Booty Barre What?

Yesterday my friend Mandi and I went to a Booty Barre class. Wow, not what I was expecting. I have heard about the classes before from my Sister in law and was excited to try it out. I was expecting high intensity, sweat dripping ballet type of stuff on a bar. I wanted my core and butt to shake in fear and exhaustion by the time I left. Yeah, there was none of that.

I showed up, changed and met Lynne who was the instructor of the class. I filled out the paperwork with Mandi, paid my $15 dollars and waited for the class to start. We were nervous and excited to see what the class would be like. We chatted about useless gossip to pass the time around while the instructor got more stuff together for the class.

More people started to arrive and were milling about. Mandi and I were placed on separate bars and then we started the warm up. So far so good. Seems fairly easy enough. As we are in first position, or was it second? I hear, “Melody turn out more. Melody? MELODY?!” . Then people started to look at me. Um, ok, I guess my name is Melody tonight? A few minutes later “Melanie point your toes. Melanie? Melanie? MELANIE?” I wanted to be like seriously? I fileld out paperwork, I wrote you a check. You should know what my name is, it isn’t an uncommon name! I swallowed my irritation and pointed my toes and tried to turn out more.

At the end of the class after we did some “ab” work that barely make my stomach muscles shake we started to roll our mats up. I hear this girl telling Mandi, “we wipe down our mats after we use them, it’s a cleanliness type of thing” in the snottiest voice I have ever heard. OH HELL NO. I get that we need to wipe down the mats but seriously chica, you can say it so much nicer! Karma is a bitch and after people left and Mandi and I were packing up our stuff I heard her saying that she teaches a hoop class but her class attendance is low, um, I wonder why! Maybe because you are snot and a half?

All in all it wasn’t a bad class. Just not necessarily a class that I would do ever again. For $15 dollars it was expensive. To not really be sore the next day or feel really sweaty and like I worked hard even during the class is a bummer. I am used to running, spinning, body pump where I am dripping sweat. Sweat, in my mind, equals intensity. There wasn’t a lot of intensity in this class. Unfortunately. I wouldn’t mind trying another class, at another gym, taught by another instructor. Maybe it is different? I feel like an instructor can make or break a class and this one broke it for me.

Has anyone tried a barre class? My sister in law takes a bar method class in DC and says it is a killer workout!

Are you a sweat addict or do you like the slow, steady muscle working type of workouts? (yoga, pilates, etc)

Any good bar classes that I should try that are a little more intense? Or should I stick with running and intense cross training? I want to give bikram yoga another go. That is a sweaterific class for sure! Sitting there and you sweat buckets!