{"id":14650,"date":"2011-06-21T11:12:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T15:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=14650"},"modified":"2020-04-14T15:54:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T19:54:46","slug":"chirunning-dvd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/chirunning-dvd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"ChiRunning DVD Review and Giveaway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"When I first tried to read the ChiRunning book after a friend recommended it to help me qualify for Boston, I couldn’t get through it.<\/p>\n

I really wanted to like it — the friend who recommended it to me is the same one who ran Badwater (135 miles) and Western States (100 miles) within two weeks of each other last summer, so he knows his stuff.<\/p>\n

But while I picked up a few tips from the ChiRunning book that I still think about when I run today, I found the book itself mind-numbingly boring and ineffective at getting me to really understand the feeling and movements it described.<\/p>\n

Enter the DVD<\/h3>\n

The ChiRunning people got in touch a few weeks ago to see if I’d like to review the ChiRunning DVD<\/a>, and I agreed, with the caveat that I had found the book less than stellar.<\/p>\n

When I turned it on, I remained skeptical.<\/p>\n

First, the production and music were cheesy.\u00a0 Chi-sy, perhaps? (Sorry.\u00a0 Now that<\/em> is cheesy.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Second, there was really nothing at the beginning to inspire.\u00a0 As I’m sure you’ve found, one of the best parts of taking on a new fitness program, approach, or pretty much anything claiming to be “revolutionary,” is the beginning — the anticipation you feel as you crack the spine of a promising new book, the overwhelming feeling of “this is the answer I’ve been looking for and I can’t wait to get into it,” and the renewed motivation to work hard to make it all happen.<\/p>\n

There was none of that.\u00a0 A few camera shots of an Asian guy twisting around (presumably harnessing his Chi) and some mention of waterfalls and gravity and physics.<\/p>\n

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t get me all hot and bothered and eager to grab a bag of popcorn to learn about running form for an hour.\u00a0 Some data or even just some testimonials about how ChiRunning has changed people’s lives as runners — which I know from other sources it has — would have been fantastic for holding my attention as we plunged into the material, which is necessarily dry.<\/p>\n

And yet, it grew on me<\/h3>\n

I kept watching.\u00a0 Though the presentation wasn’t all that exciting, the information was.\u00a0 And (crucially), the DVD format allows you to actually see the running form in action, a huge advantage over static images on a page.\u00a0 (Note: A ChiRunning clinic<\/a>, like the one Susan reviewed last year, would surely be even better.)<\/p>\n

As Danny Dreyer, the inventor of ChiRunning, went on about proper form, guiding you through several interactive exercises designed to demonstrate why the ChiRunning principles lead to painless, injury-free running, I found myself nodding my head.\u00a0 Nearly all of these principles were things I had gathered from other sources, the tidbits I had pulled out of other sources and pieced together into the running form that feels best:<\/p>\n