50 fitness classes reviewed

Crazy classes

Aerial Dance TONY DEAL
Manhattan Movement & Arts Center (248 W 60th St between Amsterdam and West End Aves; 212-787-1178, manhattanmovement.com). $35, ten-class card $300.
Length: 90 minutes
Type of activity: Aerial acrobatics
What to expect: After stretching on our own, we spent 20 minutes practicing handstands on the mats and then took to the air to learn basics on the silks (two long strips of fabric hanging from the ceiling). Each class ends with an opportunity to “fly” around the room, suspended by the fabric.
How in shape you need to be: A sometime exerciser can do it, but you’re better off if you’re a gym regular (you’ll have greater success, and you won’t be as sore the next day). Also, this is at a dance school, so try not to be intimidated by the lissome figures around you.
The verdict: Ivo Gueorguiev, formerly of Cirque du Soleil, opens with a well-coached series of handstands that had my shoulders begging for mercy immediately. Then, as his advanced students practiced independently, he showed us beginners the basics on the silks. Fear not: Though the poses are easier if you’re flexible, even less-pliable noobs look cool doing a back bend while hanging upside down. Your shaking arms will come close to resuming their normal function while you wait for your next turn. I knew I’d feel it the next day, and I did (mainly in the upper abs, shoulders and arms), but I didn’t expect that my pinkies would ache.—Heather Moore

Eye Yoga
Movements Afoot (49 W 27th St between Sixth Ave and Broadway, mezzanine B; 212-904-1399, movementsafoot.com). $20 per class.
Length: 1 hour; Oct 19, Nov 23 at 7pm
Type of activity: Eye movements
What to expect: This three-part workshop (two dates are left in this session, and you can join at any time) mixes informational discussion with eye exercises that are supposed to improve your vision and help relax your total body. There’s some extremely light stretching, but you don’t even need to change out of your street clothes.
How in shape you need to be: Couch potatoes welcome
The verdict: The word yoga, of course, is a euphemism; we weren’t downward dogging while darting our eyes back and forth (though we did salute the sun and thank the floor). But the concept here turned out to be pretty much the same as with that stretching practice: If you learn to be aware of bad muscle behaviors—like you’d learn to be aware of bad posture—and of when your muscles are tired, then you can perform gentle exercises to strengthen and retrain those muscles. The logic seems sound. Your eyes are controlled by muscles, after all—why not stretch them out too? So yes, we walked around the room a lot and looked at things, moving our peepers this way and that, with and without focus, slowly warming to the idea that these various ways of letting our eyes wander are good for you. Oddly, the exercise we did the most was covering our eyes with our hands, a method that instructor Martha Eddy (who impressively has a doctorate in movement science and education, a field I didn’t know existed) calls “palming.” The darkness purportedly provides healthy rest for overworked eyeballs, especially those that live in a skull that lives in NYC, where there’s never really any pitch blackness. Though I felt silly, the palming and enforced minutes of quiet darkness actually had a slight restorative effect, if not on my eyes then definitely on my overworked brain.—Billie Cohen

Flip & Tuck TONY DEAL
STREB Lab for Action Mechanics (51 North 1st St between Kent and Wythe Aves, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-384-6491, streb.org). $15 per class, ten-class card $135.
Length: 90 minutes
Type of activity: Gymnastics and acrobatics
What to expect: In a plan to improve flexibility and core strength (and train you in acrobatics), instructor Fabio guides you through some pretty nifty moves like the “X pose” (a half plank with your leg raised in the air) and bridge pose before you leap headfirst into handstands and flips; in between moves, he’ll have you do sets of crunches or pull-ups.
How in shape you need to be: Gym regular
The verdict: If there is one thing I wish I’d had the foresight to think of before this class, it’s a sweatband. Though the course is called “open level” (there is a beginners’ version on Mondays), my handstands aren’t what they used to be (fine, they never were), and even by the start of the warm-up, I was already leaving wet marks on the mats. You really need to have some experience in gymnastics to get the most out of this class, which, granted, is offered (among other cool-sounding circus tricks like trapeze and trampoline) by experimental dance company STREB, so I should’ve guessed it’d involve more than toddler-level tumbles. By the time we were lining up to take running, flying leaps across the floor, I was feeling very out of my element. Thankfully, the instructor was patient with everyone, including me, and saw I wasn’t up to the speed of my fellow flippers and tuckers (who seemed more exhilarated than annihilated). When it was my turn, he let me work on some simple somersaults.—Alex Schechter

Iyengar/Rope Wall
Sangha Yoga Shala (107 North 3rd St between Berry St and Wythe Ave, No. 2H, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-384-2097, sanghayoganyc.com). $20 per class, package deals available.
Length: 90 minutes
Type of activity: Yoga
What to expect: Rope Wall Yoga focuses on just a few poses, and ropes are used to suspend the body and alleviate the pressure associated with certain positions.
How in shape you need to be: Occasional exerciser with yoga experience
The verdict: Unlike the culty yoga classes I’m used to (and enjoy), this session has more of a gym-class feel, with less of a spiritual angle and more conversational back-and-forth as the instructor explained how we’d be using the ropes attached to the walls. Basically, you wrap a rope harness around a limb, with enough slack to allow you to get into a given pose, and then you lean against the rope so that it supports you. In this way, you make gravity work for you rather than against you. And because you don’t have to strain so hard to hold the positions, you can work on perfecting your form, getting deeper into the poses and holding them for longer, extending the benefits. The class focuses on only a few poses, but they range from easy (variations on downward dog) to difficult (hanging upside down like a bat). I’ll admit that in the beginning, I thought it was kind of tame, but slowly I began to break a sweat. When it was over, I was wiped out—and two days later was still sore.—Beth Levendis

Power Pose TONY DEAL
New York Health & Racquet Club (270 Park Ave South at 21st St; 212-245-6917, nyhrc.com). $50 per class.
Length: 45 minutes
Type of activity: Flexing
What to expect: Former Mr. Australia Gennaro Ferra takes students through the poses used in bodybuilding competitions for a surprisingly intense workout.
How in shape you need to be: Between a sometime exerciser and gym regular
The verdict: Apart from being the closest someone like me will ever get to bodybuilding, Power Pose is awesome because it feels sort of like yoga for nonyuppies. Lots of balance and stretching are required as you gracefully segue from one sweet flexing maneuver to another—though your legs might start to shake from the exertion of twisting your torso and your focus might waiver from wishing your arms looked bigger in the mirror. In addition the fact that it targets nearly every part of your body, Power Pose just seems a more efficient way to engage your muscles than straight weight lifting.—Drew Toal

Rock climbing
Brooklyn Boulders (575 DeGraw St between Third and Fourth Aves, Gowanus, Brooklyn; 347-834-9066, brooklynboulders.com). Intro class: $60, includes gear and two climbing passes. League classes: eight sessions $250.
Length: 1 hour
Type of activity: Rock climbing
How in shape you need to be: Couch potatoes welcome, but a little arm and leg strength wouldn’t hurt
What to expect: Knot-tying and rope basics, with some climbing thrown in at the end
The verdict: Currently, Brooklyn Boulders offers a Learn the Ropes intro class (daily at 1, 3, 5 and 7pm), which teaches newbies the climbing basics. But it’s not much of a workout, since it is, well, an introduction to the sport—you spend most of the hour learning to tie lifesaving knots and to belay (or control your partner’s rope) so that you can pass a certification test and start scrambling around on the walls (where the real workout begins). Clearly the session necessary for a novice, but it doesn’t give unskilled climbers much opportunity to actually climb with an expert. Thankfully (says this eager but quite spastic reporter), that will change starting October 6, when BKB launches a twice-weekly “league,” essentially an open-level group class. The first 30 minutes of each session will focus on skills and instruction, while the following hour will let attendees scale the walls under the watchful and instructive eyes of pro teachers. It’ll also provide an incredible workout for legs, arms and—the other vital muscle that comes into play in this sport—the mind. Which is important, because as I found out, you can have decent strength, but if your brain says, “Holy crap, that’s a long way down,” you’re not going to get very far.—Billie Cohen

Trapeze workshop TONY DEAL
Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (51 North 1st St between Kent and Wythe Aves, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-384-6491, streb.org). Open-level Fri–Sun classes $47 per class, ten-class card $425; Wednesday “economic stimulus plan” classes $35, five-class card $150.
Length: 2 hours
Type of activity: A beginner’s course in flying trapeze
What to expect: You start out with a brief overview of the stunts you’ll be performing on the trapeze, but the instructor shows you how to do them on a stationary bar. Then you move onto the real thing, 18 feet in the air.
How in shape you need to be: Occasional exerciser
The verdict: I didn’t believe I’d actually attempt the trapeze at my first class, or if I did, it would be only for a few embarrassing moments. But I spent nearly the entire time up there, which was pretty amazing. When I arrived, I walked into what appeared to be a very close-knit group of instructors and mid- to advanced-level students—I was one of only two beginners that day, and this made me feel a bit self-conscious. But everyone was so overwhelmingly friendly and cheerful that within minutes I felt at home. At the start of the class, the main instructor, Jay, took me and the other beginner aside to show us how to perform a “knee-hang” on a stationary bar, and to walk us through our first sequence. Then we were thrown in line with the rest of the students to wait for our turn. This was intimidating, even knowing we’d be safe up there in a harness; my heart was racing, and for a moment, I thought I might black out. But despite my nerves, I did the trick correctly, if not perfectly, on my very first try, as did the other beginner. I was kind of amazed, and after that I felt totally confident on every turn. We did the trick about ten more times and watched and applauded as other students practiced their more advanced maneuvers. During the final half hour, a catcher climbed onto the trapeze, and instead of dropping down off the bar, we ended our swings by reaching out and locking arms with him. Trapeze gives you a full-body workout, and at one point, the backs of my knees were so sore I though I’d have to quit, but apparently that’s par for the course; all I needed was a short break. Besides, no amount of soreness could deter from the sheer exhilaration of being airborne.—Beth Levendis

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Fall fitness 2009
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