Given my love for ballet, it was only one logical step
for me to look at a Barre certification course. And just at I had decided to
look into it further, an opportunity for the very thing presented itself in Raleigh
J. The stars were lining
up.
The course provider is Core Barre™, and its creator is
Monica Hoekstra. Given my over 20 years
in the fitness industry and a fair amount of education, I am a rather critical
consumer and not easily persuaded. The content and presentation of Monica’s
course, though, meets my full approval, and I enjoy it very much. Her approach
to what she calls ‘Smart Movement’ is fully in line with my training of MELT,
The BioMechanics Method and the other corrective exercise modalities that I
employ. I am a hawk on good posture
myself, and her entire Core Barre™ system is geared towards improving posture through
the strengthening of the stabilizing muscles of the shoulder girdle, hip and core.
The course has elements of ballet without being a ballet
class. Her suggested syllabus includes an intelligent warm-up, a segment on the
barre, and floor exercises which are mainly inspired by Pilates.
Once I have ‘incorporated’ those exercises into my own
body, I intend to augment them with MELT Length and Strength techniques. This
format will be one only taught at my studio to a small number of participants,
so be on the lookout for an announcement some time soon.
