Customer Appreciation Week – March 28-April 1, 2016

30 Years of Teaching!

I moved to NYC in September of 1985 and began dancing with Jazzdance: The Danny Buraczeski Dance Company.  I was still an active bulimic/eating disordered dancer, but something clicked soon after.  In March of 1986, I went to see my friend from college in a dance performance here in NYC.  Margaret’s body had changed significantly and she told me she was teaching fitness.  I got a job teaching with her at Ferrante Fitness on East 35th Street.  It was an easy transition for a dancer to enter fitness at the time, and I believe it still is because of our innate ability to understand movement. It was a small studio for women only and the largest weights we used were 3lbs.  It was there that I learned to teach fitness exercises at the ballet barre, timing to music and the flow of a class.  I also studied jazz dance with Lynn Simonson and took her Teacher Training Program.  Lynn’s training provided the foundation for an anatomical appreciation of how the body moves, how to keep it free from injury, and how to make the movement work for different body types.

 I stayed a couple of years at Ferrante Fitness and before opening my own business on Christopher Street in the West Village and named it Body Dynamics.  It was in 1990 that we moved back to East 35th Street to continue teaching in Murray Hill.  My neighbor Barbara, asked me why I only worked with the “skinny women” so in 1994 I started my first class with eight plus size women.  I knew instantly that this was the work I was meant to do.  I loved the anatomical perspective – helping move the fuller body with grace and ease in this moment without having to wait to lose weight to begin moving.

Join me this week for Customer Appreciation Week as I share some of the highlights of the past 30 years and what brought me to this place today!

But first and foremost, thank you to each and everyone of you – whether I saw you three days ago, three weeks ago, three months ago or 30 years ago – thank you!

I am grateful to you and celebrate YOU this week!