My Review of Bipasha Basu’s 30 Minute Aerobic Dance Workout

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, and this post is in no way intended to give out medical advice. Please seek the advice of a qualified medical professional before beginning this or any other type of workout routine. 

Before I dive into this review, let me also note that I’m not receiving any kind of compensation for this post, I don’t know Ms. Basu personally, and there is never affiliate marketing of any sort on my site. I’m reviewing this workout simply because I loved it and think some of you might, too.

Now that we have the disclaimers out of the way, let’s talk about dancing.

When I was a kid, I was a member of a church dance team for a little while. The style of dancing we did was much slower than the one I’m about to share with you, but I loved every second of learning the various moves we did together. There’s something so energizing and exciting about practicing this sort of routine over and over again until everyone is moving in perfect sync with each other.

That experience ignited a lifelong love of this form of exercise. While I’ve yet to join any other dance groups, I still smile every time I get the chance to learn a new move.

About the 30 Minute Aerobic Dance Workout

This Bollywood dance routine includes warmup and cool-down sections, so I’d estimate that it’s closer to a 20-minute workout without those things added in. Nearly all of the moves in the warmup were repeated and combined in different ways later on, so there was a lot of overlap between one section and the next. There was also a short water break included a little over 20 minutes into the session before the dancers put everything they’d been practicing together into a fun, fast-paced routine at the very end.

I’d especially recommend this video to anyone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with dancing in general. Since all of the moves were repeated multiple times and in various combinations,there were plenty of opportunities to practice anything that might have seemed complicated at first.

However, this doesn’t mean that more advanced viewers won’t enjoy it as well. The music made me want to jump up and keep dancing long after the 30-minute session ended. This is still something I fall back on when I have one of those days when I don’t feel like exercising at all. That’s how much fun it is!

No special equipment is needed for this workout. All you’ll need is a flat, even area to dance in that has been cleared of any tripping hazards.

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My Review

I originally discovered this dance workout about four years ago. During that time in my life, I had recently begun exercising regularly again. I’d never been the sort of person who thought of myself as athletic, so I was still figuring out what I did and didn’t enjoy as I attempted to get back into shape.

Bipasha Basu’s dance routine quickly became my favourite way to get moving on days when I honestly didn’t want to do anything at all. As I mentioned above, I still feel the same way about it.

First of all, dancing is a great deal of fun. There were times when I forgot I was technically exercising at all because of what a good time I was having learning the moves and enjoying the cheerful music everyone was moving their bodies to. This was especially true during the warmup and cool-down portions due to how nicely the background music was matched to them.

Speaking of warmups and cool-downs, I appreciated the fact that they were built into this workout. To be honest with you, I get awfully tempted to skip this kind of stuff when I need to do it on my own even though I know how important it is. The more vigorous portions of any exercise session generally appeal to me more, so it’s nice to be encouraged to remember to stretch, breathe deeply, and ease myself into and out of a workout as well.

Basu’s friendly and encouraging reminders throughout this routine made me smile. She did everything from talk about what moves were coming up to cheering her audience on to reminding us to love ourselves at the very end of the workout once the cool-down was finished.

Ms. Basu even reminded everyone to pause and drink a little water if and when they felt thirsty. I appreciated all of her kind words and good advice. It almost felt as though she was standing in the room next to her audience while gently cheering us on on to do our best and not worry if every single move was perfect the first time.

I don’t know about you, but I respond really well to this form of “coaching.” There’s something to be said for framing exercise as a cooperative experience instead of a competition for those of us who want to worry about winning or losing while getting fit. (Kudos to those of you who are energized by competition, but I’m simply not wired that way at all…..well, unless we’re talking about certain board games).

It sure isn’t easy to determine how difficult a workout is. If only there were some sort of universal scale for such things!  I did find the last ten minutes challenging when I first began doing it, but the earlier sections were easy once I memorized all of the different moves. Obviously, your experiences  of the same routine could be quite different from mine based on what kinds of activity you’re currently used to.

If you’re brand new to working out in general, I would recommend giving the first ten minutes a try and seeing how challenging you find it.

One Minor Criticism

There was only one thing I would have liked to see being done a little differently with this video, and it had to do with what Basu’s female backup dancers were wearing. While her male backup dancers wore loose, comfortable clothing, nearly all of her female dancers wore much tighter and ab-revealing clothing that honestly didn’t look ideal for all of the shimmying and moving around they were doing.

This has nothing to do with modesty or body shaming. I would have preferred to see all of the dancers wearing loose and comfortable clothing for this routine from a purely practical point of view given how much bending and twisting was involved in it.

Yes, I know that sex sells, but I don’t think it’s necessary to mix that into what was otherwise a wonderful workout. This is even more true since only the women were expected to wear such skimpy outfits. If everyone had been wearing more or less the same types of clothing, I wouldn’t have had the same feelings about it.

Don’t let this discourage you from trying it, though. Everything else about it was really well done.

Have you all ever tried a dance workout? if so, what did you think of it?