Challenge Yourself to Change

As a young dancer, I trained in ballet and let me tell you, I hated it with a passion! It was so hard staying on those toes and perfecting those holds that would leave my entire body sore for days. I didn’t pursue ballet as long as I should’ve, but as I got older I felt the discipline of the classical training. I was lucky enough to have as a young girl from both my Indian classical ques in Khatak to my repetitive ballet holds.

These two dance forms challenged me most in my dance career and I was so very thankful whenever I stepped onstage to perform in a hip-hop routine or a salsa routine. This all brought me back to my classical training of Khatak and especially ballet. You don’t have to be a professional dancer to know the importance of posture, but let me tell you, when it’s been drilled into your head over and over and over again from a lean mean ballet teacher machine, you won’t ever forget it!

Now, I’m at a stage in my life where I don’t perform anymore, fitness has become my way of expression through movement. So, when I hit my yearly ‘blah’ phase at the gym, yes even fitness enthusiasts go through this, I know I have to take it back to basics to get my fitness mojo going again. I looked at one of my favourite phrases on my motivation board at home ‘If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you’ and thought hard about the last time I felt very challenged as a dancer and ballet was of course the first thing that came to mind.

I didn’t have to look far to find my nearest and dearest dance studio, the beautiful Impact Movement Adult and Dance Fitness studio (www.impactmovement.ca) owned and operated by the lovely, hotness herself, Leanne Giilck. This gorgeous facility offers various butt-kicking dance classes and the ballet bootcamp classes are no exception. The ballet bootcamp classes are an intense mix of barre-cardio fusion where you will experience a fast paced, full body workout designed around simple and functional movements. This will test your fitness level like no other. You will definitely have brief moments of active recovery, but this is a calorie burning sweat-fest with pop tunes to keep you going and find your inner ballerina/Britney Spears. Try a class near you, barre-cardio or ballet bootcamps are here to stay with a promise of challenge that will change you!