Monthly Archives: January 2018

2008, $2.99,  at Goodwill on San Fernando, Glendale

First Impression: Your Tracy Anderson action figure comes complete with Angel and Devil as shown.

Second Impression: They both whisper that it’s time to dance!

Oh, Tracy Anderson, I have missed you. Your insistence that we work out to only your videos, your assertion that female bodies look best when they are “teeny tiny,” your revulsion of any athletic endeavor that results in the build up of muscle. Ew, who would want that? Indeed, “this is not what we want,” declares the back of the DVD case.

Despite being insulted by both the packaging and the introduction, I start up the session anyway. There are eight combinations to be learned, and we can’t let hurt feelings get in the way of picking up choreography. (claps hands)

Tracy expertly takes us through the eight routines. She breaks each one down and then shows us what it looks like from the front and then from the back.  I wish each routine had some kind of theme to differentiate them from one another, but alas no. Each one is a hot mess of  jumping jacks, pointless spins, faux-ballet kicks, and punching the air. I wonder if there is a choreographer’s equivalent of Magnetic Poetry, because it seems that would be a fitting tool for Tracy Anderson’s process.

At the end of the 47 minute teaching track, I’m thoroughly confused, annoyed, and tired. Tracy Anderson does insist that you need to go straight to the workout track as soon as you know the steps, but I know that day will never come. How is a normal (read: non-dancer) person supposed to absorb eight pieces of choreography in under an hour?

Nevertheless, I plunge in and try the workout track a few days later. It went as well as could be expected. As I muddled through this Achilles-ripping bounce-fest, I became perturbed by the choice of music. The third song features a male singer demanding, “shake that ass for me girl!” How dare you sir?

If being musically harassed wasn’t enough to convince me not to try this workout again, at the end of 45 minutes of high-impact cardio, the thing just ends. There’s no cool down! She doesn’t even tell you to stretch or walk it off or anything. Just “kthxbai.” Hard pass, sorry not sorry.