This is pretty much everyone's initial impression of him. "He's a mediocre gymnast". Of course he seems like a mediocre gymnast - he's not a gymnast. The stuff he does comes from all over the place - capoeira, dance, weightlifting, yoga, circus arts, boxing, and yes, gymnastics too etc. but what he really is about is understanding movement and teaching people to move. That sounds vague as shit, but my understanding from following his stuff is that his aim is basically to go 'between disciplines'. I.e. get down to the very fundamental movement patterns found in and between disciplines, understand them, use them across disciplines, teach them etc.

This sounds vague as shit but is basically along the lines of - what is the innate, instantaneous thought process of a dancer, when they improvise a routine, how does a gymnast develop aerial or inverted awareness, how does a capoerista reflexively react to another practitioner moving in front of him - and how does a boxer do it differently, how does a high level grappler understand more about his opponents physical structure than he does himself just by feeling the way he moves, what are the physical attributes of a weightlifter that allow him to transfer force to efficiently etc. Basically - what are the attributes being trained that make these athletes able to do what they do, and how can they be trained independently. His idea is instead of focusing on the discipline, focus on the movement. He's very against specializing in one thing, and believes it is the underlying cause of athletes being so prone to injury - they do too much of the same thing, and neglect all other ways of moving.

And regarding 'personalized programs'. You have to understand his aim for students is to get them to a level where they can start to think and experiment with all these ideas. To do that, in his opinion, you need a base of (pretty high level) strength and mobility. Most people are weak and tight in all the same places, so most of his beginner programs do involve doing a lot of similar things with a specific set of goals in mind. Of course most people that write these reviews don't get over this initial hurdle in the first place. But he has thousands of students that return to him - he holds events all over the world that are very popular. If he was such an all round shithead, people wouldn't go. And these are capable people too - I know a guy who's a high level professional acrobat that went and feels he got a lot out of it.

I personally can't afford his shit, so just follow his interviews, his free stuff etc. He's probably not the easiest person to deal with but he's an interesting dude. Does his stuff actually work? Who knows, it's a hell of an ambition to figure out 'movement'. Also, I don't know why you'd think he's on steroids - the guy is only 150lbs... he looks big on video because he's lean.