Cardio Samba Workout

with Quenia Ribeiro

I loved The Samba Reggae Workout so much that I decided to get another one by Quenia Ribeiro. Perhaps inevitably, I kept comparing this DVD with SRW.

Here, Quenia introduces samba no pe (Rio-style samba). She breaks down the basic steps — and then not-so basic steps — in the tutorial section, and there are enough repeats to get at least some hang of them. If not, go to the beginning.

The warm-up, just like in SRW, is more like cool-down. But here it is extra-long: 27 minutes! This is like a workout on its own. During the cardio workout proper, we are going through all the steps and moves from the tutorial, first slow, then at the “real samba tempo”. Which means, fast. Really fast. At least for me. Unless you know the choreographies from the tutorial real well, it’s almost impossible to follow the fast bits. The good news is, that the first four sections of cardio workout exactly correspond to the sections of tutorial, so you can work, say, on section 3 only. The last part of the cardio workout combines all four choreos at the full speed.

The cooldown is surprisingly short (under three minutes!) but, as it utilises some of the warmup moves, I guess one could freely borrow from that section to pad it up.

SRW features the live samba band playing on the same stage as the dancers. Alas, no such luxury here. The backing track is very repetitive, even by samba standards. But I guess you were not going to use it anyway.

Cardio Samba Workout

Welcome	00:00
Learn Basic Samba Steps	01:44
Step-by-step Tutorial
Workout Section 1	13:11
Workout Section 2	18:25
Workout Section 3	22:51
Workout Section 4	29:26
Basic samba steps between segments	40:11
Warmup	41:19
Workout
Workout 1	1:08:23
Workout 2	1:16:42
Workout 3	1:20:26
Workout 4	1:24:19
Full workout fast	1:28:46
Cooldown	1:34:03
Total time	1:36:52

The Samba Reggae Workout

with Quenia Ribeiro

I bought this DVD on the strength of the Amazon reviews — and was not disappointed.

Quenia starts with Welcome and, in just two minutes, introduces the samba reggae Basic Steps. These look easy; that’s encouraging.

To my fellow Zumber@s, Quenia’s Warm-Up may seem more like “cool-down”: a lot of stretching exercises, some of them rather impressive. At 12 minutes, it is a bit longer than your typical Zumba class warm-up/cool-down. But you can’t have too much of a good thing. You will be sweating by the end of it.

In Workout #1 (about 37 minutes) Quenia builds up, well, a “routine”: shows a step, repeats, adds a new step, repeats “from the top”, shows a new step and so on. Non-stop. (Speaking of stops: the great thing about the DVD is that you always can use the stop button to catch your breath. I had to do that a few times during Workout #1.) “Routine” may sound boring, but actually it is a good fun. OK, I found Quenia’s verbal cues rather redundant and did not exactly fell in love with her voice. So what, I know how to turn the volume down, so it really is not a problem. It would be perfect if there was a way to quick-jump to particular steps, because the only way to navigate within Workout #1 is the good old fast-forward (or fast-backward).

Workout #2 (about six minutes) is basically the same routine as we learn in Workout #1 but danced at the higher pace. As by now we should know it more or less by heart, it goes without any commentary.

I love how Ms Ribeiro introduces her band and dancers and explains the role of each instrument. Once again, quite unlike Zumba Fitness Anonymous.

One day, I hope to learn how to dance samba properly. I can start with making good use of Quenia’s moves.

Samba Body

From Fransini Giraldo, native of Colombia, comes Samba Body: a fitness program based on, surprise surprise, samba rhythms. Finally, easy-to-follow explanation of samba and axé steps for non-Brazilians!