancers looking to work on movement transitions and Fusion combinations. Sara's dancing is really beautiful, her breakdowns of movements and exercises were clear, and the content was original and informative. The DVD was well thought out, nicely structured, and the pacing and flow of the exercises felt good. I enjoyed the combinations and thought she had some great ideas for transitional movements. The one thing I would have liked to see different on this DVD would have been to extend the combinations practice flow. Sara did a great job creating a professional product. The graphic design, filming, and editing are all lovely. The one glitch I encountered was scrolling through the menu items. I couldn't scroll through them in the order they appeared.

Content Overview
The DVD consists of a warm up, isolation drills, isolation practice flow, combinations, and a cool down. Sara faces the camera standing at an angle so that the view from the back is reflected in the mirror. The mirrors aren't full length so you can't see her feet but it doesn't detract from the instruction since the transitions are all fairly stationary. All instruction is done via voice overs. Basic isolations such as chest circles and undulations are assumed for the warm up but broken down in the isolation drills section. There are 6 combinations, each consisting of 2-4 moves done back to back to work on the transitions between them. Sara does a great job of showing the movements from front and side views and drills each side evenly for movements which can be done on the right or left. Each combination is broken down and then drilled at 3 speeds. For each of the three speeds the combination is done at half time and full time (so in effect it gets practiced at 6 speeds). Combinations 1-4 are later added together as a practice flow to show how to transition between them. The flows aren't drilled as long as the individual combinations and are presented at only one speed. While the flows were enjoyable I ended up wishing that they were drilled for a little longer. Combinations 5-6 involve movement layering and are more difficult then combinations 1-4.

In addition to the regular chapters of the DVD, Sara has included 4 shorter practice play lists. I thought this was a really great addition. Each play list is about 20-30 minutes long and these would be perfect for when you can only fit in a short practice. They each have a warm up, cool down, and a few of the combination drills. They allow you to do a short self contained practice which would make it more likely for dancers to do a complete practice session then if you had to click through the menu to do each of those sections separately. I know how hard it is to have discipline when doing DVDs and for myself I would be likely to skip warm up or cool down, or to get distracted by something when going to switch between menu items and stop practicing, so I appreciate that this was included.

Who would get the most from this DVD?
The video description recommends it for dancers at the advanced beginner level and I completely agree. Advanced beginners who are looking to smooth out their movement transitions or learn new Fusion style combinations will get the most from this content although I think intermediate and advanced dancers would enjoy the exercises as well. The isolations used are broken down so that beginners could use the DVD as well, but I think dancers who have some background in basic isolations will get the most out of the entirety of the instruction on this DVD; true beginners might end up slightly overwhelmed especially with the layering combinations. If you are a dancer who specializes in another style but want to work on Fusion combinations and stylizations I think this DVD is an excellent choice for cross training. This is what I was hoping to use it for and have found it to be a perfect fit.

Overall- 4 zills up!

Disclosure: I received this DVD as a review copy from Sara.