I honestly am concerned by how much older he looks now than when I saw him 5 years ago. I hope the rapid aging appearance isn't an indicator of other problems.
There was some stuff a while back that was implied about him that may have to do with his aging, but it does infringe on his own personal life, and someone on that forum (or a forum in general) made a clear point that it was infringing on his privacy to be wondering such things. In any case, if he was doing any of that, it's stopped.
Also, in an interview with "Give The Drummer Some," he said that he was, in part due to the extensive touring he did for clinics around that time, experiencing around 150+ hours of jet lag on average for that year, even saying that it's "like a chronic illness" at that point. BUT despite that, he looks better now.
Also, he smokes cigarettes, and has for quite some time. But that's enough off-topic gibber.
I've watched this DVD set over and over, at least 5-6 times. I've bounced around on it for a while, mostly to try to get the necessities down in the little time I have at the moment. Come this summer, like I stated previously, I'm going all-out foundation building, for sure.
This DVD is very much worth the money, but the one part that I will most definitely take away from this DVD set is his epilogue. So much of what he said was true, and is humbling as well as eye-opening. I won't spoil what he says: it's well worth the price of the entire set to hear what he says there, so adding all the info on foot technique and hi-hat technique as well is a major bonus.
That's the vague stuff that I'm typing about this. Here's what I did, and I believe really helped me to get going on this faster than most.
Go to the chapters about set up first, and go from there. And that's not just about the kick pedal: hi-hat pedal and seat set up as well, so that you're primed for the best. Currently, I'm now on what I guess you could call the next step: developing the basic techniques and working them with the foot-coordination chapter to acquire good balance.
Basically, in short, your money will not be wasted on this.