Milady Salonovations' Cosmetology Dictionary

Purchased this cosmetology dictionary for my grandaughter. She had signed up for beauty college and needed to learn all the terms for her course. She is doing great and will graduate in a few more months. This dictionary has helped her get to her goal of graduation.

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A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance

Traditional Work: How you work is probably how you worked.

When I looked at that line in my notebook (after reading Daniel Markowitz's book, A Factory of One) I thought about the busy-ness that many people talk about as they relate to their workday. As you consider what you get done in a typical 8 or 10 or 15-hour shift, do you stop to consider HOW you get that work done?

Over the 145 pages of this well-written and well-documented book Dan shows very specific methods you can use to apply "Lean Principles" (traditionally reserved for manufacturing and production lines to remove wasted movements thereby increasing overall productivity) to the "Knowledge Work" that keeps so many of us busy and focused on working overtime.

I was pleased to see Dan write about Parkinson's Law of work: Namely, that the work you have will generally fill the time you have available to do that work. If something is due in a week, it'll take about a week. If it's due later today, well you get the point.

The point of applying Lean Principles to improve personal performance is two-fold:

1. Create a flow of working: so that once you get there, you stay there and produce something (a thought, a product, etc) of value

2. Reduce the stress of wasted movements to focus on more meaningful activity

If you're thinking of getting this book, here's just one of the themes you can expect to explore while you're reading:

Dan asks you to define your "value;" the value of your service or product to the market. Once you've identified that value, then you can work on making things as efficient as possible in order to make that value available to those that matter: clients, community, organization, family, friends, etc. Oh, it might be helpful to know how Dan defines value. I'm walking away with three indicators:

What does the customer pay for?

What are you doing to transform the product or the service?

What activity seems to be done "correctly?"

Of course, you'll walk away from reading this with your own ideas of what "value" means to you, your business, your work. I loved this prompt, though, as it made me think a bit longer about all those "extra to-dos" that have piled up around my own work station lately:

"Should you do better what doesn't deserve doing in the first place?"

Consider what you do, as an entrepreneur, manager, associate of the business you're in. What are the specific activities that you "do" that provide value? The ideas that Dan gives you on (a) how to think about those activities and (b) what to do to make those activities as efficient as possible may be exactly what you need to take not just what you do but HOW you do it to the next level. Imagine being MORE productive without having to buy new technology, hire more staff or change (radically) your business or product.

What WILL you have to change? Your approach to work. To get you think about what that might look, sound and feel like, identify very specifically WHERE your time goes:

fixing

delegating

waiting

over-doing

reviewing

re-doing

explaining

etc

Once you identify WHERE your time, energy and focus is "spent" during the day, then it's time to apply Lean Principles to YOUR work. I hope you enjoy reading (and thinking about) this book as much as I did!

These concepts will be very familiar to people familiar with continuous improvement and more specifically Lean and Six Sigma. However, you do not have to be a practitioner to understand or read the book. When trade terms are used they are explained in simple everyday language without losing a beat. The author demonstrates an in depth knowledge of the Lean Principles. There may be others with his depth of knowledge but I have seen few transfer it into such simple, practical and useable terms. I found myself reading a "how to" book like a novel, reminding myself more than once to bend a corner or mark a page for future reference.

My favorite part of the book was the part on living in your calendar versus your inbox. Quick look at your screen and see what is open! That comment in itself added more than a few minutes to my day of productivity. Another example is his description of a personal A3 for problem solving was absolutely flawless in its description and the use of it.

Are you going to get 2 hours a day of time saving tips from the book? I doubt it. What you will get is more productivity and feeling better about what and how you accomplished it. It was my New Year's Day read and I have picked it up every day since then. Not saying you won't be able to put it down but at this point it looks that way for me.

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I read Factory of One when it first came out and I was intrigued and impressed by it. I decided to try it out. And it works most of it. I was already accustomed to 5S in the office; maybe not that good at it, but accustomed. The "Spotting the Waste" chapter gave me some useful tips. I started creating an index to the handwritten notebook I use everyday. I moved the current customers and current prospect folders on my PC to the top of my hard drive directory. I subsequently moved them to the cloud so I can access them on iPads and phones. Both these little things have saved me a few minute each day ..... and it all adds up.

Chapter 3 about Flow. I have worked on the 4D (when work comes it, either Do, Delegate, Designate, or Discard). I have not mastered this yet , but it has improved the way I work. Especially with emails. I have now set times each day for emails and do not constantly review them. It was quite freeing to realize that emails are not urgent. I have had success (when I am in the office) with setting aside chunks of time for particular tasks and sticking with it (mostly). I have set up checklists for routine yet troublesome tasks. The most successful for me a constant traveller has been a checklist of packing for a trip. Another has been my weekly review of billings.

Visual management has been the most useful thing I learned from the book. I have used visual management for many years in one form or another, and I have worked with many manufacturers helping them to introduce visual management. But I had never thought about applying this to my own work. Typical consultant, some people a saying!! When I was in the office I posted my work visually, but when I am on the road or working with customers I had the old fashioned MS Outlook todo list.

It took me a while to figure it out and I went through several steps to get there. I started with mimicking the board on page 106, but using an 11x17 sheet and small post-it's. I then developed an elaborate mindmap on the iPad. Then I moved to a slim, pocket sized note book with even smaller post-it's. All these worked well because I use the principles; visualize the backlog, limit the WIP, designate times. I expect that I will keep refining this, but I am very happy with the way it works.

I recommend this book highly, because the methods and ideas work and have helped to make me more productive and more importantly a little less frantic. Go buy this book.

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"A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance" by Daniel Markovitz is an interesting and new look at an old topic, productivity improvement. I'm not sure there was much "new" here, but rather some solid concepts presented in a different manner. I liked the book, and feel is deserves a place among the productivity and business books that line the shelves.

It's just under 150 pages long, which makes it a quick read. It's well organized and flows from topic to topic, providing solid advice on improving personal performance and productivity through the use of Lean principles originally designed to help Toyota factories outperform their competition. Thus, the title, "A Factory of One."

Using this Lean Thinking model, Markovitz addresses the topics of What's Your Job; Spotting Value, Spotting Waste; Flow; Visual Management; and From Bad to Good, and From Good to Great. All of these are important.

I liked the concept of gemba, in the chapter on defining what your job is. I think it is very important to determine what you should be doing that creates value vs. the incidentals and wasteful things that sometimes occupy our time. This chapter does a good job of getting you to look at that. The chapter on spotting value and waste introduces a 5S model which is okay for looking at how you are doing things. There are many of these kinds of models and this is no better or worse than the others. The key is to actually use a system and prevent your office from looking like the picture of Al Gore's office used in the book for illustrative purposes.

The author uses 4Ds to help process work and make it flow. Again, this will work if you actually use it. I did like the part about multitasking, but again, this is not really new. A number of books these last few years have looked at how inefficient multitasking is, but the other's take on the topic is good and I hope people listen. The chapter on visual management provided some good ideas for making one's tasks easier, more streamlined. This is probably something I had not thought to use outside of places such as the garage, but I see now how the concept and idea can be expanded to other areas.

And of course there is a bit on kaizen, the Japanese term for continuous improvement. Much has been written about this, but the section in this book is well done with some of the basics.

Bottom line, "A Factory of One" is a short, direct, and good book on increasing your personal productivity through the use of Lean principles. If you need a little boost in this area, give it a read and try out the principles. You're bound to increase your personal performance.

Reviewed by Alain Burrese, J.D., author of the "Tough Guy Wisdom" series and others.

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Most personal productivity books will tell you to stop checking email so frequently, or not to multitask. Dan Markovitz's book goes beyond the platitudes and explains a comprehensive theory of how to become more effective as a business professional. Drawing on his thorough knowledge of Lean principles popularized by Toyota and embraced by factories Markovitz shows how asking similar questions can help individual executives determine their priorities and eliminate annoyances, hassles and waste from their everyday activities. His book tells you both the "how" and "why" of productivity and in the process, will make you a better business leader.

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The Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets

Alright, I have never written a review before but I just had to after receiving this book. I read it cover to cover in one day and it was redundant. They mentioned about five different "secrets" throughout the book more than once. Let me save you the fourteen bucks and give you the skinny on the "secrets"

1) Egg White Mask :Tightens pores

2) Baking soda :Gentle microdermabrasion

3) Strawberry Jello :Lip and nipple stain...I kid you not!

4) Wine in the Bath :Good for skin

5) Ice Cube in Mouth :Press it to the roof to reduce puffiness in face.

These "secrets" were mentioned numerous times. The "authors" talked to stars and make-up people and they either said they used Creme De La Mer or were trying to push their own products. It seemed like one big ad. All in all, I'm really disappointed...95% filler...5% meat!

I thought this book would be entertaining with a lot of tips and tricks for making beauty fun and easy. I love makeup and skincare. People's go-to "I didnt know what to get" gift for me is usually a sephora gift card, so you can tell this type of book should be straight up my alley. I'm overjoyed to be poking around Sephora or Ulta, but I can also be happy wandering the makeup/skin care aisles of Target or Walmart.

When this book is not spitting out designer labels left and right, they really don't have super secrets. Most is stuff you can find online about home treatments that you can mix together yourself. It also asked a lot of "professionals" and beauty gurus their "must haves" and what would they buy if they ONLY had 100 dollars. These people are spoiled brats in my opinion. 100 bucks could buy a heck of a lot of beauty stuff. One woman's answer when asked what she would do if she only had the 100 dollars was "first, I would cry...". This really just put the stamp of stupidity on this book. Don't waste your money!

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I'm a stylist who collects beauty books. I was greatly disappointed to open this book and find information taken from earlier beauty books or fashion magazines. Save your money, you've read this all before.

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From the woman's interview on television and what I had read, I expected it to be more tips. Entirely too much focus on celebraties. It was a waste of time and money.

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Not that fond of the book. It's basically an extended tabloid. A few good tips but most is about celebs and the tools and resources they have. The average everyday mother doesn't have a stylist, a fitness trainer, a make up artist or time to spend hours at the gym daily. I would not have bought it had I been able to read a few pages in a book store.

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Strength Training for Young Athletes - 2E

My son started lifting on his own about 3 months ago. I wanted to set him up with a good workout with the right weight and repetition so he would get the most out of the work out without damaging his developing bone and muscle structure. This book was extremely helpful in that it addresses safety issues, weight determination (maximum lift), repetitions and change ups. I would recommend this book to anyone with a pre-teen to mid-teen. It offers a good alternative to an adult lifting regimen that is not suitable for growing bodies.

I'm the father of a young athlete and a coach. The information in this book defintely dispells the myth that weight training should wait until the teenage years. I look forward to applying the principals from this book with my son and players.

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Now in an updated second edition, Strength Training For Young Athletes: Safe And Effective Exercises For Performance by co-authors William J. Kraemer PhD (Editor-In-Chief of the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research) and Steven J. Fleck PhD (Chair of the Sport Science department at Colorado College in Colorado Springs), both world-renowned strength and conditioning experts addresses how to apply beneficial strength training to young people without risking harm to their physical, psychological, or emotional development, and keeping the odds of injury in athletics and athletic training to an absolute minimum. Chapters address how to determine individual needs, creating safe training environments, single and multi-joint upper and lower body exercises, total-body exercises and sport-specific regimens, and much more. Black-and-white photographs, detailed explanations and instructions, and no-nonsense prose fully accessible to lay readers and parents as surely as it is to coaches and professionals distinguish this "must-have" guide for anyone responsible for a young person involved in serious sports.

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Young superstar athletes have dispelled long-standing misconceptions that strength development should start in the late teens. But much discussion has continued regarding what type of training is most beneficial.

Strength Training for Young Athletes provides all the answers as the authoritative guide to strength development for 7to 18-year-old athletes. World-renowned strength and conditioning experts William Kraemer and Steven Fleck present the latest facts on the effects of strength training on growth, development, and performance. The authors then make recommendations relative to starting age, choice of exercises, frequency of training, rate of progression, and philosophical aspects of program design.

Learn how to individualize the age-appropriate sample training programs provided, based on the athlete's physical, psychological, and emotional maturity as well as the demands of the sport. Such carefully designed programs not only improve athletic performance and prepare young athletes for higher competitive levels, but they also help to decrease the incidence of injury along the way.

Strength Training for Young Athletes is the most complete and credible resource for developing the muscular foundation for athletic success.

About the Author

William J. Kraemer is a professor in the department of kinesiology working in the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. He also is a professor in the department of physiology and neurobiology and a professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Dr. Kraemer held multiple appointments at Pennsylvania State University, where he was professor of applied physiology, director of research in the Center for Sports Medicine, associate director of the Center for Cell Research, and faculty member in the kinesiology department and the Noll Physiological Research Center.

Kraemer had served on the Sports Medicine Committee for the United States Weightlifting Federation and on the Sport Science and Technology Committee for the United States Olympic Committee. He received the National Strength and Conditioning Association Lifetime Achievement Award for bringing science into the development of strength and conditioning programs.

He is editor in chief of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, an associate editor of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, and an editorial board member of the Journal of Applied Physiology. A former junior high and college coach, Kraemer has coauthored many books and articles on strength training for athletes.

Steven J. Fleck is chair of the sport science department at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Previously, he headed the physical conditioning program of the U.S. Olympic Committee; served as strength coach for the German Volleyball Association; and coached high school track, basketball, and football.

An internationally known expert on strength and anaerobic training, Fleck was a vice president of basic and applied research for the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). He is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). He was honored in 1991 as the NSCA Sport Scientist of the Year.

Fleck has authored many books and numerous articles on strength training and physical conditioning. He is also a columnist for Muscular Development.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Strength Training and Your Child

Chapter 2. Physical and Psychological Development

Chapter 3. Determining Individual Needs

Chapter 4. Creating Individualized Programs

Chapter 5. Safe Training Environments

Chapter 6. Teaching Technique

Chapter 7. Multi-Joint Upper Body Exercises

Chapter 8. Multi-Joint Lower Body Exercises

Chapter 9. Single-Joint Upper Body Exercises

Chapter 10. Single-Joint Lower Body Exercises

Chapter 11. Single-Joint Abs, Low Back, and Shoulders

Chapter 12. Total-Body Exercises

Chapter 13. Sport-Specific Regimens

"In Strength Training for Young Athletes, Dr. Kraemer and Dr. Fleck teach how to develop a safe, effective program, addressing the physical and psychological maturation of each individual. This book should be required reading for anyone training young athletes."

Robert Jursnick

Executive director, National Strength and Conditioning Association

"I know first-hand that a successful young athlete has a well rounded training program that includes strength training. An ideal resource for those who want to get it right, Strength Training for Young Athletes will help you design a program that will prepare your athletes for their next level of performance."

Mike Nitka

Director of strength and conditioning, Muskego High School

Former Vice President, National Strength and Conditioning Association

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This book is a solid, standard setting, hand book for coaches training high school level athletes. for those not familiar with strength training as related to high school athletics, this is a must read.

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The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for Persons With Alzheimer's Disease, Related Dementing Il

I have been screening these books for my caregiver father, and have found this to be the most useful, detailed and comprehensive. This book is a must! (Try "Your Name is Hughes Hannibal Shanks", by Lela Knox Shanks, along with this one, for a more personal insight, and I don't think you'll need any other books on the subject.)

The is an excellent book for any caregiver of an Alzheimer's patient. I have bought a number of these books and given them to friends/acquaintances who were caregivers. I purchased this one for a friend whose husband has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. It was of tremendous help to my family when my father was diagnosed a number of years ago.

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My House Is Killing Me!: The Home Guide for Families with Allergies and Asthma

My son was diagnosed with asthma and I decided to do what I could to help him through housekeeping and house improvements.

This book was the place I started. After reading through this book and looking at the pictures I was able to make a list of things I wanted to do and the order they needed to be done. It made a huge difference for our family.

The pictures only add to the text and help to clarify what the author is discussing. The text is clear and easy to read. The directions are simple and informative. WELL WORTH THE MONEY!

I did not find this book to be overwhelming or full of too much information. Rather it was a perfect book for home owners who suffer from allergies or asthma.

My House is Killing Me! is a real eye opener. This book is a must read for anyone who has asthma, allergies or a family member or friend that has sensitivities to allergens. Informative, but not overly technical, this book describes why homes have indoor air quality problems and what the homeowner can do to improve the air quality around them.

The photos demonstrate real life situations where poorly maintained furnaces, air ducts and humidifiers can contribute to the misery of allergy and asthma sufferers. The photomicrographs and photos from the scanning electron microscope show how mold can grow on surfaces that were thought would not support mold growth. The recommendations at the end of each chapter provide valuable information and guidance that will enable the homeowner to improve the air quality in the home.

Who should read this book? People with asthma, allergies, doctors, home inspectors, trades people or anyone interested in maintaining a healthy home.

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When I heard about this often-referenced book, I wondered if it was just 'sensationalist'. It's not. This book is alternately frightening and terribly funny. In his Closing Remarks, Mr. May says, "If you read this book and then go out and purchase a HEPA vacuum, I'll be pleased; but if you throw out your couch or mattress, I'll be upset. I wrote the book not to cause hysteria, but to help people suffering from allergies and asthma gain control over the air quality where they live, play and work. I believe firmly that taking simple steps can make enormous improvements, just as minor omissions can create major problems."

This book starts off with an introduction of allergy causing organisms, ranging from mold to mites. The microphotographs of carpet bettles and dust mites are like something from a scary movie. After that, Mr. May discusses the "Stage, Set and Crew" rugs, furniture, bedding, pets, plants, and our own bodies. These make up our environment. Mr. May talks about a whole host of allergens including pets, mites, mold, and off-gassing. He also addresses important issues such as air-quality problems (such as carbon monoxide buildup) and home hazards, including improper wiring. Throughout the book, he discusses moisture and moisture control as it applies to specific areas of a home.

Mr. May addresses problems that can be found in each area of a home: the bedroom; the bathrooms; living room and family rooms; kitchens and dining rooms; basements; laundries; the attic; and in HVAC systems. He also talks about allergens in cars, schools, and homes. Importantly, he has solid and sensible recommendations for fixing the problems.

Now, for the funny stuff. Mr. May has been an inspector for many years, and has run into some very interesting problems. One laugh-out-loud story was called "The Hot Seat," and described a toilet that actually smoked and steamed (page 66). Have a bee problem? Don't try and remove them yourself (page 89). He has plenty of personal anecdotes as well, such as a temporary biological weapon his son inadvertently created by frying jalepeno peppers and onions (page 100).

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I read this book with a great deal of interest. Recently my sister-in-law was getting sicker and sicker from living in a toxic mold infected apartment. One doctor diagnosed her as having MS and another suggested psychiatric treatment! She got sicker and sicker, started to really lose it, her speech was becoming garbled, she felt like she was losing her memory. In mid-sentence she would suddenly lose her train of thought. I took some mold spore counts in her bedroom and they were through the roof. Finally after constant pestering on my part, they moved into a hotel. Immediately she started to get better.

Today, living in a different apartment, a much cleaner one, she is well again, back to work too.

I do research and write about plants and allergies (Safe Sex in the Garden) and although this fine book by May doesn�t touch on outside landscapes, he does do an excellent job of exploring sickness-causing agents within the house. He gets deeply into all parts of a house, from the attic to the basement.

For many people affected by allergies, asthma, and a host of related environmentally triggered illnesses, reading this book would be an excellent idea. If I had one knock on the book it would be that the whole subject of what is growing right outside the bedroom window is ignored. But, to be fair, May sticks to what he knows best here. I have had numerous clients who would wake up every morning feeling lousy, often with sore throats. No one seemed to be able to figure out his or her problem. When I was asked to look over their properties for highly allergenic plants I�d often find a profuse pollen-producing shrub or tree right outside their bedroom window. Sometimes the offending shrub will be a male Podocarpus or a male Yew, both of which produce considerable pollen that is light, dry, tiny, allergenic, and quite poisonous. The solution in these cases is simple; replace the shrub. I recently photographed some of this pollen through my microscope, on a glass slide, over which I placed a small piece of window screen. The photo is impressive. Close to a thousand grains of this pollen could pass, simultaneously, through each tiny square of the window screen!

But I digress. This book, My House is Killing Me! Is a fine book and answers many important questions about indoor pollutants. Jeffery May has provided a valuable contribution to the field of indoor, household contaminants. I highly recommend it.

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I called Jeff May and asked him about finding a house that I could live in and he said, "Read my book 5 times and then you will know as much as I do." Well, not quite, but given that I'm an asthmatic and am very sensitive to mold, dust, and pollutants--his book has been fabulous in helping to mitigate my sensitivities. Just wrapping up bedding in dustmite proof covers and buying a HEPA vacuum cleaner have made a huge difference. Now we are trying to find a house to buy and it's great being able to walk into a house and know that I may be able to fix something and it will fix the problem.

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NYC Ballet Workout: Fifty Stretches And Exercises Anyone Can Do For A Strong, Graceful, And Sculpted

What a wonderful book! I just bought it and I can't wait to get started. I've read it from cover to cover a few times, and I'm more than pleased with my purchase. The magnificent bodies are marvelous and breathtaking. It's true that the first few pages are bios and frou frou, but their stories are inspiring and motivating. Plus, they discuss why dancers' bodies are more agile and sculpted than most athletes, as well as tips on getting started, how to listen to your body and optimize your workout.

The workout is divided into six sections. Warm up and Stretch, followed by Abs (14-20 minutes), Floor barre (12-16 minutes), Ballet center (16-22 minutes) and Legs (16-22 minutes). Although they say you can do the entire workout as time permits, they offer suggestions for 10 or 20 minute workouts, as well as specialized workouts to correlate with specific sports for strength and flexibility or body parts of concentration. The instructions are clear-cut and detailed and along with the music selections they recommend, you'll feel like a prima ballerina. Personally, I have a lot of fat to lose so I plan on using this workout as a supplement to an aerobic regimen. I'm looking forward to using this workout every morning to get my day started.

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer but was unable to take lessons. When I opened my amazon.com shipment and took out this book, many (MANY!) decades later, I actually got a lump in my throat, feeling that at last I can participate in a personal way, in that awesome world of the dance. The book is beautiful, informative, and challenging. It presents enough exercises to keep me busy for years, and best of all, it is written with a true sense of what a body is capable of doing. I go to the health club and do aerobics and weight training, but this book takes working out to a much higher level, a level where we work toward grace, balance, and elegance in movement. We are reminded to pay attention to the "quality of movement," and to "move like a dancer," which is very good advice, especially for women. Not that these are easy exercises, by any means. You can pace yourself, work as hard as you wish, and know that every erg of energy you expend will bring you closer to having a beautiful body. Motivating! (Do NOT look for me onstage at the NYC Ballet, however. Alas.)

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This is a great book for anyone that wants to achieve results without a lot of hard work. I ordered this book just before Christmas, and within just a few weeks of doing these exercises for about 45 minutes 4 to 5 times a week, I am already seeing results. The exercises are easy to do, and there are so many different ones in the book, you can pick the workout that's perfect for you. This is one workout I really look forward to.

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I have had this book for at least 3 years and I got it because like lots of other girls, I liked ballet and it has always been a dream for me, another dream for me is mac'n cheese so, girls if you know nothing about ballet and can't even do a split dont worry, this book is perfect. You can go at your own pace and pick out the excercises that target your undesireable areas but dont pass up the ones that dont look hard, you dont work up a sweat but every one of the stretches does something good, pretty soon people will start to notice you because, you will start walking different, I sometimes do one or two of the balancing excercises before I go out and I have to say that this book will have you striking a pose without even knowing it. There is one thing that I think can be done to make this book perfect. I have literally worn out my book and I would purchase it again if it were smaller and wire bound and use it for travel. The pictures are lovely and even if you are a "couch potato" this book will do wonders for your posture and personally, the Complete Spinal Stretch has worked out crooks in my back like magic. This is the kind of book that becomes like a big secret because it does not take much for you to feel a difference, the change will be gradual but lasting.

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I find this a great reference for working out, especially with the NYC Ballet workout on DVD.

My biggest complaint is that it's designed more like a "coffee-table book" than an exercise manual. A spiral binding would have made all the difference, as the pages would be able to lie flat. I *do* enjoy the commentary at the beginning, and the photography is simply luscious.

Because the book doesn't lie open on it's own, I have a little trouble following the whole "long" routine directly from the book. However, the shorter routines in the back are easier to do, as I can usually remember all the movements (or only need to reference one or two).

I read a suggestion, somewhere, that you make an audio recording of each movement (reading out the text description) and the number of reps counted out, and then play it back while working out. This would be instead of fumbling with the book. I'm working on doing that, myself, and I hope it will aid me in doing the whole long routine.

I think the pictures in this book are clear and detailed enough to even teach someone who doesn't have a ballet background "how" to do the movements, but, I coudn't say that for sure, as I had 8 years of lessons.

Gwen

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