Drawing inspiration from ballet movements, pilates, and yoga, barre helps with getting in tune with your body and practicing muscle endurance in a fun and new way.
Instructor Antonio Munez Gomez, who has been instructing at the university for just over year, teaches a barre class every Friday at 5 p.m.
Instructor Gomez broke the class up into sets that focus on different muscle groups, including arms, legs, and core. With upbeat music and enthusiastic instruction, exercises of leg lifts are incredibly fun and motivated, all while making you feel a greater appreciation for the difficulty of ballet.
Arm exercises after stretching at the beginning of class included weights and continuous small, quick pulsing movements in different directions, targeting all areas of the arm. Some of the movements were incredibly reminiscent of pilates movements, while others directly drew from arm positions in ballet, quickly transitioning between them.
Leg exercises implemented the actual bar, in which micro kicks exercise inner thigh muscles and encourage continuous, controlled movements. The class was instructed to hold the first position of the feet (although he emphasized no need to be perfectly parallel).
There were also exercises that helped stretch the hips and engage a fluid movement of the legs as you rotated your inner thigh in and out, before kicking in quick and continuous movements.
The final muscle group exercises targeted the core, in which many modifications were presented for the first exercise of a V-Sit hold, immediately transitioning into a variation of plank.
Instructor Gomez creates an incredibly joyful and welcoming space, clarifying that modifications for each movement are dependent on what makes individuals’ bodies feel the most comfortable.
“For me, it’s a number of things. Seeing how people find new ways to relate to their body in a funny way. It’s not driven by having to look a certain way or perfectly be a ballerina.”
He attributes his original interest in barre to it being a welcoming space in which he can exercise and have fun without having to pretend or look a certain way. Gomez also mentions seeing a sigh of relief on students’ faces at the end of exercises, which I definitely found myself doing a few times. Partly out of pride of completion, but also to be able to catch a quick break.
And finally, the class ended with stretches and breathing exercises. The barre class with instructor Gomez is very beginner friendly and continuous attendance and commitment to the movements he leads are sure to help with muscle endurance. It is a nice class to feel productive in and to try something different.
