Burlesque Fitness Fusion
Burlesque Fitness Fusion is sensual, elegant and ladylike – not sexual – it’s about how it makes you feel rather than what you look like. Women of all ages, shapes and sizes are encouraged to embrace the natural female form and love their curves and femininity, while encouraging and developing strength and stability, confidence, balance, good posture and poise.
Taking the art of burlesque and its messages, some classes have become more developmental fitness workouts that will enhance posture, muscle tone, flexibility, stability and endurance in a fun way that nurtures self-confidence, esteem and worth. The programme can be modified in intensity, impact and complexity to accommodate your skills and abilities.
While Burlesque Fitness Fusion is not marketed as a body-shape-changing programme, its can help to grow the self-confidence of women as they are encouraged to exercise more and participate in other programmes.
The GROOVE Method
The GROOVE Method® is a revolutionary way of making dance easy and accessible to everybody. There is no intimidating choreography and no rules. Instructors and members simply explore easy movements to all styles of music. The movements are simple, so that you have an opportunity to do them in a way that feels right and comfortable. In this programme, there is no more facing the front and trying to keep up with the teacher. When you are following the teacher and trying to copy what they are doing, you aren’t really dancing, you are copying.
The GROOVE Method is designed for those who love to dance but find dance classes intimidating and complicated. You might take dance classes and struggle to copy and mimic the movements of the teacher or get frustrated trying to keep up with the steps. To memorise choreography, learn technique or try to keep up with or move your body like someone else is not comfortable for many. The consequence can often be that you end up making the claim that you can’t dance.
Grooving allows you to dance in your own way. It is a workout that you can take at any level from high-intensity cardio to deep muscle conditioning. It also brings awareness and movement to the parts of the body that are critical but not usually used in a dance class, like eye muscles, fingers and toes. You also get to experience a very natural and powerful mind and body connection.
Just Jhoom!
Inspired by the energetic dances of Bollywood films, Just Jhoom! draws on a range of styles from classical Indian to Bhangra, with dashes of hip hop, jive and jazz, and finishes with some yoga-inspired stretches.
Experienced Bollywood dance teacher Shalini Bhalla launched Just Jhoom! – which means Just Dance! – in May 2010. While studying for an MA in South Asian Dance, she became interested in the fitness aspect of dance and began to look into how Bollywood could be adapted as a fun and safe way to get fit.
One of its unique selling points is the use of hand exercises in the dances to mobilise and flex the hand muscles. Just Jhoom! benefits proprioception, hand and eye co-ordination, and flexibility, as well as increasing general fitness levels.
Ask at your gym for any available classes.
This feature was first printed in the April/May 2012 issue of Fitpro magazine.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Fitness Professionals Ltd or Virtual Magazine. Consult a qualified health or fitness professional before making changes to your diet or exercise.
