Just Dance…and Strengthen
We’ve been kicking ourselves especially hard throughout this season of So You Think You Can Dance, for tossing our pink slippers for pottery when we were six, now that we want to be ballerina Caitlin Kinney when we grow up.
So imagine our delight when Kinected’s husband-and-wife team Matt McCulloch (a masters Pilates instructor) and Carrie McCulloch (a recent Mount Sinai Med School grad and certified Pilates instructor) asked us, “Well, what kind of body do you want?”
We scratched our heads and glanced around the airy Chelsea loft’s five-foot boa sporting skeleton, physical therapy rooms, reformer and Gyrontonic machines, until our eyes landed on the ballet barre. Our toned hosts quickly wiped the drool from our faces and gave us a sneak peek at July’s stability, grace and agility class, Releve.
Ballet pirouettes meet advanced Pilates in this weekly 75-minute sweat session taught by Erin Malley (also the Artistic Director of Malleable Dance Theater). You and 11 inner-tutu-wearers perform traditional ballet progressions with some added thera-band resistance to build long, lean, strong muscles. As you activate your core, you’ll wrap the lengthy rubber band around your legs, just right, so that typical tendus (precise foot-sliding), arabesques (leg extensions), and ports de bras (arm carriages to front, up and sides) ignite more than the motivational image of becoming the next reality star-dancing queen. You’ll get balance-building, butt buffing and some actual moves to throw down in front of the judges, er, mirror next week.
Mondays 3pm-4:15 p.m., Kinected, 151 W. 19th St, 2nd Fl, 212.463.8338, www.kinectedcenter.com one class $18, 5-pack $85, 10-pack $160
{ 6 comments }
