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The flow (pun intended) of excellent yoga DVDs from Shiva Rea continues with Radiant Heart. With a total running time of about 30 minutes, this is the shortest of the California-based yogini's offerings; and with just a single section devoted to asana, there's no need for the "yoga matrix," a programmable feature that highlights Rea's other videos (including Yoga Shakti, inarguably one of the finest yoga DVDs on the market). Still, that one section, a 20-minute sequence called "Hridaya Namaskar" or "Heart Salutation," is, as Shiva Rea fans have come to expect, innovative and skillfully put together. Focusing less on the strengthening aspects of yoga than on relaxing, stretching, and invigorating, it combines a variety of lunges, backbends (ranging from the relatively elementary sphinx pose to more challenging positions like cobra, camel, and bow), twists, and more, all presented with the kind of flowing, undulating movements typical of Rea's style. The Heart Salutation is bookended by two meditation sections (the eight-minute "Prayer Wheel" and the three-minute "Energizing Heart Movement Meditation"), both of which, as their names imply, involve considerably more activity than is found in more traditional meditation sequences. Whether the combination of these elements will in fact promote the development of "an intelligent heart center which communicates, alerts, balances, and harmonizes" the body will end up being a personal matter for each user, but there's no doubting the quality of both the content and presentation of this inspiring teacher's work. Bonus features include sample bits from two other Rea DVDs, Yoga Trance Dance and Fluid Power Yoga. --Sam Graham
Product Description
Calming, energizing, life-transforming yoga
In yoga, the heart center has its own wisdom, intelligence, and energy. In this unique and inspiring practice, one of yoga's top teachers shows you how to connect to the power of your heart-most potently, your capacity for love and healing.
Shiva offers three ways to experience yoga's rejuvenating heart-centered focus. Her Prayer Wheel practice generates love and compassion. Hridaya Namaskar (Heart Salutation) leads to deep relaxation and inner peace. The Energizing Heart Movement Meditation releases stagnant energy and creates natural joy and vitality.
Starting or ending your day more centered within your heart will have a profound effect on your body and your life. Choose your practice - or combine all three - and celebrate the mystery of being human, fully alive with a radiant heart.
INCLUDES TWO BONUS SEGMENTS: Sample Shiva's other DVDs with Twisting Kriya (7 min.) from Yoga Trance Dance and Jala Namaskar (8 min.) from Fluid Power Yoga.
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Shiva Rea - Radiant Heart
- DVD: 0 pages (2007-11-13)
- Publisher: Acacia
- Label: Acacia
- Starring: Shiva Rea
- Director: James Wvinner
- Encoding: Region 1
- Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
- Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1,
- Rated: NR (Not Rated)
- Studio: Acacia
- DVD Release Date: 2007-11-13
- Run Time: 35
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 11 reviews
- Sales Rank in DVD: #10156
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful grounding and peaceful workout 2008-07-20
Comment: This video offers a wonderful opportunity to open one's heart to the universe. The excercises bring about a sense of peace and openness of heart that is often difficult to access. The end result is a strong sense of grounding in a world that is frequently chaotic. I strongly recommend this workout.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Delightful - hope Shiva gives us more brief, chakra oriented practices like this! 2008-05-17
Comment: My only mistake was holding off buying this DVD until 2008 and missing out on an exquisite little gem. It's a perfect early morning practice, with gentle music and a Prayer Wheel warmup as the sun rises behind clouds ... a brief period of arm circles and Ohm chants, a heart chakra "massage," then the Prayer Wheel which consists of gently rocking forward and back in a staggered stance, while circling the arms to stimulate the chi. This section alone is better than the strongest morning coffee!
The next segment, Hridaya Namaskar (heart salutation) is complete in 20 minutes, perfect to set the tone for your day. It features gentle kneeling stretches to warm and open the spine and graduates to gentle/moderate backbends as the sun continues to rise, the most vigorous being Ustrasana (camel). Backbends are appropriately countered with forward bends and side stretches. You are bathed in nurturing! Rather than lying Savasana, the practice ends with a seated meditation followed by prana mudra arm/breathing movements, which you might enjoy better than lying still again after sleeping.
The closing Energizing Heart Movement Meditation will launch you into your day with a vibrant attitude, in three closing minutes. The music picks up apace as Shiva leads through a standing "ha" kriya with arm movements to open the ribcage and release any last stagnant air, and prepare your spine to uphold the stresses of the day. If you wish to stimulate your morning further, the Twisting Kriya from Yoga Trance Dance and Jala Namaskar from Fluid Power are both included in the bonus chapters.
Though my review is geared toward a morning practice, this would also make an uplifting refresher after your day, before moving into nightly chores. I only ask - Shiva, can we have more chakra centered practices? How delightful would a similar brief compilation be for the head centers, root chakra, throat ...
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, but with camera flaws 2008-04-30
Comment: I would give this a full five star rating if the camera work, while pretty, was not a source of deep confusion and vexation the first few times I did the work out. Occasionally Shiva will instruct you to do something--say, "bring your left knee up to your side" but because she's shot in shadows, you can't actually SEE what it was she just did and only figure it out a few moments later when she progresses into the full movement. Where exactly is her knee? Where should I put my knee? Oh shoot. She's doing something else now! Wait. How did we get on our backs?...we were on our stomachs a second ago, right?...This isn't a problem when you've got the asana flow basically figured out, but initially it can throw a wrench of confusion into what was otherwise a very smooth practice.
Such flaws aside, I otherwise very much enjoyed this practice. It is very calming and invigorating (so funny how it can be both, but it is). I think this practice is suitable for beginners as long as they aren't totally new to practice. I'm a fairly recent beginner and only moderately flexible for the most part (and I have the tightest hamstrings ON THE PLANET) and am just establishing a regular yoga practice, and I could do this work out with relatively little difficulty once I'd run through it a few times and gotten over my camera woes.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not quite for true beginners 2008-03-21
Comment: Overall, glad to have this in my collection. I have done yoga off and on being mostly off right now I was looking for something to ease back in to practice. Let me say if you are very low on flexibility or yoga experience then these poses will be challanging and there is a chance you may do them wrong (even a slight chance for injury) because instructions are as if you have done these before. Perhaps this is true if you own other Shiva Rea discs, I do not.
The pace seems to go fast, could be a more mindful, gentler pace and be just as much benefit. In the additional bonus features you can see 7 minute previews of 2 other of Rea's Dvd's. I must say that I'm glad to see them because I can tell her style isn't what I'm looking for. It is very fast and alot of quick twists of the spine (adding elements of kundalini I suppose, some tai chi in the 3rd segment) I am just not at that level of flexibility and want a more breath focused yoga.
Again, not bad to have in a collection of dvd's but not a main source of yoga for me. The scenery was beautiful and her poses flawless and lovely to watch.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Creative calming Flow for the heart center 2008-02-25
Comment: I'm a Power Vinyasa Yoga instructor with my own studio in germany. Since I'm german my english spelling is pretty bad, please excuse me for that!
I own a lot of Shivas DVDs and also had the opertunity to learn from her personally on one of her retreats in Germany. I enjoy her great amount of creativity. She surprises again and again with her different fresh aproaches to Flow Yoga. Her work is a great contribution to the evolution of Yoga in the world.
About the product:
The main material of the DVD (without the Bonus, taken from Fluid Power) is a little more than 30 Minutes long. It consists of an entering movement meditation (Prayer Wheel), the main Heart Flow and a Kriya (energizing Movement Flow). You can do them all together, or one at a time.
I liked the Heart Flow a lot. Like all of Shivas Flows it is very creative with a lot of flowing and pulsating Movements you wont find anywhere else. This is not a Power Yoga like Flow. Regarding its intensity it is more like a lunar Flow, calming, opening without vinyasas.
The Flow does what Shiva promisses: It openes the Heartcenter beautifully. You can feel it strongly afterwards!
I enjoyed this main segment (about 25 Min) very much, but I have to say, that I did not like the entering movement meditation. For me this Movement called Prayerwheel hasn't much to do with Hatha Yoga anymore. It is simply a Tai Chi Movement. Tai Chi can and should be done with a Yoga-Mind, so in the end it's all Yoga, but I would prefer to see more Hatha Yoga on a Yoga DVD from a Yoga instructor. After all a Yoga Instructor is best in teaching Yoga, while a Tai Chi Instructor is best in teaching Tai Chi. So even though it is a nice part, it was not for me for I thing it goes to far away in a complete other territory.
The Kriya in the End is very dynamic and Kundalini like. The second part of it reminds a little of Martial Arts Movements like Yogi Bhajan also taught in some of his very dynamic Kundalini Flows. This is probably not for everybody who likes more "traditional" Ashtanga or Flow Yoga. Everybody who liked Shivas Yoga Trance Dance or her Martial Arts inspired Variations on Fluid Power will like this one to.
As a conclusion I can recommend the DVD to everybody who enjoys creative Flow Yoga. It is well worth the money, if only for the Main Heart Opening Flow. It is a great one for the days when you don't want to work on strengt and stamina so much, bu still want to do some Yoga to open and energize your body and calm your mind.
I hope this review was helpfull to you! Let me know. I truely hope so.
Check out my listmania list for all the Yoga DVDs I recommend. The list is constantly evolving. Ones again, sorry for the poor spelling!
Namasté
Kai
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