Kinect gestures and Kinect Sports Rivals

My Kinect appears to work properly.  The gestures seem to work (albeit not very well) through menus and such outside of games.  I downloaded the demo of Kinect Sports Rivals to give the Kinect a shot at making itself useful but it is completely unplayable.  I use the Xbox one in front of my couch.  I have removed my coffee table and moved the TV further away so that I'm in the sweet spot for the Kinect to read me.  As soon as the game gets to the ready line, I get a message that says Kinect needs an unobstructed view of the play area (or something to that effect).  I tried to go through the Kinect sensor recalibration 100x.  I restart the Xbox (touching and holding the button on the console).  Unplug everything and wait for a complete reset.  Nothing seems to change anything.  So I completely move the entire setup and give the kinect an enormous area to view and I finally get beyond the countdown for the race to start.  Now, the Kinect can't read me when it asks for me to raise my hand.  This is very frustrating and I need to get my wife to believe that this Xbox is more than just an expensive internet streaming with no games she likes!