Ditch Spinning For This Beyoncé-Themed Fitness Class
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Everyone’s tried to bust a few Beyoncé moves after too many glasses of wine at a wedding reception. But did you know you can actually learn a Beyoncé routine from a professional and count it as exercise?
Well, if you live in NYC, that is.
For my Beyoncé dance experience, I decided to go to DivaDance in the Lower East Side, where dynamic and peppy founder Jami Stigliano started DivaDance for fun to serve as her “manicure money.” Aptly named after “The Bionic Woman,” Jami worked for 15 years as a music executive, working with what she refers to as “some of the biggest divas in the business,” including Britney Spears and P!nk. Girl knows her divas, so who better to learn from?
But when Friday rolled around, I was pretty much hating my over-achieving, cheery, green juice drinking Monday self with a vehemence as I wandered into the DivaDance building at 7 p.m. totally exhausted.
Not to mention, I was lost. Peeking around the corner, I caught a glimpse of a woman wearing a T-shirt titled “Slaying is My Cardio.” Following her like a personal North Star, we wound around the corner and up a few flights of stairs until I found my slaying companions, a crew of ladies decked in spin class attire — many also wearing the same “Slaying is My Cardio” tees. I smiled at the girls next to me, took a deep breath and went in.
Our extremely cheerful instructor explained to us that our main intention was to have fun and that we did not need to be professional dancers to slay. We staggered ourselves so that we could see our reflections in the mirror before beginning a hip swaying, booty shaking warm up.
Five minutes in, I was already having a pretty good time. After our warmup, the instructor explained that we were going to learn a dance to “Hold Up” and she would break down the dance for us into chunks that we would then rehearse. It was well planned, with enough time to really learn one chunk of choreography before we turned to the next, and the instructor kept us focused and energized.
After 40 minutes, not only had I learned the whole dance comfortably, but I was recharged and energized for the weekend. While the beginner approach to the choreography meant I never exactly broke a sweat, I did have a lot of fun, and the choreography included fun and useful moves like body rolls and booty shakes that I totally used dancing at a party Saturday night. Beats spin class any day.
