Review: Sadie Nardini 14 Day Yoga and Empowerment Course

I'm finally getting around to reviewing this course, which I started over a month ago. I know it's meant to be completed in 14 days, but in my defense, after a week into it, I went snowboarding, and then just couldn't get back into a routine again, until recently.

Print Screen of what the frontpage of the Udemy course looks like

Sadie Nardini isn't yet a big name in Australia, but she's a huge name among the vinyasa yoga crowd in the States. When Udemy announced on Facebook that it was going to have a massive 50% sale on the Sadie Nardini course, I just had to get it. Just to give you an idea, the full price for a lifetime access to the course is USD$59, and I purchased it for USD$29.

This is apparently the program that helped Sadie lose 40 pounds! I can't imagine Sadie ever having an extra 40 pounds... and I definitely don't have 40 pounds to lose, but I definitely needed some toning.

Positives of the course: 

• Great advice on how to detox your life in the introduction manual. Fantastic household tips, fantastic tips on how to rehaul your life.
• Love the juice/smoothie and salad/soup recipes. My favourite was the chocolate vegan tofu smoothie. Who knew that tofu could taste so good in a smoothie! Sadie recommends replacing one meal a day with a smoothie, or salad. Nice in principle, but I kept getting hungry. 
• A lot of core work. It's really inspiring seeing Sadie execute everything so fluidly and effortlessly. Can't say I was doing the same though! 
• Caters for intermediate/advanced yogis and yoginis. Do take note of this... it's definitely not a beginner course. Even the restorative yoga involves moderate intensity workouts. Almost all the videos involve crane/crow pose and handstands. You have been warned. 

What could be better: 

• It was really repetitive. Vinyasa in general is repetitive... I know, I was this close to training to becoming a vinyasa teacher. But the videos essentially have the warm up for approximately 20 mins, cool down for about another 20 minutes, and the focus sandwiched in the middle. It would have been nice to have some variation. However, if you think about it... $29 (which I paid) pays for one yoga class, and I've gotten so much more than just a yoga class, so I really have no grounds for complaint. 
• The videos were too long for someone who works. The shortest video is an hour. I found that I didn't really have much time to complete whole videos at once, quite often I'd just skip the handstand sequences, which brings me to my next point. 
• Too much focus on handstands and arm balances. Some of the videos involved handstands in consecutive days over 3-4 days. I could think of many other inversions that would be less strenuous on the wrists that would be equally beneficial. 
• Too little focus on forward bends. Except in the restorative yoga video, there weren't many seated forward bends. A few wide-legged standing forward bends, but you never get enough time to hold them. 
• Many people seem to have technical issues with the site. This is more of Udemy's problem than Sadie's. A common complaint was videos not loading, poor sound quality.. I had none of those issues from the beginning, however the fullscreen option was disappointing as it didn't really enlarge to fullscreen. 

While it may seem like I'm not recommending this course from how much more the negatives outweigh the positives... I have to say that I really enjoyed it. It's good (albeit repetitive, and in the end, slightly boring), and it's cheap. That being said, Sadie has another yoga course on the DailyOm which I believe is the same thing, but you can pay whatever you amount you wish (yes, even a dollar...). For $59 for lifetime access, you really don't have much to lose. Except some pounds, maybe :)