By Abigail Due ‘18 | Staff Writer
When Lia Amine, owner of Pure Barre, tore her ACL she not only had a long road of recovery ahead but also the possibility of never playing sports again. While recovering, Amine’s mom had started taking barre classes, immediately she realized barre exercise was something she really enjoyed doing.
Amine went on to study at University of Michigan, where she began taking classes on a regular basis, she said.
“That’s when I really fell in love with the technique, what it did for my mind and my body,” Amine said.
Eventually, she came to realize she wanted to teach. She began teaching in 2012, Amine said.
“After that, I moved to New York City to go to physical therapy school at New York University and I taught for a period of time in the city,” Amine said.
Despite teaching, she felt the full passion that she knew the exercise could bring her, so she decided to take it a step further.
“I always knew I wanted to open my own studio, so in August of 2014, we opened,”Amine said.
Amine is currently enrolled in physical therapy school at NYU, and in her studies she’s become more aware with what happens in the body and how beneficial barre exercise can be, Amine said.
Amine says that barre exercise get you in shape by it incorporating many strength techniques for the body into one class, combining pilates, yoga, and ballet.
“Its pretty fast pace, but all the movements are really small asymmetric motions, so you’re just moving in inches,” Amine said. Even though the ballet bar is used during class, clients are never in formal ballet positions.
Many people including Stephanie Schervish ‘18 and Caroline Fredrickson ‘18 attended their first class not expecting too hard of a workout.
“We both play sports so we weren’t expecting for it to kick our butts like it did.” Schervish said. “During the class both were hoping for it to end because it was such an exhausting form of exercise.”
Even though it was hard, Schervish definitely felt it work throughout the next week, even after attending only one class.
“The next couple of days we were sore and it felt amazing to see how well it worked. It’s definitely a class you just have to go to repeatedly to progress in,” Schervish said.
Even though the class was difficult Schervish said she would definitely go back, as the challenge was well worth the results that followed.
“The next couple of days we were sore and it felt amazing to see how well it worked. It’s definitely a class you just have to go to repeatedly to progress in,” Schervish said.
Fredrickson said she would probably go back, but it was really confusing and somewhat difficult. “Sometimes it was easy and sometimes I had no idea what I was doing” Fredrickson said.
Pure Barre also offers a high school special of unlimited classes a month for $100.
During the class many different things are happening, and you move around a lot, Amine said. The class is also for toning your whole body, it doesn’t just focus on one area.
“You always start with a warm up on the floor, which incorporates a lot of pilates ab work, and then you do a second warm up with weights, we use really light weights, so two or three pounds,” Amine said. “You then move to the barre and do three thigh exercises that really burn out your thighs, you move back to the center of the room to stretch and then you go back to the barre for two feet exercises like in the back of the legs, then you stretch, and then there’s an ab series underneath the bar, one in the center of the room, and then you do a little back extension- Then we stretch and we’re done,”
The whole class is done to upbeat music, and there i’s a lot of listening to the instructor as she performs the positions in front of the class, Amine said. The instructor then walks around the room to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing.
“It takes a lot of mind and body connection and that’s why it’s so amazing. We really encourage clients to close their eyes and just focus on what they’re doing, and which muscles they’re trying to activate and it’s all about moving at your own pace,” Amine said.
One of the reasons the class is so great is because there aren’t different levels for new clients and clients that have taken class for a while, Amine said. Everything is at your own pace, so you don’t need to feel pressured to keep up with others.
“You can have a client who’s taking their first class and a client who’s done 500 classes in the same room and still get a good workout,” Amine said.
There are ways to modify each position so each class can be for everyone.The only classes that wouldn’t be for every client are the intensives and the breaking down the barre class.
“Occasionally we’ll do intensives which are usually longer and more challenging and it’s just for fun if the clients want an extra challenge,” Amine said.
As for breaking down the barre classes, those are better for someone who has taken a few classes and has experience with more challenging positions.
“It’s really good for everyone except for first timers because they don’t really know what to expect because the technique takes between 3 and 10 classes to really understand the terminology,” Amine said.
This class is free and just goes in depth with each position. It gives clients a chance to slow down and ask questions about each move.
Despite its recent growth, Pure Barre wasn’t always a hit right away. The new exercise took a little while to catch on in Grosse Pointe, but as time has passed by Pure Barre has only grown their client base.
“At first it was slow it takes time for people not only to realize that were there but for people to come consistently enough to notice a change in their own bodies,” Amine said.
Change doesn’t occur in your body immediately after a few classes, it takes time. Usually it takes a month to visibly see the change, but only 10 classes to feel stronger.
Amine was of course scared opening her own studio, but she was also very excited, she said.
“My dream when I started this journey was to have three studios, I would love another studio. I’m not there yet, but it’s still in the back of my head. There is no time like the present,” Amine said.
