Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Wed, Jan 04, 2012 @ 04:06 PM
“All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, and I promise you something great will come of it," Benjamin (played by Matt Damon) says to his son in the movie "We Bought A Zoo." A first class at the Bar Method is one of those acts that can take a bit of insane courage, and just as Damon's character promises, great things -- in this case getting a more beautiful, healthy body -- can come of it.
It's understandable that that walking into your first Bar Method class takes at least some courage. It has a reputation for being challenging, and friends are often so darned devoted to it that they can make you wonder. These friends are well-meaning, but their enthusiasm for the Bar Method can backfire and churn up inner cascades of self-doubting questions among the uninitiated: "Am I going to get addicted? Will everyone be, and look, better than me? Will I feel singled out when the teacher calls my name? Will I even get through the class!?” 
If you're wondering how you'd do in your first class, I want to reassure you that the overwhelming majority of new students of all ages and fitness levels have a positive experience. Bar Method teachers are skilled at making their new students feel safe and welcome, letting them know what they're going to feel, explaining the benefits and mechanics of the exercises, and getting them into a focused workout "zone" that makes the hour go by fast. But don't just take my word for it! Hear about the first day experiences of three students who almost never got there, and were glad they did.
Rachael, Summit, New Jersey
For a long time Rachael walked by the Bar Method studio in Summit without going in. A single mom in her mid-40s, Rachael “dismissed it as an option for me,” she says, “because the word ‘bar’ implied ballerina and that was something I certainly wasn’t.” One Thanksgiving, her daughter came home from college, and the two of them decided to give the class a try. “I changed three times before I left the house,” Rachael recalls, “not sure what to wear. I was sure I would be the only person there who would not be able to lift her leg to her ear. I was so nervous when I turned the corner into the studio, but everyone was so lovely and welcoming. As I made my way through the class, I was amazed at the extensive options given within each exercise…options for those who were advanced and options for novices like me. The instructor offered specific encouragement and suggestions to each student using their names! It was clear that each student was so involved in their own progress that no one had time (including me!) to notice anyone else.”
Mary Ann, Redmond, Washington
For two years, Mary Ann’s California-based daughter called her to talk about the positive effects the Bar Method was having on her body. Then a Bar Method studio opened in Mary Ann's area. She was placed on the mailing list but didn’t attend for another year. Finally Mary Ann signed on “and I might add without too much enthusiasm,” she admits, “because I was suffering from a lower back injury. However, once I began taking classes under the watchful eyes of Bev and Maika (the studio’s owners), I was nurtured with kind comments, disciplined corrections and happy faces. I got the message; this is working for me.”
Grace, Bernardsville, New Jersey
A busy mother of three young boys, Grace would not be dragged to a first class for a long time in spite of the persistent efforts of her best friend Margaret. “I can be a little sarcastic and a physical underachiever,” Grace says by way of explanation. At last Margaret prevailed. “As I entered the class,’ Grace remembers, ‘I was really impressed by the instructor’s desire to not just learn the names of students, but to engage and take a serious interest in each individual’s progress and development. Honestly, on that first day, I was a “D” student, but that did not matter. What struck me is how much and how often these instructors encouraged me and others and made constructive adjustments in order for proper form to be achieved. Also, every exercise is explained along with its function and benefits. It is fascinating to submit to this level of instruction. Not only did it stimulate my muscles, but a switch was flipped in my brain, too. This Bar Method became my Mt. Everest and I was hooked.”
Thank you, everyone, for you support this past year.
Happy New Year!
Burr
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Wed, Dec 07, 2011 @ 09:28 PM
Tip #1: Celebrate!
To stay fit during the holidays, first of all, celebrate them! You -- and everyone else on the planet who works hard -- need recovery time. It's in our DNA to schedule ourselves some fun every once and a while. Otherwise, what kind of drones would we be?! Traditions drag us out of our work lairs and get us to the party so that we remember how to feel human. It’s no wonder we revere them.
Tip 2: Rethink holiday cookies.
Holiday cookies have been a way for people to appreciate and bond with each other since ancient times. In past eras they helped tide friends and family through the winter, but these days they just give us more sugar and bigger love handles. 
So take a fresh look at the true purpose of this tradition, which is really to share your holiday spirit with friends and family, and if you value your waistline, think of other ways to do it. Charades, monopoly, pageants, dancing and home movies are also holiday traditions, and you can always make up your own. Meanwhile, admire the prettily decorated cookies you're offered, and when you can, pass on them!
Tip #3: Carry yourself with great posture.
You’re seeing everyone you know, so let them know how you feel about life by standing up straight! What’s more, just keeping your chest lifted will make you look slimmer, even with a few cookies under your belt.
Tip #4: Zero out the extra sweets you do eat by foregoing your usual indulgences.
Weeks of eating party foods will result in most of those additional calories sticking to your body. Of course exercising will get rid of some of this excess, but it can't compensate for weeks of profligate merrimaking unless you're an Olympian-level athlete. So until January at least, take a holiday from whatever excesses you happen to get away with during the rest of the year, for example a daily caramel macchiato or jamba juice.
Tip #5: Eat regularly.
This is a well-worn piece of wisdom. I'm adding it onto this list because it’s easily forgotten when you’re frantically busy. A quick meal like one of hard boiled eggs and apples -- which comes in a convenient packet at Starbucks -- can safeguard you against the cycle of energy burnout and over-doing it.
Tip #6. Drink lots of water before attending parties.
Being well hydrated before a party will make your eyes and skin sparkle under the holiday lights, not to mention helping you moderate what you drink during the evening.
Tip #7: Pre-schedule your exercise for the rest of the month.
Put yourself down for at least three classes and/or workouts a week for the rest of the season. Then stick with them as much as possible, even when faced with present-wrapping and visiting relatives. In the end, you'll come out ahead with more energy and a calmer state of mind.
Tip #8: Exercise in bouts of at least one hour.
To stay lean while you might be eating a bit more than usual, exercise continuously for at least one hour each time you work out. The last half hour of your class or session will burn away stored fat so that you look your best in your party clothes and keep up your stamina for the hectic pace of the season.
Tip #9. Strengthen your back-of-the-body muscles.
Focus your triceps, glutes, hamstrings and calves during your workouts. Toned back-side muscles will make you look sensational in your silk, scoop-back party dress.
Tip #10: If you fall off the wagon, let it go.
Of course it's all too easy let exercise fall by the wayside during the holidays. If this happens to you, don't beat yourself up! The holidays are a time to be joyful and celebrate, come what may.
Happy Holidays to all!
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Wed, Nov 02, 2011 @ 04:38 PM
In the 50s, women rarely exercised except when they bore children or were conceiving them. Exercise? To most back then, the idea was a bit embarrassing. Lotte Berk, the London-based dancer and exercise pioneer, wanted to change this. Her mission, she said, was to give women back their physicality by, as she put it, advancing the "state of sex" in her time. To this end, she invented an exercise technique that women could relate to, namely one that celebrated their sexuality; she packed it with the most sensual exercises she could think of; and she gave those exercises playful names that would help to embolden her students' spirits. The Bar Method’s “leg lifts" exercise was, for example, “the prostitute." "Back-dancing” was “naughty bottoms.”
Lotte was a true-believer in free love and carried on many love affairs, even while married. Later during her classes she used her experiences as material for nuggets of wisdom on men and love, and doled them out to her students as they worked out. Her discourses could be shockingly direct about the similarities between her exercises and sex. According to Bazaar Magazine who interviewed her in 1994, Lotte would say to her students, “If you can’t lift your bottom, how can you enjoy sex?” When I visited Lotte during the 90s, she gave me the uncensored version of what she really told her students, something more along the lines of “if you can’t tuck, you can’t f---!”
Like other innovators who happened to be born into the right era, Lotte came into her own when the time was ripe for her ideas. The sexual revolution of the 60s set the stage for Lotte’s more athletic kind of sexiness to catch on. Actresses Joan Collins, Britt Eland, Barbara Streisand and Lee Remick started to go regularly to Lotte's little basement studio where they got sex-ready bodies while listening to Lotte's delightfully frank, eccentric lectures on love.
In 1970, one of Lotte's disciples, Lydia Bach, opened “The Lotte Berk Method” on the Upper Each Side of Manhattan. No one in this country had seen anything quite like this kind of exercise class, and the press was all over it. “We’re talking about the Lotte Berk Method," Look Magazine wrote in 1971, "a body-toning system for women in London, now taught in a Manhattan studio…The exercises ostensibly improve a woman’s sex life and Mrs. Berk receives many thank-you notes from grateful husbands.”
Throughout the 70s, people continued to be taken with the notion that exercise's sole purpose was to make women sexier. Those people included Lydia. In a 1972 New York Times article she describes the Lotte Berk Method as “a combination of modern ballet,
yoga, orthopedic exercises and sex.” “Sex?” the Times asked. “Sex,” Lydia explained, was the name of one of her exercises (our “knee-dancing”).
The women's magazines, of course, loved this idea. During the 70s, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Mademoiselle and Women's Wear Daily ran articles titled “Exercise Your Way to a Better Sex Life," “Shape Up Your Pelvic Area and Shape Up Your Sex Life," “Exercises for Loving Making,” and “Sexercises” In 1979 Vogue showed a completely naked model doing the pretzel, round-back and other Lotte Berk moves. The women photographed in these pieces were gorgeously feminine in a way you don’t see today. These women wore their hair long, dressed in sheer, soft leotards, and exuded a mysterious dreaminess.
By the 80s the innocent idea that sex could be a path to freedom and enlightenment had run its course. Women had tasted strength and realized there was more to exercise than sex. They could be strong, stronger in some ways than men, and that discovery, I think, helped them launch the Women's Liberation Movement. The WLM had started in the 70s, and by the 80s was calling on women to seek empowerment and independence and no longer to be caught up with being sexual objects or needing men to be fulfilled. These enlightened women included Lydia who updated her message accordingly. “Women" she said in an 80's Vogue article, "…want to regain power and control over their lives. Exercise is the first step towards regain that control.” Like Lydia, I'm committed to the Women’s Movement. Still, I wonder if in our zeal to be superheroes we might have sacrificed something in terms of our the way we view our femininity. Having become recently engaged, I'm not in the frame of mind to believe that men are superfluous, and when it comes to body image, I'd like to think it's not necessary for us to hone our bodies into, as Tom Wolfe put it in his novel on the 80s, "boys with breasts." We've shown the world that we're amazingly strong. Now it might be fun for us to do some playful remastering of that vintage sexy spirit from the 60s and 70s.
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Wed, Oct 05, 2011 @ 03:54 PM
I was putting away my mat after taking class a few months ago and a student approached me. She was pretty and looked like she might have been a lawyer or worked in the corporate world. “Have you or anyone ever written about how great the Bar Method is for sex?” she asked me. Out of habit I gave her my usual answer: Yes, it’s great for sex, but we’ve always played down that feature. “Thanks for your answer,” she said, “but it really is.”
As the student walked away, it hit me that for 20 years I’ve been giving that same stock response to questions about the Bar Method’s connection to sex. My habit of side-stepping this issue started with my Lotte Berk Method trainers in 1990. That year I was studying in New York City to become a Lotte Berk Method studio owner, and my trainers wanted me to keep my approach to this subject consistent with theirs. “People might ask you about sex,” they told me. “Focus on other benefits.”
I went with their advice during my ten-year term as a Lotte Berk Method licensee. Now that license has been expired for ten years, and it’s about time that I formulate by own policy on this subject. So here it is: The Bar Method-type workout is absolutely great for one’s sex life, and let me tell you why:
First, exercise itself has been proven to increase sexual potency. According to researcher Mark Stibich “Studies have shown that women who frequently exercise become aroused more quickly and are able to reach an orgasm faster and more intensely.” Exercise gives you an especially powerful boost if you do workouts that focus on stamina, muscular endurance, strength and flexibility. Dr. Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise credits exercise with "physical improvements in muscle strength and tone, endurance, body composition and cardiovascular function (specifically, enhanced peripheral blood flow),” which he says says “can all enhance sexual functioning.” Why? Paige Waehner ACE explains. “Sex also requires you to hold...er...occasionally unusual positions for short periods of time,” she says, plus, “Being limber can enhance anyone's sex life by making it a bit easier to get into your favorite position with a minimum amount of fuss.”
Do The Lotte Berk Method/Bar Method techniques have any advantages over other exercise forms in this arena? Most definitely! They build a fantastic degree of stamina; they make you more flexible; and most distinctively, they focus on strengthening and stretching the muscles around your pelvis pretty much during the whole class. The Bar Method’s “narrow V” thigh exercise, for example, strengthens the “pelvic floor” muscles, according to Physical Therapist Heidi Morton. Then of course there are all the glute and abdominal exercises such as “water-ski thigh,” and “water-ski seat,” and the other “seat” exercises, plus the curl work, which students perform with their pelvis locked in place by means of all its surrounding muscles. Finally we come to “back-dancing,” an exercise that looks almost embarrassingly sexual, but more about that later.
Considering that sex is probably our greatest natural high, you’d think these benefits would be worth mentioning. Even so, over the past 20 years, the hundreds of press articles written about my Lotte Berk or Bar Method studios have pointed out only the Method’s ability to make you look sexy. Nowhere in my memory has there been anything written or said about its effect on sex itself. The most direct reference to sex in connection to the Bar Method that I could find appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in July of 2002. The writer speculated on what would happen if the "Sex and the City" characters moved to San Francisco. “Samantha,” the article said, “would be in to various trendy California pursuits like… the Bar fitness method.” Nothing, however, on how much more fun Samantha, um, might have had later…
This reticence hasn’t always been the case. In the early 70s, the press was all over the news that an exercise technique was improving people’s sex lives. Why then did my Lotte Berk Method trainers in 1990 tell me to zip my lips on this subject? The answer goes back a half a century to the workout’s inventor, Lotte Berk, who expressly and unapologetically designed the workout to enhance sex.
Next week: The rise and fall of Lotte’s sexual revolution (and why we can finally start talking about it again :-)
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Tue, Sep 06, 2011 @ 04:47 PM
Now that I’m 64 and the aging process is noticeably changing my body, I’ve become profoundly grateful to have exercise in my life. I feel especially lucky that the workout I’ve been doing for the last three decades, the Bar Method, seemed to have assumed the role of protector against time. In my 30s and 40s I loved the workout (which was then the Bar Method’s predecessor, the Lotte Berk Method) because it made me look and feel good. Over the past few years I’ve been stunned to find that my workouts, while not exactly reversing time, are turning it back significantly. Now they're not just making me more buff and toned. They’re also wiping away fatigue, mental cloudiness, grumpiness, aching joints and a host of other symptoms of the aging process. I can go into a class feeling exhausted and walk out of it almost magically energized. My muscles don't as easily retain the strength gained from my workouts like they used to decades ago, but the classes always leave me calmer, more centered, and in a better humor. I hate to think how different my life would be at this stage if I didn’t have this workout to renew me on an ongoing basis.
Everything I've reported to you in this blog thus far is old news to the medical community. Doctors and economists have been all over this subject for decades, and their research has been sending up flags about the dangers of older adults not being active. A group of several hundred physiologists found that millions of Americans are dying prematurely each year from “Sedentary Death Syndrome,” or lack of physical activity. Meanwhile, economists have determined that the cost of these deaths to our country are somewhere around three trillion dollars a year due to life-style related diabetes, cancer, arthritis, heart disease, strokes, osteoporosis, dementia, accidental falls, and other lifestyle-related illnesses and issues. Atlanta’s Center for Disease Control estimates that if all these physically inactive Americans became active, we’d save “$77 billion in direct annual medical costs, and an estimated $150 billion in direct and indirect medical costs.”
There are signs that more and more of us in this country are beginning to understand the relationship between inactivity and illness. We see an increasing number of older people whose bodies remind us of cars that haven’t been maintenanced for decades, and their downcast, disappointed, and defeated-looking faces can't but affect us. We might ask ourselves, ”what happened to those people? Could they have been in accidents?” More likely, they’ve lived the sedentary lifestyle that our society has made the norm.
Call me an optimist, but I believe that at some point in our future history, people will figure out a way out of this pitfall. The results have come in from our mass experiment with inactivity. We know that it hurts us, especially now that we’re living longer. Fortunately, as a species we’re ambitious when it comes to our right to enjoy life to the last drop, and we have the drive, ability and adaptability to reinvent ourselves when it serves our purposes. One example from the past is our dental care habits, which have evolved to become unrecognizable from the way they were 200 years ago. “Sedentary Death Syndrome” is actually a pretty recent problem. People started to become inactive in great numbers less than a century ago when enough modern conveniences were invented to relieve them of the necessary of exerting their bodies. We're really just in the preliminary stages of tackling this challenge.
Already some Americans have been deciding to lead very active lives in their later years. Jack LaLanne lifted weight into his 90s. Cloris Leachman competed in Dancing With The Stars at age 82, and the wonderful 83-year-old photographer Bill Cunningham still spends his days riding his bike around Manhattan with the grace of a dancer shooting street fashion for the New York Times. I’d like to imagine that in a few hundred years these athletic late-lifestyles will no longer be the exception but our new norm.
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Tue, Aug 02, 2011 @ 08:53 AM
We opened our first Bar Method studio on a sunny day in Mid-August 2001. Carl Diehl, my business partner, and I were still married to each other. We’d leased a 7,700 square foot two-story building that had once been a health club. Looking back it’s clear that we had no idea what we were doing. The structure was way under code and expensive to renovate. Carl and I used up our savings, borrowed more money, and did a lot of the work ourselves. We were full of optimism anyway. We fitted up the space with three exercise rooms, large locker rooms for men and women, childcare, massage and an office space for each of us. We were the two teachers. On that first day two students showed up.
Since you’re reading this blog, you probably know that the Bar Method has changed since then. During the past decade it’s grown to almost 50 studios and now serves an average around 2,500 students a day, more than 200 of them at our San Francisco Marina studio. This month in celebration of our tenth anniversary our studio manager Mike Najjar has planned some fantastic events including a class that will be streamed worldwide live over the internet taught by me. On a personal level this imminent “big birthday” has made me think back over the decade it took Carl and me to get to where we are. In this blog I’d like to share with you a few of the key moments that determined our path during these years.
How it started:
The story of the Bar Method begins years before our first studio opened, slightly over ten years to be exact, on Valentine’s Day of 1991. Carl and I had been married a few months, and he enjoyed surprising me with gifts. He knew I was addicted to the Lotte Berk Method, the exercise system on which the Bar Method is based, so that day he gave me a card containing a voucher for a free class. What was extraordinary about this gift was that it wasn’t actually for a Lotte Berk Method class. It was for a class with Lotte Berk herself, the originator of bar fitness, in her London studio.
We went to London, saw museums, went to shows, and I took the class. Concurrently during the previous few months, we’d been brainstorming about becoming entrepreneurs. When Carl picked me up from Lotte's studio and paid her for my class in cash, she became hopelessly confused while trying to count out the proper change. Carl helped her, and as we walked away, he exclaimed, “If Lotte can’t add, the exercise business must be really simple. Let’s do it!” Back in the States we bought a license from the Lotte Berk Method, opened four successful studios in Connecticut, and sold them in 2001 to move to our dream city, San Francisco.
Our First Teachers:
For any studio owner, débuting new teachers is a high. Suddenly, we can take class; we’re not on the schedule 24/7, and when we walk by the studios, we hear the exercises being presented in brand new voices not our own. In late 2001 Carl and I were lucky to graduate an extraordinary and charismatic first group of teachers for our new studio. Amy Duffey is now the co-owner of the Manhattan studio and our sole East Coast teacher trainer. Jen Hertsenberg, a supermom of two beautiful and perfect young children, manages to do an amazing job at being a master teacher, a trainer, an evaluator, and our executive coordinator of training, evaluating and coaching. Emily Feinstein has grown a huge following among our student body with her innovative choreography, crystal-clear instructions and fun music. Each of these talented early teachers, Amy, Jen and Emily, has contributed greatly to the Bar Method's evolution over the past ten years.
The birth of a Bar Method that can travel:
As the new owners of our San Francisco studio Carl and I did not originally think of franchising. What changed our course had nothing to do with entrepreneurial vision. It was people coming to us seeking their own Bar Method studios. At first I was skeptical about the idea. Could we maintain quality from afar? Carl on the other hand has always found it impossible to say no, especially to anyone proposing some kind of new exciting venture. We went ahead, and by 2009 my concerns about quality had been put to rest. Our out-of-town studio owners turned out to be quality fanatics. With their tireless attention to detail they started to outdo even the SF teachers and inspired me to develop more stringent quality controls for the entire Bar Method. Wow, I thought, we can do this. World, here we come!
Celebrating our birthday:
The next key moment in our history will happen this month on Friday, the 19th when our studio and the Bar Method turn ten. At 2:00 pm that day in addition to the internet class, (which will be available for viewing over the weekend as well), we are giving gifts and discounts to our students and will be donating $5000 to Global Fund for Women in appreciation of women everywhere.
Thank you, all Bar Method students, for your support in helping us grow!
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Tue, Jul 05, 2011 @ 02:01 PM
There are clear advantages to working out at home. You pay nothing, you get fit your way, and you save travel time. Most of all, you enjoy the unbeatable convenience of exercising at home. At the same time there are some downsides associated with home-workouts that are worth talking about. First, there's the well-known fact that most people find it a struggle to stay challenged day in and day out without being egged on by a teacher. DVD workouts can help by providing someone on video who can motivate you.
"DIY" workouts can also subject you to some less commonly known risks, especially if they're your chief means of staying fit and even if you use DVDs. At home, you can be tempted to pick and choose among an infinity of vaguely-recalled routines or pieces of DVD workouts, and these choices might not always be the safest and most results-oriented ones you could make for your body. In any case, there's no one at home to check your form.
Linda Greenberg, a recent Bar Method convert, is a good person to ask about what happens when you work out at home over the long term, something she did regularly for 40 years. Staying motivated certainly wasn’t one of her problems. At an early age, Linda came to understand that she possessed an abundance of determination. “If I believed in something,” she realized, “I could do it well.” Linda, 57, was born and grew up in San Francisco and always loved to work out. When she was a teenager, she spent her monthly $25 allowance on training sessions at her local Jack LaLanne, and during college at UCLA and Wharton School of Business, she biked, ran and lifted weights. By her mid-20s, she’d become a five-mile-a-day runner, and that’s when she ran into her first setback: her knees started to bother her. Not being one to give up easily, Linda pushed through the pain until age 30, when she finally gave up her long runs.
With a vengeance, Linda launched into a search for a perfect exercise routine that did not include running. She watched exercise channels and combed through fitness magazines for good exercise routines. She tried Pilates, but it was a little too mellow for her. She hired a personal trainer, but that turned out not to be the answer either. “He was this crazy muscle-bound macho guy,” she remembers. “We did a lot of squats and lunges, militaristic things like burpies. I expected him to take out a whip any minute. Why did I keep going back? To prove to myself how strong I was. I actually dreaded going, but I went for about a year. It was a kind of masochistic thing. I ended up putting on a bunch of weight and built bulk, the exact opposite of what my intention was.”
After that experience, Linda decided to forego assisted exercise and step up her home workouts, which she’d been doing all along, to two hours every other day. “I bought a Bowflex and committed myself to “hitting every hit every part of my body with 30-to-100 reps while wearing 5-pound ankle weights,” Linda says. Therein, for the next two decades as she built a successful career in the home loan industry and raised twin daughters (now 16,) Linda exercised on her own.” “It’s just what I did for years and years. I’d get on some music. My dog would be there. My husband would come in and think I was crazy with the weights. He would call me ‘Lucy.’”
Finally last summer, Linda suffered a game-changing ill effect from her workouts. She developed bursitis in her hips, a painful injury that brought home to her the extent to which she’d been overdoing it. “I’d been doing massive reps with massive weights,” she admits, “pushing my body. It was so stupid. I had to go to the orthopedist. He said it was because I was working too hard on the weights.” Ironically, Linda’s extraordinary willpower, which had first enabled her to exercise by herself, had ended up derailing her. She resolved to find some guidance, and her search led her last September to the Bar Method.
Linda now takes four to five Bar Method classes a week and uses the treadmill two days a week. She began to see changes after a few months. “My body is leaner now. 
My muscles have elongated for the first time ever instead of bulking up.” she says, “My kids say, ‘mom, you have no butt left.’ I’ve dropped some inches and feel better.” Another plus side to exercising at the Bar Method, Linda found, is its friendly environment. “I love all of the instructors,” she told me. “They’re enthusiastic, and they push you, but not in an offensive way, and I’ve made friends here. It’s a community.” Three months ago, Linda lost her mother, and her Bar Method classes became an unexpected source of support. “To be around cheerful people with upbeat music has helped me take care of me first while I’m taking care of all this other stuff.”
Does Linda have any plans to return to her home workouts? “I don’t miss anything,” she told me. “For the last 40 years I was bulking up when I wanted to be elongating. Finally I have the right combination of contractions and stretches." As for the future, Linda declares with her usual hutzpah, "I’m going to do the Bar Method until the day I go."
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Tue, Jun 07, 2011 @ 04:08 PM
My sister Mimi and I learned all about the ups and down of opening a business in Southern California when we launched the first Bar Method studio there in 2003. Just one Bar Method existed then, in San Francisco. It was doing okay, and we thought a studio would be a big hit in a town where a significant portion of the demographic was in the running to become a known "hot body." We thought the idea of an LA Bar Method was a no brainer.
Not so, it turned out. After two years of Mimi's tireless marketing, we hadn’t been able to convince many Angeleños that we weren't just another wannabe among the gazillions they had seen come and go. In such a highly competitive environment, the happening exercise destinations had to have celebrity students or have been founded by gurus who would become celebrities themselves. Among the top names were Richard Simmon’s Slimmons studio, Billy Blank's fitness center on Ventura Boulevard and Mari Winsor’s Pilates studio in Hollywood where you might run into stars like Madonna, Samuel L. Jackson, and Minnie Driver. Meanwhile in the race for the limelight along with us were a multitude of other new techniques like SuperSlow, Cardiobarre and Yoga Booty Ballet. Hey, I thought that all I needed to do was offer consistently great exercise classes in a beautiful setting. I hadn’t signed up for this kind of horse race!
As long as we were in it, we resolved, we'd be in it to win it. I devised an ambitious and contrarian strategy. We wouldn't align ourselves with the latest trends in exercise. Instead we would continue to march to the beat of our own drum and hope the world would change direction and follow us. Specifically, while other emerging bar fitness techniques were aerobicizing their classes, I stuck to making the Bar Method more and more structured and precise. I believed that cardio-style workouts, though they did burn calories, made students excessively hungry and did not build muscle that contributed to weight control over the long term. Hyped up bar workouts also really were not able to address students' posture and alignment, which I felt were huge body-changing elements. I wanted to give students more than long lean dancer's muscles. I wanted to give them the posture and grace of dancers as well. This idea was going to be really hard to sell in an already saturated market infatuated with cardio.
In 2005 Mimi opened a second studio in West Hollywood that attracted a handful of cute movie stars such as Zoey Deschanel, Ginnifer Goodwin and Drew Barrymore who earned us the respect of the press. Still, Southern Californians themselves were not ready to commit to us. For the next three years, numerous Bar Method studios opened in other parts of the country but none in Southern California.
Suddenly in 2008, we reached some sort of tipping point, and the Bar Method took off. Thirteen new studios opened from San Diego to Santa Barbara, more per square mile than any other part of the country, and six more are currently on the way. We had arrived!
The two newest members of this group – two sets of partners who opened studios this spring in Solana Beach and Encino – are typical of the super-talented new franchisees we're acquiring in this wave. Jessica Bowman, now 32, secretly dreamed of becoming a Bar Method studio owner from the day she took her first class in the early 2000s. She became a Bar Method teacher in San Diego in 2009 and leveled with her studio owner Allison McCurdy about her dream. She and Allison, an outgoing, former marketing manager, paired up and this March made Jessica’s dream come true by opening a studio in the beautiful coastal town of Solana Beach just north of San Diego.
The new Encino studio is 12.5 miles west of the Hollywood Sign, a fitting location for a Bar Method co-owned by a card-carrying member of the Hollywood community. Katelin Chesna came to LA from Chicago to study acting and worked as an actress, acting teacher and comedian. In 2004 she answered a newspaper ad for Bar Method instructors and quickly became a popular teacher. Around that same time her future partner Emily Beason had gotten addicted to The Bar Method while building her successful career in pharmaceutical sales. Katelin and Emily hooked up to grab Encino before someone else did. Their studio is an amazing find. It sits in the heart of the bustling “Valley” off Ventura Boulevard but is nestled in a cluster of courtyards that give it the feel of a European village (with lots of parking!).
Finally making it in LA, at least to our satisfaction, is gratifying. The Bar Method itself deserves some of the credit for our success. In the past few years the Bar Method become a known name in its own right. The gift the Bar Method got in return for its role in this success is Southern California's witty, fun-loving spirit forever intermingled with with our DNA. Nice to have you aboard, Southern California franchisees!
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Tue, May 03, 2011 @ 12:29 PM
TAKING THE PULSE OF THE BAR METHOD’S GROWTH
It’s easy to see that The Bar Method is growing as its studios sprout up all around North America. Twenty-five new locations are currently in various stages of development, some opening over the next month or so like Boston, Austin and Washington DC. What’s not as visible, but just as exciting to me, is The Bar Method’s behind-the-scenes growth. In the past year we’ve greatly changed structurally in the way we lead, and that change is playing a major role in bringing to life my dream of a constellation of Bar Method studios, every one of which provides its students with consistently high-quality teaching of the Bar Method technique. To that end, The Bar Method has recently put in place teams of master instructors to evaluate and oversee every Bar Method teacher and to coach them when needed.
Along with this increase in size and complexity in our company comes a growing deficit of time on my part to get everything done. Time was when I'd always show up at a new studio on opening day to admire the space and teach the first few classes. Now months can go by before I get to a new facility. The St. Louis studio opened last October, and it was not until April that I found a few days to make the trip there. And not only is there less time to travel; there’s also more to do when I’m on the road. On this trip, for example, no way was I going to get away with simply teaching a few classes, if Jen, my director of evaluations, had anything to say about it. “Hey, St. Louis is less than 1,000 miles from New Jersey!” she exclaimed when she found out I was traveling. “ As long as you’re out there, please drop by New Jersey and New York (she really said this!) and take care of these six evaluations that I need done.” I’ll do anything for Jen, who’s an amazing evaluation director, as well as teacher and trainer, so I said, “Sure.” It’s no surprise that Jen leapt at the news that I was going in the direction of where some evaluations were due. There are now hundreds of Bar Method teachers throughout North America, and we have only seven evaluators including myself.
In the end I was happy I’d accepted this assignment from Jen. Otherwise I never would have witnessed an amazing and inspiration transformation one studio made between my opening visit to it and my return one-year later. This studio is located in Bernardsville, New Jersey, an idyllic, pastoral outer-suburb of New York City. The town has a long-standing YMCA, and that was where most fit-conscious residents got their exercise before The Bar Method arrived in January of 2010. Its opening generated so much excitement in the town that when I walked in the door last year to meet my students, it seemed that the entire membership of the Y had decided to try The Bar Method on its first day of business. The place was packed. The problem was, these students were accustomed to the way they had been exercising at the Y, namely while concurrently catching up with their neighbors and friends, and they were chatting nonstop. If you’ve ever taken a Bar Method class at a studio, you know that we ask our students not to talk to each other during class. We believe that when it comes to the Bar Method students get a better, faster-moving workout when they’re not distracted by their neighbors. That first day in Bernardsville I had to stop each of my classes several times to impress upon my eager but noisy students the ultimate benefits of exercising non-verbally.
On my return visit last month, I barely recognized the place. I could have heard a pin drop in the waiting area. The same students I’d met the year before were still there, but now they were waiting for class to begin quietly and with what seemed to me like reverence. When they saw me, they shook my hand and told me their personal stories of how the Bar Method had changed them outside and in. One student said she had rheumatoid arthritis has been able to cut her medication in half. Others showed me their toned arms and talked about heightened self-confidence and well-being. The new Bernardsville teachers I evaluated had also changed. Last year, their motivation for training and becoming teachers was for something fun to do. Last month it was clear that their approach to teaching had shifted to become a dedicated practice. I credit this shift, in large part, to the leadership of the studio’s two dynamic owners, Gina Williams and Melissa Ramsey. The new teachers’ classes that I evaluated sparkled. I was humbled, amazed and touched by this studio’s exquisite interpretation of the Bar Method’s principles and the positive impact this manifestation was having on its students.
From Bernardsville, I flew to St. Louis and walked into a jewel of a studio. Jessica Prasse, its young owner, had chosen a luscious assortment of creams for the walls, floors and that gave the whole studio the feel of a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie set. 
I evaluated teachers there too, and was greatly satisfied to find that the Bar Method technique had transferred well to this brand new territory thanks to our fantastic teacher-trainers and Jessica's relentless attention to detail.
Last month the Bar Method also became more available via two new home exercise DVDs, “Super Sculpting” and “Super Sculpting II.” A few days after their launch I was delighted to receive many positive comments about the workouts including an email from Switzerland by a user named Daniela that said, "I did both of them and I really love it!"
My thanks, Daniela, and to all of you who wrote in!
Posted by Bar Method Headquarters on Tue, Apr 05, 2011 @ 12:04 PM
At the Bar Method, we are dedicated to the proposition that some of our students will be men. We supply our studio rooms with larger weights than women would use and in most facilities provide men’s changing rooms and lockers. We make sure our exercises and stretches are designed to be entirely doable for students with tight hamstrings, and we train our teachers to use instructional cues that are “gender-neutral ( no “ponytail,” “high heels,” “bra-line,” and “ladies” for example) to make sure guys don’t feel as it they’re in a chick flick. Even so – and this is no secret – the overwhelming majority of Bar Method students are women. When you do see a man at the Bar Method, he’s usually the only member of the opposite sex in the class. I was curious to get some insights from a man’s perspective on why more men don’t come, so I asked Ben Winslow, one of our most regular male students, to shed some light on this issue.
Ben is one of the fittest people I know. A graduate of the infantry officer school and a lieutenant in the army, he put himself through college and became a successful litigator. For the past 38 years, he has run his law firm in the San Francisco Marina while pursuing the sporting activities that he loves: biking, swimming, running, golfing, endurance training, and competing in amazingly challenging triathlons. Ben, who turns 68 next month, has completed many “Escape from Alcatraz” triathlons, (a harrowing 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz, followed by an 18-mile bike ride and an 8-mile run), bike races and other competitive events. .
You’d think these activities would be enough to satisfy the most hard-core athlete, but Ben is unusual and not just in his love of physical challenge. He also has an uncommonly open mind. About a year and a half ago when two female lawyers in his firm told him about the Bar Method and asked him, “Why don’t you come with us?” Ben didn’t hesitate. He liked the workout so much that he got his wife to go to the Bar Method studio in Marin County where they live. Over the past year he has made a habit of walking from his office to the studio three-to-five times a week between business appointments to take class.
Here’s what Ben told me about what it’s like to be a male student at the Bar Method:
What first attracted you to the Bar Method?
As you get older, you’re stooped over. Old guys get stiff. I don’t want to be a person who can’t tie my own shoes.
What do you like about the workout?
I like the discipline. I like the routine of knowing what’s going to follow what. I like knowing what we’re going to do next and how many reps so I can do my maximum effort. And the instructors are great, well trained, friendly. They greet you by name. It may help I’m the only guy.
What results have you gotten from the class?
I’ve become a much better golfer. My golfing friends say ‘Wow, you’re really turning your body when you swing!’ I’ve strengthened my core, gotten more limber. Bike riding I don’t have back pain anymore. I used to get an achy low back. In general I have no more low back issues.
I think my body’s changed. I’ve always been very thin and lean. I’m now more muscular with more developed abs and biceps. I like the look you promote which is long and lean, not chunky and muscular. I have more spring in my step. More energy. I always go to guys (touching his toes) and go ‘hey, can you do that?’
Do you ever feel intimidated by what the women in class can do?
It all evens out. I can do more pushups. They can do other things.
Why don’t other guys want to come?
I tell a lot of guys to come and run into the same thing all the time: ‘It’s a chick thing.’ ‘Let me get this right: you get a fabulous workout. You’re around 30 beautiful women. I don’t get it.’ If guys come and try it once or twice, they’d see that it takes a lot of muscular ability, strength, and coordination. If you apply yourself, it’s hard. You’re sore after you do this. These days with more enlightened men, I think they’re missing out on something.
What could guys get out of the Bar Method that they can’t get elsewhere?
Guys will go down to Gorilla Gym and work with a personal trainer, do that. Personal trainers charge a hundred an hour. I look at them and think they’d get much more out of the Bar Method. If you really want to change your life, you go to a class like this.
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