When Nicole took Bar to a cardio workshop

About a month and a half ago, Nicole told me about a cardio barre workshop she'd signed up for with an amazing teacher who had come from London, and suggested I come with her.

For a while now I've been wondering whether to take a cardio barre teacher course, especially after my baptism of fire at our summer party.

And then I thought to myself… "Why not? This could be a good chance to see whether it's something I'd like to go deeper into and learn."

Besides, Nicole knows how to sell an idea and sweep you along – and quality time with my instructor is always a good idea.

So on 7.7 – a Friday afternoon – I arrived at a 3-hour workshop that I thought would be light and mostly talking. It turned out to be especially physical and challenging! (I should mention that Nicole had already done another session before I even arrived!)

For anyone who doesn't know this about me yet – I'm Bar, the studio director, and by profession I'm a dance teacher. I trained in teaching ballet, but today I focus mainly on modern dance.

Nicole kept telling me that I come from dance and ballet, and that I could bring cardio barre into my classes easily – I just needed to get started.

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The barre method is a workout that combines ballet and work at the ballet barre with rehabilitative therapy.

Sounds fun and innocent so far, right?

In practice, the whole class is done to upbeat music, and the pace is dynamic. For me, the warm-up was actually the most challenging part.

If you'd like to read more about the method, go back to our previous post – everything you wanted to know about barre.

The workshop was led by Kate Miller, a gorgeous and professional instructor who came to Israel from London especially for a weekend of workshops. Later in the workshop we went through how to build cardio barre class plans, and practised teaching the other women in the group ourselves.

What stood out most in Kate's teaching was her belief that cardio barre can suit everyone – women, men, older and younger people – and her habit of giving different variations for every exercise, so each person can keep up with the class without feeling out of place.

Kate doesn't believe in piling on several props at once, and she made all of us feel we belonged in the room and in her class.

I'll admit that that week I had a fairly fresh ankle sprain, a few days before a performance I was dancing in. I was a perfect example of a client who always chooses the easiest variations!

As I said, before the workshop I was worried I wouldn't connect to the aerobic work, or to the fact that it's very different from a ballet class as I know it. But Kate's magic showed me that every instructor can take cardio barre in the direction she connects with – and that it's a whole world I want to get to know better.

Above all I'm happy I got such an interesting, intriguing taste, and that every day I keep learning new things – about myself and about the fields that interest me.

I know a cardio barre class can look intimidating from the outside – a fast-paced class with intense, challenging work.

But just as at the start of our Pilates journey we could barely survive a few ab exercises in a row, endurance in cardio builds gradually too. And thanks to the different variations we learned from Kate, we saw how the class can be adapted for everyone – including people with all kinds of injuries: ankle sprains, knee pain and more.

To anyone curious about our cardio classes, I recommend just starting and not being afraid – remember to listen to your body during class, choose the simpler variations at the beginning, and take pauses and breaks if you need to.

And remember: with consistency comes improvement. Nothing beats the feeling of success after meeting the physical challenges we set ourselves.

Our cardio classes with Nicole are on Mondays at 21:00 and Fridays at 11:00 (every other week). You're welcome to sign up through our app.